The lecture is dedicated to commemorating World Human Rights Day, a significant occasion marking the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. Since its adoption, the Declaration has substantially shaped the legal and political landscape of human rights. However, in the face of current global challenges, public confidence in the influence and effectiveness of human rights has waned. This lecture provides an opportunity to critically reflect on the role and implementation of human rights in a complex and inequitable world.
Following an initial critique of the conventional understanding of human rights and an overview of anthropological scepticism toward the concept, the lecture delves into the principles and methods of ethnographic research in the study of human rights. The lecture discusses the interplay between anthropology and human rights, which manifests in three distinct approaches. The first highlights the responsibility of anthropologists to advocate for the rights of marginalized groups and communities using their expertise. The second examines human rights as an ethnographic subject of anthropological research. The third introduces a “critical anthropology of human rights,” which transcends the traditional boundaries of anthropology to incorporate insights from other academic disciplines and epistemologies.
In its second part, the lecture focuses on the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, drawing on findings from the project “Freedom of Opinion and Expression through Narratives of the State of Emergency: An Anthropological Study of Slovenian (Anti)Democratic Consciousness during the Covid-19 Epidemic” (funded by the Slovenian Research Agency) and Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: an Anthropological Perspective« (Jean Monnet Action funded by European Commission). This part examines the emotional dimensions of social activism through the experiences of the anti-government “bicycle protesters,” who organized 105 consecutive Friday protests in different Slovenian cities over two years during the covid-19 pandemic. By analysing the emotional narratives of activists, the lecture sheds light on how civil society participants evoke, experience, and enact the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. It emphasizes how emotions emerge through personal and collective narratives, shaping purposeful behaviour and providing context for exercising these fundamental human rights.