Human Rights in the Americas

This interdisciplinary book explores human rights in the Americas from multiple perspectives and fields. Taking 1492 as a point of departure, the text explores Eurocentric historiographies of human rights and offer a more complete understanding of the genealogy of the human rights discourse and its many manifestations in the Americas.

The essays use a variety of approaches to reveal the larger contexts from which they emerge, providing a cross-sectional view of subjects, countries, methodologies and foci explicitly dedicated toward understanding historical factors and circumstances that have shaped human rights nationally and internationally within the Americas. The chapters explore diverse cultural, philosophical, political and literary expressions where human rights discourses circulate across the continent taking into consideration issues such as race, class, gender, genealogy and nationality. While acknowledging the ongoing centrality of the nation, the volume promotes a shift in the study of the Americas as a dynamic transnational space of conflict, domination, resistance, negotiation, complicity, accommodation, dialogue, and solidarity where individuals, nations, peoples, institutions, and intellectual and political movements share struggles, experiences, and imaginaries.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of InterAmerican studies and those from all disciplines interested in Human Rights.

María Herrera-Sobek is Professor Emerita from the University of California, Santa Barbara where she worked from 1997-2019.

Francisco A. Lomelí is Professor Emeritus from the University of California at Santa Barbara and has worked and taught in both the Spanish & Portuguese and Chicana/o Studies since 1978.

Luz Angélica Kirschner is an Assistant Professor in the School of American and Global Studies at South Dakota State University.