Imperialism and human rights
Subtitle: colonial discourses of rights and liberties in African history
By: Bonny Ibhawoh.
Series: SUNY series in Human Rights
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Albany, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 242
ISBN-13: 9780791469231
Subjects: Human rights -- Africa, Sub-Saharan -- History -- 19th century; Human rights -- Africa, Sub-Saharan -- History -- 20th century; Colonies -- Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Law and legislation
Description: "In this seminal study, Bonny Ibhawoh investigates the links between European imperialism and human rights discourses in African history. Using British-colonized Nigeria as a case study, he examines how diverse interest groups within colonial society deployed the language of rights and liberties to serve varied socioeconomic and political ends. Ibhawoh challenges the linear progressivism that dominates human rights scholarship by arguing that, in the colonial African context, rights discourses were not simple monolithic or progressive narratives. They served both to insulate and legitimize power just as much as they facilitated transformative processes. Drawing extensively on archival material, this book shows how the language of rights, like that of "civilization" and "modernity," became an important part of the discourses deployed to rationalize and legitimize empire."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The subject of rights and the rights of subjects; title: Rights, liberty and the imperial order; title: Stronger than the maxim gun: law, rights and justice; title: Confronting state trusteeship: land rights discourses; title: Negotiating inclusion: social rights discourses; title: Citizens of the world's republic: political rights discourses; title: The paradox of rights talk.