Description

Long the province of international law, human rights now enjoys a renaissance of studies and new perspectives from the social sciences. This landmark book is the first to synthesize and comprehensively evaluate this body of work. It fosters an interdisciplinary, international, and critical engagement both in the social study of human rights and the establishment of a human rights approach throughout the field of sociology. Sociological perspectives bring new questions to the interdisciplinary study of human rights, as amply illustrated in this book. The Handbook is indispensable to any interdisciplinary collection on human rights or on sociology.

This text:

• Brings new perspectives to the study of human rights in an interdisciplinary fashion.
• Offers state-of-the-art summaries, critical discussions of established human rights paradigms, and a host of new insights and further research directions.
• Fosters a comprehensive human rights approach to sociology, topically representing all 45 sections of the American Sociological Association.

Author Info

David L. Brunsma is a Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech.

Keri E. Iyall Smith, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Suffolk University, is the author of States of Indigenous Movements.

Brian K. Gran is a former lawyer whose comparative research examines the utilities of human rights in public and private setting. His publications have appeared in The International Journal of Children's Rights and in Child Welfare.

Reviews

"Two wrong ideas have been circulating for too long with very pernicious consequences. On one side, sociologists and social scientists in general have behaved as if human rights were none of their concern; on the other side, human rights activists and scholars have looked with suspicion at social scientific work for fear that the latter will ignore, trivialize or simply undervalue their work. This book puts a definitive end to these two wrong ideas, offering a massive, extremely rich, and convincing response to past prejudices. So much so that it opens a new paradigm of study in this area. From now on, research and teaching in either human rights or sociology cannot afford to miss this precious handbook."
--Boaventura de Sousa Santos, University of Coimbra (Portugal)

"This remarkable handbook about the relevance of human rights to every conceivable field of sociology shows two things: (1) Refusing the fact-value dichotomy enables us to make deep analytic progress; and (2) Exposing and resisting oppressions is endless, as this handbook reveals the limitations of all past modes."
--Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University.

"Rich with theory and applications, this book is an intellectual breakthrough with so many sociologists joining together to shift the sociological paradigm to one that frankly professes - and celebrates -- the
humanness of human beings."
--From the Foreword by Judith Blau, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

“Here a global array of talented social scientists provide a comprehensive handbook for all concerned with human rights. Drawing on research on issues ranging from racism and sexism to ageism, classism, heterosexism, and much else, they greatly amplify and sharply extend the human rights tradition of sociological founders W. E. B. Du Bois and Jane Addams, for the present day. Thereby, they help reinstate the too often hypothetical liberty-justice-equality frame as a guide for both social science research and public policy in all the world's countries.”
--Joe R. Feagin, Ella C. McFadden Professor of Liberal Arts Texas A & M University and author (with Hernan Vera) of Liberation Sociology