Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T04:39:34.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - From group rights to individual rights and back: Nepalese struggles over culture and equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Jane K. Cowan
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Marie-Bénédicte Dembour
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Richard A. Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access

Summary

Introduction: Nepal's South Asian context

‘Cultural rights are now widely recognized as deserving the same protection as human rights.’ So says an authoritative recent UNESCO publication, which is examined in detail by Eriksen in chapter 6. The rise of this kind of rights discourse, with its emphasis on the rights of minority cultures, is, as the introduction to this book charts, a global phenomenon; arguably it is itself an aspect of globalization. This discourse of cultural rights is problematic on several counts. Within liberal political and juridical theory it presents a fundamental challenge to more traditional ways of conceiving rights. Are there any cultural rights? Do only individuals have rights or should groups defined by a shared culture be granted rights that would enable them to impose their standards on the individuals who belong to them? Furthermore, the term ‘cultural rights’ can mean both (1) rights to culture, i.e. to maintain cultural differences, with state and legal support if necessary, and (2) differential rights to political and economic resources on the basis of cultural difference. Perhaps most problematic of all, this discourse assumes that every group possesses a shared and distinctive culture which marks it off from other groups. In fact, in actual social situations, as opposed to the thought experiments of philosophers, what is to count as cultural difference, and who can claim it, are highly political and often fiercely contested questions – a contention that will be amply illustrated, I hope, by the case study presented in this paper.

Type
Chapter
Information
Culture and Rights
Anthropological Perspectives
, pp. 177 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×