Between Rights, Subjects and Contexts: some reflections on Human Rights

This article analyzes human rights discourse not only as a rhetoric grounded in universal values but also as a strategic action response. Following a brief historical overview, it is argued that the interconnected nature of the contemporary world has allowed for the emergence of new social actors such as indigenous peoples. Human rights can, therefore, be approached as a narrative reconfigured in new contexts under the pressure of different social constraints: a social construction rather than a human condition. This article is also intended to show how anthropological knowledge may contribute to the debate on human rights through a contextualized and interpretive approach that examines how individuals' contingent interpretations of social phenomena allow them to re-create themselves as people who inhabit and relate to the world in an intersubjective way.