Politikon Special Issues

Special Issue of Politikon

Citizenship and Competing Equality Claims of Universal Human Rights and Culture/Religion: A North-South Dialogue

Guest Editors: Amanda Gouws and Daiva Stasiulis

Call for Papers

In many democratic societies, perceived conflict occurs between universal human rights and culture/tradition/religion.  Much of this conflict occurs around issues of a gendered nature and focuses specifically on women’s rights, where the positions adopted are often very polarized.  In what is considered multicultural societies in the global North concerns frequently stem from cultural practices of minority/immigrant communities and attempts to integrate immigrants/minorities into majority cultures. In the global South concerns are often related to the post-colonial context where cultural practices and/or positions that privilege anti-colonialist/nationalist struggles of indigenous communities may conflict with newly adopted liberal constitutions.  One approach that some feminists have adopted to deal with the conflict is to argue that practices that do harm to women must be outlawed.  This approach has, however, been perceived by others as intervention into culture that may put women at greater risk for harm or may not necessarily be condoned by women in these cultures themselves.  What are needed are more nuanced understandings of how this binary opposition between rights and culture can be dissolved.

This special issue of Politikon (the official journal of the South African Association of Political Studies) aims to examine the conflict between universal rights and culture/religion in different contexts in the global North and South and seeks to move beyond the dualisms of culture vs. human rights in order to comprehend how societies may simultaneously recognize the claims of culture/religion/tradition and the universalist claims to gender equality.  Abstracts for articles that examine these conflicts from a theoretical or empirical perspective in both the global North and the South are welcome. 

Articles should be between 8 000 and 10 000 words long.  A style guide for the journal will be sent to authors whose articles are accepted.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2011

Decision on acceptance/rejection of abstracts:  30 October 2011

Deadline for first drafts: 1 May 2012

Abstracts should be sent to both Amanda Gouws (ag1@sun.ac.za) and Daiva Stasiulis (dstasiulis@yahoo.com)