Rights After Wrongs

Local Knowledge and Human Rights in Zimbabwe

Shannon Morreira

 

Synopsis

The international legal framework of human rights presents itself as universal. But rights do not exist as a mere framework; they are enacted, practiced, and debated in local contexts. Rights After Wrongs ethnographically explores the chasm between the ideals and the practice of human rights. Specifically, it shows where the sweeping colonial logics of Western law meets the lived experiences, accumulated histories, and humanitarian debts present in postcolonial Zimbabwe.

Review

The global movement of refugees and migrants is the human rights issue of the twenty-first century. Shannon Morreira elegantly documents the struggles of Zimbabwean refugees and exiles in South Africa, drawing out the wider implications for concepts of personhood, rights, and migration.— Richard A. Wilson, University of Connecticut

Author

Shannon Morreira is a social anthropologist and Lecturer in the Humanities Education Development Unit at the University of Cape Town.