This book pursues a phenomenological inquiry into human rights subjectivity, interrogating what it means to experience the self as ‘human’ for the purposes of identifying as a human rights holder.
What does it mean to experience the self as a human rights holder? How do protracted experiences of dehumanisation affect the availability of this identity? And what is the process of coming-to-see the self, and other, as a human rights holders? These phenomenological questions are seldom asked within orthodox human rights theory and law. However, this book maintains that if we are to understand the necessary conditions for individuals to make rights claims – and the conditions for social, political, and legal transformation to occur through human rights—it is essential to have an understanding of the experiential conditions that make such a political and normative identity accessible. Orienting its inquiry around the way human rights are implemented within United Nations peace formation practices, the book advances a description of human rights subjectivity rooted in the role human rights are seen to play in bringing about legal, political, and social transformation. The subject of human rights, the book concludes, is not a universal given; but is, rather, dependent on concrete intersubjective encounters which always leave open the possibility of social transformation through human rights.
Putting classical and contemporary phenomenology in conversation with the disciplines of law and politics, this book will be of interest to a broad scholarly readership in legal theory, philosophy, political science, and peace studies.
