Dr. Sally Merry’s talk at Emory on Friday November 1, 2002 gave new meaning to the phrase, “Standing Room Only.” Those standing were packed in like sardines and, finding that I was either blocking the door or knocking papers off the bulletin board, I squeezed between rows of the seated audience and found a place to sit on the floor. With my limited view I never saw Dr. Merry, who is a Professor of Anthropology and Co-Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Wellesley College. I quickly forgot my discomfort, however, when she began her talk entitled, “Talking Culture in Human Rights Forums: The International Movement Against Violence Against Women.” The talk was sponsored by the Violence Studies Program, the Institute for Women’s Studies, and the Department of Anthropology at Emory University.

     Dr. Merry’s talk examined and challenged the transnational movement for human rights, focusing primarily upon the movement against violence against women. Within this movement, culture is often seen as an obstacle to human rights. Dr. Merry argues that a more accurate anthropological approach to culture will result in more effective change.

     Culture may be viewed in one of three ways. First, culture is most commonly seen as tradition. In this view, traditional values and ideas are fixed and unchanging. Second, culture is seen as national identity. There develops an opposition between the national culture and transnational civilization. Alternatively, culture is embraced or condemned as a prohibition on change. The debates surrounding Female Genital Cutting (FMC) show how the focus shifts from the act in question to the surrounding culture. Culture is used as an excuse to avoid action, or the entire culture is condemned for its violations.

     Locals, however, do not view culture as an unalterable prison which must be endured or destroyed. The anthropological view of culture is much more complicated. In this view, culture is seen in context: constantly changing, shaped by historical and contemporary influences, and richened, but not defined, by tradition and national identity. It is this view that will enable transnational movements to be more effective, by working with cultures, rather than against them. 

     As an example, Dr. Merry focused on the Mbulubulu system in Fiji. Mbulubulu is a system for resolving conflicts through a ritual apology and forgiveness process. Human rights concerns in the transnational community developed around the use of Mbulubulu, rather than the court system, for dealing with rape. The United Nations CEDAW Committee became involved. Quickly, the attention and criticism broadened to the practice of Mbulubulu as a whole, rather than in the specific instance of rape.

     Ultimately, a conflict developed between the transnational norms and the local political structures, which were generally assumed to discriminate against women. For the native Fijians, already excluded from the political processes of the dominant Indian ethnic group, CEDAW’s actions only undermined the problem. 

     Similarly, in India, CEDAW advocated a single secular system of laws for the country as a whole. Traditionally, each different religious community had its own personal laws. The progressive Hindu population embraced the idea, while the less progressive Muslim and Christian groups rebelled. CEDAW’s interference fed into and aggravated the existing political conflict in an unforeseen manner.

     By way of contrast, Australian Aborigine teenagers used transnational norms and ideas to instigate their own change from within. In response to police harassment at local malls, the teenagers created and wore t-shirts with a list of young people’s rights on the back. The front had a slogan which they developed themselves, “It’s public space – Get out of my face,” along with images from the black human rights movement. Thus, transnational ideas were utilized by a culture to empower a localized movement.

     Within transnational human rights settings, culture is often described as an obstacle, particularly to women’s human rights. But what does culture mean in this formulation? Sometimes it refers to an essentialist vision of a national or ethnonational state, sometimes to entrenched power relationships that benefit some groups at the expense of others, and sometimes to neo-colonial conceptions of the primitive or backward. 

For more information, contact Art Linton, 404.727.7176, violence@emory.edu.