AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

206 CHANTELLE DE NOBREGA
Human rights theory has been subject to the claim that human rights
are Western constructs that have no universal applicability or validity,
and they cannot therefore be used to justify state intervention or external
criticism of the way that non-Western government run their countries
and their governments (Marks and Clapham 2004: 387). In addition,
human rights are seen by some as a new form of colonialism and imperialism,
as they represent the West’s desire to impose their values and institutions
on poorer nations, by “recycl[ing] the colonialist project of remaking
the world in [their] image” (Ibid 2004: 387).
The criticism has spilled over into feminist theory, with critics questioning
the ability of feminism and other social movements which use a
human rights approach, to develop universally-applicable theory that is
not imperialistic and ethnocentric (Davis 2008: 9). Davis correctly argues
that feminist theory needs to be inclusive of all women by taking into
account how different women experience oppression depending on
where they are located on the intersectional nexus of relations – but this
needs to be achieved without losing its “theoretical and normative platform”
(2008: 9). Through its emphasis on social context and the multiplicity
of identity, intersectionality offers rights-based feminist theorists a
way to interpret and use context without altogether abandoning the
claim that social relations of power and gender identities lay at the heart
of gender discrimination universally. Thus, intersectionality allows rightsbased
feminist theory to examine “gender through the lens of difference”
(Burgess-Proctor 2006: 35) into complete theoretical and phenomenological
relativism. In other words, intersectionality permits feminists
to retain their emphasis on identity and power without becoming
exclusionary by claiming that they speak to the experience of all women
universally. Feminists are therefore able to avoid rights-based theory
from becoming “obsolete or superfluous” as “there is still work to be
done, and – luckily for all of us – we are the ones to do it” (Davis 2008:
9-10).
C) Intersectionality’s own ethnocentrism in a world of
difference and diversity
Thus far, intersectionality (as a concept) has primarily (but not exclusively)
been discussed and debated in Europe and the United States
(Davis 2008: 3). Given the value that intersectionality can bring to discussions
on human rights theory and praxis, in terms of raising questions