Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of Global Organizations

Description

This volume assembles in one place the work of scholars who are making key contributions to a new approach to the United Nations, and to global organizations and international law more generally. Anthropology has in recent years taken on global organizations as a legitimate source of its subject matter. The research that is being done in this field gives a human face to these world-reforming institutions. Palaces of Hope demonstrates that these institutions are not monolithic or uniform, even though loosely connected by a common organizational network. They vary above all in their powers and forms of public engagement. Yet there are common threads that run through the studies included here: the actions of global institutions in practice, everyday forms of hope and their frustration, and the will to improve confronted with the realities of nationalism, neoliberalism, and the structures of international power.

Ronald Niezen holds the Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculty of Law and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, Montreal. His work on public justice outreach includes the study of truth and reconciliation commissions, online lobbying, and human rights movements. These areas of study have involved research in a variety of forums, including the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the World Health Organization, and the Arctic Council. His books include The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Difference (2003), Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, 2010), and Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (2013). Maria Sapignoli is a Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She has done research on legal activism, indigenous rights, and social movements. These areas of study have involved work in a variety of global organizations, including the United Nations Secretariat Headquarters, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the International Labour Organization's Training Centre. Some of her research involves San activism in southern Africa on issues related to indigenous peoples' rights and claims to land and resources in the context of resettlement. She is the author of several articles and book chapters on indigenous peoples in southern Africa, most recently in Anthropological Forum (2015) and the Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Peoples' Rights (2016).