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1 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 Universal Human Rights and Cultural Relativism. Throughout the entirety of this course, we had a variety of lectures to watch, articles to read, and discussion boards to complete. My all-time favorite module hands down were Module 5 prompt where we had two different pathway options to discuss different topics. I chose pathway 1 to learn about the concern of intersecting phenomena of human rights problems as well as how characteristics like health, gender, poverty and political violence play a part with each other. I found that Module 5 was the most interesting to me to learn about due to the importance of knowing what Structural violence is and how it affects Universal Human Rights as well as Cultural Relativism. Let us take this backwards and discuss the most recent module, the main idea of this paper, Module 5. I loved learning all about what structural violence was as well as the affiliations of the different “generations” of rights. Firstly, structural violence, is “institutional arrangements often deeply lodged in the fabric of society through long developing historical, political, and economical patterns that determines people’s life chances” (Hepner, 2023). A few examples that could go into play with what structural violence are poverty, racism, sexism, etc. These examples are all social issues in the United States that contribute to structural violence as these problems are deeply rooted and have historical, systemic, and institutional origins. They present limited opportunities, racial profiling, health inequality, and many more issues. Moving on with the three different “generations” of rights, we learned by Paul Farmers work where he co-founded PIH (Partners in Health) where they primarily focused on providing and addressing healthcare in settings where resources where poor, particularly in Haiti and Rwanda.

2 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 When discussing the “generations” of rights I'm referring to the categories of human rights based on development and focus of history.  First Generation: Civil and Political Rights- Includes the right to life, freedom, personal security, freedom of expression and participation in processes.  Second Generation: Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights-Includes the right to education, healthcare, food security and adequate housing.  Third Generation: Solidarity or Collective Rights-Includes the right to the environment and self-determination. Paul Farmer thoroughly illustrates the interdependence between the different “generations” of rights. He writes in “On Suffering and Structural Violence: The View from Below” the way that difficulties in working with different cultures while trying to make human rights universal. “ Often-cited examples range from female circumcision in the Sudan to head-hunting in the Philippines” (Farmer, 1996). He gives these examples to highlight how cultural relativism was questioned by citizens of those colonies. We can refer to these when discussing the “generations” of rights where it’s difficult to enforce human rights universally when you are impeding certain aspects of said rights by trying to change aspects of certain cultures. When talking about “universal human rights” we learn a lot about the critiques of this within communities from non-western regions in Module 4. The “SVS” metaphor is used to critique the portrayal and perception of non-western societies as well as their struggles for human rights. SVS stands for “Savages, Victims, and Saviors” which describes non-western states and communities in three different dimensions and how each dimension is a metaphor. Savages are viewed as states or societies that are uncivilized. Victims are the people part of the communities

3 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 whose “dignity and worth” have been violated by the “savage” state, normally seen as defenseless and in need of western protection (Mutua, 2001, p. 203). Now the saviors are usually seen as the good angel who protects, vindicates, civilizes, restrains, and safeguards. (Mutua, 2001, p. 204). This elaboration of what the “SVS” metaphor is very important when connecting it to Module 5 due to the mentions of Rwanda being a “savage” state. As mentioned before Rwanda was where Paul Farmer and PIH worked to improve the access to healthcare to the citizens of that country. The US uses this to their advantage where they use their ideal of human rights to look like “saviors” by comparing themselves to poverty countries like Rwanda. This correlates with Paul Farmers statement of cultural relativism and structural violence as it mentions the culture, the lack of opportunity and the health inequalities of the country. Anthropologists, as learned in Module 3, were highly against the idea of universal human rights based off the perspective of cultural relativism which plays a role in Paul Farmers writings of the difficulties in making human rights universal. Anthropologists, in the 1940’s, believed that it would be nearly impossible for universal human rights based on the differences of cultural beliefs for example the debate of issues like violence against women was a huge issue where it makes it difficult to come together to make something work. We learn of Sally Engle Merry getting called to do an interview on a sexually assault situation where a young woman was violently attacked, and gang raped with the authorization of a local tribal council. Sally states “She wanted me to defend the value of respecting Pakistani culture at all costs, despite the sentence of rape” (Merry, 2003, P.55). She then goes on to discuss how one culture’s idea of torture, like the issue with the mutilation of female genitality, is the other cultures idea of a tradition that should be respected and not changed. This is a great example as to how cultural relativism causes conflict when discussing universal human rights.

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4 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 During Module 1, we are introduced to the “Four Schools” model of human rights with the reading of Marie-Benedicte Dembours “What are Human Rights? Four Schools of Thought”. For short, Marie-Benedicte Dembour categorizes different approaches to human rights into four types of schools: the natural law school, the deliberative school, the protest school, and the discourse ethics school (Dembour, 2010, P.137-P.138). Out of each of these schools I discussed how I felt like the protest school fit best with my attitude towards human rights. The reason I chose this school specifically is due to my experience with protests that I have attended myself as well as my belief in protests being the most impactful way of changing human rights. The importance of discussing this specific module was throughout the course we learn more in depth about the ways human rights differ from the variety of cultures and I believe that I changed my thoughts on what I resonate more with the four schools. I feel now I resonate more with the Deliberative School due to the number of discussions that are made before implementing human rights. I now find it important to discuss and debate different issues with human rights intersecting meaning of what “human rights” are within different cultures and how to make it universal. Finally, Module 2, my own opinion on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and whether I believe the human rights laws are “universal” or not. After reevaluating my own discussion post as well as my fellow classmates I have concluded that the UDHR is not universal. The reason for this conclusion is because states have the option to opt out of human rights procedures which means the “state” can just pick and choose, for instance, what they want to include in their version of “human rights” which takes away the purpose of “Universal Human Rights”. I can apply this to Module 5 where the focus is on how the structural violence is a huge problem with human rights being universal and the states being able to choose whether they want

5 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 to want to participate in human rights procedures or not based on their own agenda seems to be not universal at all. In conclusion, Module 5 tied together the class very nicely and seemed to put everything in perspective when looking back on the other modules that I have completed. Structural Violence damages the meaning of “universal human rights” and is important when discussing these matters as they exist and is a complicated process to fix due to culture relativism. By not giving access to healthcare, fair job opportunities, etc., there is the issue of interfering with other “generations” of rights. As I have learned through the entirety of this course without the access to basic human rights or understanding that other cultures have certain traditions as well as different understanding of what human rights consists of there seems to be an impossible existence of “universal” human rights. What could change the world into coming together to genuinely make a universal human rights ordeal that could be applied to all those of different culture backgrounds, economic class, race, sexuality, gender, etc.? My answer is nothing. I believe every country, every state, every person, has their own ideal of what human rights should consist of and no matter what law is in place, no matter the advancements that are made, at least one person will not be able to access these “universal” human rights. The hard reality of it all is there are certain things out of control but that does not mean that making advancements are a waste of time, by the continuation of trying to make human rights universal we are giving those in need of healthcare as well as education and other necessities a chance at a better chance at life.

6 Nickolas Sarmiento JHR 100 References. Dr. Tricia Redeker Hepner. 2023. “Key Problems – Part1”, Arizona State University, School of Social and Behavioral Science. Farmer, Paul. 1996. “On Suffering and Structural Violence: The View From Below.” Daedalus. Vol 125.No 1. Pp.261-283. Farmer, Pau and Nicole Gastineau. 2002. “Rethinking Health and Human Rights.” Journal of Law. Medicine and Ethics, 30:4 Mutua, M. W. (2001). "Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The metaphor of Human rights." Harvard International Law Journal, 42, 201–246. Merry, S. E. (2003, May). Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way). Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Marie Benedicte-Dembour, 2011, “What are Human Rights? Four Schools of Thought,” in Handbook of Human Rights. Thomas Cushman, ed. Pp. 137-145

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