Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance

Sally Engle Merry
New York University

View the Event Video on blip.tv:

Part 1: http://blip.tv/file/1962646

Part 2: http://blip.tv/file/1962633

Sponsored by ICAR and
the Center for Justice, Law, and Society

Abstract:

Indicators are rapidly multiplying as tools for assessing and promoting a variety of social justice and reform strategies around the world. There are rule of law indicators, indicators of violence against women, and indicators of economic development, among many others. Indicators are widely used at the national level and are increasingly important in global governance. Indicators introduce into the field of global human rights law a form of knowledge production in which numerical measures make visible forms of violation and inequality that are otherwise obscured. However, indicators typically conceal their political and theoretical origins. They rely on practices of measurement and counting that are themselves opaque. In this talk, I explore the capacity of numerical representations of information such as indicators to produce knowledge though an ethnographic examination of the production of indicators and considerations about their use in a variety of global settings.

Thursday, March 26th, 2009
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Truland Building, Room 555
George Mason University, Arlington Campus

Wine and Cheese Reception to Follow

Professor Sally Merry is Director of the Program on Law and Society and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at New York University Her most recent publications include Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective (Blackwell, 2008); The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local, with Mark Goodale, (Cambridge University Press, 2007); and, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2006).Her current work with Peggy Levitt of Wellesley College is focused on a study of how global discourses about women’s rights is interpreted in and get adapted to local contexts in China, India, Nigeria, and Peru. She has published articles on women's human rights, violence against women, and the process of localizing human rights. Her book, Colonizing Hawai’i: The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton Univ. Press, 2000), received the 2001 J. Willard Hurst Prize from the Law and Society Association. She has published four other books: Law and Empire in the Pacific: Hawai’i and Fiji (co-edited with Donald Brenneis, School of American Research Press, 2004), The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of American Community Mediation (co-edited with Neal Milner, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1993), Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working Class Americans (University of Chicago Press, 1990), and Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers (Temple University Press, 1981).

She is the author of over one hundred articles and reviews on law, anthropology, race and class, conflict resolution, and gender violence. She is past-president of the Law and Society Association and the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.




Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance Sally Engle Merry New York University View the Event Video on blip.tv: Part 1: http://blip.tv/file/1962646 Part 2: http://blip.tv/file/1962633 Sponsored by ICAR and the Center for Justice, Law, and Society Abstract: Indicators are rapidly multiplying as tools for assessing and promoting a variety of social justice and reform strategies around the world. There are rule of law indicators, indicators of violence against women, and indicators of economic development, among many others. Indicators are widely used at the national level and are increasingly important in global governance. Indicators introduce into the field of global human rights law a form of knowledge production in which numerical measures make visible forms of violation and inequality that are otherwise obscured. However, indicators typically conceal their political and theoretical origins. They rely on practices of measurement and counting that are themselves opaque. In this talk, I explore the capacity of numerical representations of information such as indicators to produce knowledge though an ethnographic examination of the production of indicators and considerations about their use in a variety of global settings. Thursday, March 26th, 2009 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Truland Building, Room 555 George Mason University, Arlington Campus Wine and Cheese Reception to Follow Professor Sally Merry is Director of the Program on Law and Society and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at New York University Her most recent publications include Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective (Blackwell, 2008); The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local, with Mark Goodale, (Cambridge University Press, 2007); and, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2006).Her current work with Peggy Levitt of Wellesley College is focused on a study of how global discourses about women’s rights is interpreted in and get adapted to local contexts in China, India, Nigeria, and Peru. She has published articles on women's human rights, violence against women, and the process of localizing human rights. Her book, Colonizing Hawai’i: The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton Univ. Press, 2000), received the 2001 J. Willard Hurst Prize from the Law and Society Association. She has published four other books: Law and Empire in the Pacific: Hawai’i and Fiji (co-edited with Donald Brenneis, School of American Research Press, 2004), The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of American Community Mediation (co-edited with Neal Milner, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1993), Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working Class Americans (University of Chicago Press, 1990), and Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers (Temple University Press, 1981). She is the author of over one hundred articles and reviews on law, anthropology, race and class, conflict resolution, and gender violence. She is past-president of the Law and Society Association and the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.		About ICAR Student Information Prospective Students Faculty and Staff Alumni Career Services Academic Programs Library ICAR In The News Events Technology Resources Point Of View Center ICAR Publications Center for World Religions, Diplomacy & Conflict Resolution