Rights Projects: A Relational Sociology of Rights in Globalization

Abstract

Building on and extending relational sociology, this article establishes a relational sociology of rights. I argue that rights should not be viewed as substances but as social constructs that derive their meanings and significance within a relational setting. To illustrate how rights are constructed relationally, I introduce a new analytic concept: the rights project, the context-specific endeavor of marginalized communities to envision, claim, and achieve rights on their own terms and in their own ways. The relational construction of rights projects occurs locally, regionally, and globally. The concept of the rights project demonstrates how marginalized communities undertake diverse political and cultural endeavors tailored to specific relational contexts, developing distinct goals, priorities, and strategies in the name of rights. A relational sociology of rights allows us to gain a more nuanced understanding of the conditions of possibility for marginalized communities beyond the Euro-American registers of rights.