Cultural Identity and Human Rights: Minority Claims, Ethnic Identity and Group Rights

Rights, Identity and Claims-Making

The nation-state mode of citizenship – the predominant way we think about citizenship – assumes the existence of actors whose rights and identities are grounded within the bounds of national collectives. And these collectives are assumed to constitute the authentic sites for the realization of claims-making and civic participation. The experience of postwar immigrants in Europe, on the other ha...

Personal Identity, Individual Autonomy and Group Rights

It is a commonplace in liberal circles that individual persons have a right to individual autonomy or self-determination. Each mentally competent adult has a right to be at liberty to live and shape their own life in accordance with their own view about what makes for a good life, free from undue coercion or interference by others, so long as they do not harm others. In the words of John Stuart...

On State, Identity and Rights: Putting Identity First

The paper considers the nature of the state understood as the political unity articulated on the basis of a collective identity which provides the state with its capacity to make decisions. The foremost decision of the state to protect and defend this identity is the source of its authority to enforce laws. Collective identity thus represents an object of special interest, unlike both ‘‘politic...

Red Reason and Green Rights Illuminationist.Anthropology and Human Rights

Culture and Identity: Linking Iranian Identity Components and Cultural Dimensions

Iranian identity cannot be conceived of as a uniform monolithic concept. But, thanks to certain upheavals in the history of the country, it has turned into the triple concept of national/Islamic/modern. Hofstede’s (2001) cultural framework represents a well-validated operationalization of culture based on six cultural dimensions  (power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/feminini...