1st Edition
Human Rights Praxis and the Struggle for Survival
Asserting a critical sociological perspective, Human Rights Praxis and the Struggle for Survival reveals the contested historical processes through which fundamental human needs are constructed as “rights” under international law, and how those rights are confronted by the ruling relations and crises inherent to contemporary global capitalism and the waning American hegemonic world order.
Put simply, the book explores why human rights as a formal legal project has failed to deliver on guaranteeing human survival, let alone universal human dignity. Rather than stopping at critique, the authors propose a specific, materialist intellectual and political agenda for the preservation of collective human survival that can achieve the historically unique notions of common humanity and human emancipation. The authors build on previous work, further developing the sociology of human rights as a distinct field at the intersection of Social Sciences and International Law. They take on several provocative theoretical debates, such as those over connections between racism and capitalism; the existence of a global or “transnational” police state; the control, growth, and exploitation of migrants/migration; and the complex relationship between political repression and various forms of domination.
Human Rights Praxis and the Struggle for Survival offers critical analysis of contemporary politics and options for students, scholars, organizers, and stakeholders to grapple with some of the most pressing social problems of human history.
Introduction 1. The Foreground Material Relations of Capitalist Society, Human Rights, and Crises of State Legitimacy 2. Contradiction, Crisis, and Overlapping Threats to Human Survival – The Background Relations of Capitalist Society 3. Confronting the Global Police State 4. Political Human Rights: Voter Suppression and Undermining Democracy in the US 5. Migrants, Legitimated Instability, and Human Rights 6. Conclusion
Biography
William T. Armaline is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and founder of the Human Rights Minor Program and Human Rights Institute at San José State University. His formal training and professional experience spans sociology, education, and human rights. Dr. Armaline’s interests, applied work, and scholarly publications address social problems as they relate to political economy, politics, human rights, racism, critical pedagogy, inequality and youth, mass incarceration, policing, and drug policy reform.
Davita Silfen Glasberg is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She is a past President of Sociologists without Borders. She is also a former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UConn. Her research and teaching interests focus on human rights, political sociology, political economy, and systemic inequalities, including racism and gendered inequities as well as the intersectionality of these. She has published over a dozen books and dozens of articles in these fields.
“What could be more important than a universal human rights praxis at a time when humanity faces multiple existential threats and fascism is resurgent? Armaline and Silfen Glasberg lay out the urgency of the historic moment from a critical sociological perspective. “Overlapping threats to human survival” are rooted in the runaway crises of global capitalism and the enormous power that transnational capital wields over states and peoples. A global working-class movement fighting for a democratic eco-socialism is our best, and perhaps only hope for the future. Theoretically perspicacious yet written with passion and commitment, this is a book for and about our turbulent times. It should be widely read in and out of the academy.”
William I. Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, Latin American, and Iberian Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara; Author of Can Global Capitalism Endure (Clarity Press) and The Global Police State (Pluto Press).
“A world careening from crisis to crisis among nations and social divisions within nations, confronted by multiple wars based on leaders' historic miscalculations, and threatened by expressions of white supremacy, fascism, holocausts and urgent mass migrations literally screams the need for daring books of social criticism. A new global economy is replacing an old one. The former is much more eager to adjust than the latter. This book offers powerful insights that might help us all navigate the truly dangerous times emerging.”
Richard D. Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts; Founder/Director of Democracy at Work and Host of Economic Update.
“From the transnational capitalist class to the global migration explosion, Armaline and Silfen Glasberg spell out precisely how the contradictions of capitalism seep into our political, social, and natural worlds, causing grave threats to human rights and survival. In their clear and searing analysis of legal human rights, they argue that it is time to place optimism and hope in a new human rights, shaped and enforced by the rights holders (the humans!) not the duty-bearers (the states). Armaline and Silfen Glasberg brilliantly make the case for a future of human rights in all of our communities, by all of our communities.”
Keri E. Iyall Smith, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice; Editor, Sociology Without Borders; Enrolled Member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe.
This book is designed to bridge the divide between theory and practice while further developing a critical sociology of human rights. In a field long dominated by law and political science, the authors provide an invaluable alternative understanding of rights.
Dominique Clément, Professor, Sociology, University of Alberta, Royal Society of Canada [CNSAS], author of Debating Rights Inflation: A Sociology of Human Rights
