Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition

316 Pages·2004·1.19 MB·English

by  Sidonie Smith, Kay Schaffer

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Human Rights
and
Narrated Lives
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Human Rights and
Narrated Lives: The Ethics of
Recognition
Kay Schaffer
Sidonie Smith
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© HUMAN RIGHTS AND NARRATED LIVES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published 2004 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of
the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark
in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries.
Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union
and other countries.
ISBN 1–4039–6494–7
ISBN 1–4039–6495–5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schaffer, Kay, 1945–
Human rights and narrated lives : the ethics of recognition /
Kay Schaffer, Sidonie Smith.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–4039–6494–7 (hardcover)
ISBN 1–4039–6495–5 (paperback)
1. Human rights. 2. Personal narratives. I. Smith, Sidonie. II. Title.
JC571.S354 2004
323—dc22 2003067786
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2004
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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To activists and witnesses involved in
human rights struggles around the world
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C o n t e n t s
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field
of Human Rights 13
2 The Venues of Storytelling 35
3 Truth, Reconciliation, and the Traumatic Past
of South Africa 53
4 Indigenous Human Rights in Australia:
Who Speaks for the Stolen Generations? 85
5 Belated Narrating: “Grandmothers” Telling Stories
of Forced Sexual Slavery During World War II 123
6 Life Sentences: Narrated Lives and Prisoner Rights
in the United States 153
7 Post-Tiananmen Narratives and the New China 187
Conclusion 223
Notes 235
Bibliography 253
Index 281
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A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
The idea for an extended study of the uses of personal narratives in
campaigns for human rights arose during the first meeting of the
International Auto/Biography Association in Beijing in June 1999.
“All I have is my story” became a phrase challenging us to consider
peoples’ rights to their own stories. With that nub of an idea we
applied to the Rockefeller Center program in Bellagio, Italy, for
a joint fellowship that would enable us to begin our collaborative
mapping of the relationship between storytelling and human rights as
they intersect across the domains of law and literature. The month at
Villa Serbolini not only delighted our senses, it also enabled us to do
preliminary reading and thinking about the history and philosophical
foundations of the human rights regime and its many critiques. Most
particularly, we thank José Antonio Aguilar Rivera, fellow Serbolini
confrérè and Mexican political scientist, for his generous reading of
our first attempt at presenting this background. José complicated our
arguments and returned us to the drawing board to reconsider how
we wanted to situate our larger argument about life writing in the
field of human rights.
Fortunately, we have been able to work side-by-side frequently
over the last four years. Our debts of gratitude for making these meet-
ings possible go to the Humanities Research Centre (HRC) at the
Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and to the School
of Humanities at Curtin University of Technology in Perth. In Spring
2003, the HRC at the ANU sponsored a year-long project on “The
Humanities, Culture, and Human Rights.” For six uninterrupted
weeks we were able to pursue our project and to engage in dialogues
with colleagues whose interests we shared, among them Norbert
Finch, John Docker, and Margaret Jolly. Carolyn Turner, deputy
director of the HRC, welcomed and supported us in our fellowship.
To the Feministas, a collaborative of feminist historians at the ANU,
which includes Georgiana Clauson, Ann Curthoys, Desley Deacon,
Rosanne Kennedy, Jill Matthews, and Ann McGrath, we owe a special
debt for their rigorous critique of an early version of the introduction.