This page intentionally left blank The Work of Global Justice Human rights have been generally understood as juridical products, organizational outcomes or abstract principles that are realized through formal means such as passing laws, creating institutions or formulating ideals In this book, Fuyuki Kurasawa argues that we must reverse this ‘top-down’ focus by examining how groups and persons struggling against global injustices construct and enact human rights through five transnational forms of ethico-political practice: bearing witness, forgiveness, foresight, aid and solidarity From these, he develops a new perspective highlighting the difficult social labour that constitutes the substance of what global justice is and ought to be, thereby reframing the terms of debates about human rights and providing the outlines of a critical cosmopolitanism centred around emancipatory struggles for an alternative globalization F U Y U K I K U R A S A W A is Associate Professor of Sociology and Social and Political Thought at York University in Toronto; Faculty Fellow of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University; and Co-President of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Sociological Theory He is the author of The Ethnological Imagination: A Cross-Cultural Critique of Modernity (2004) Cambridge Cultural Social Studies Series editors Jeffrey C Alexander, Department of Sociology, Yale University, and Steven Seidman, Department of Sociology, University of Albany, State University of New York Titles in the series Tamir Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State Jeffrey C Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason L Mast, Social Performance Arne Johan Vetlesen, Evil and Human Agency Roger Friedland and John Mohr, Matters of Culture Davina Cooper, Challenging Diversity, Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference Krishan Kumar, The Making of English National Identity Ron Eyerman, Cultural Trauma Stephen M Engel, The Unfinished Revolution Miche`le Lamont and Laurent The´venot, Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology Ron Lembo, Thinking Through Television Ali Mirsepassi, Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization Ronald N Jacobs, Race, Media, and the Crisis of Civil Society Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Theorizing the Standoff Kevin McDonald, Struggles for Subjectivity S N Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution Piotr Sztompka, Trust Simon J Charlesworth, A Phenomenology of Working-Class Experience List continues at end of book The Work of Global Justice Human Rights as Practices Fuyuki Kurasawa CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521857246 © Fuyuki Kurasawa 2007 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2007 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-511-36625-3 ISBN-10 0-511-36625-6 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 ISBN-10 hardback 978-0-521-85724-6 hardback 0-521-85724-4 ISBN-13 ISBN-10 paperback 978-0-521-67391-4 paperback 0-521-67391-7 Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate To Toronto and New York City, urban muses and arenas of a cosmopolitanism of the everyday ... Analytical paradigms of the social The concepts of practice and mode of practice Practices of global justice The work of global justice The levels of the work of global justice The labour of critical... Charlesworth, A Phenomenology of Working-Class Experience List continues at end of book The Work of Global Justice Human Rights as Practices Fuyuki Kurasawa CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York,... labour of enacting ethico-political tasks and confronting perils (via the concepts of mode of practice and of the work of global justice) 12 The Work of Global Justice Figure The concepts of practice