Imperialism and Human Rights: Colonial Discourses of Rights and Liberties in African History

Bonny Ibhawoh‏

ינו׳ 2008 · State University of New York Press

מידע על הספר הדיגיטלי הזה

2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

In this seminal study, Bonny Ibhawoh investigates the links between European imperialism and human rights discourses in African history. Using British-colonized Nigeria as a case study, he examines how diverse interest groups within colonial society deployed the language of rights and liberties to serve varied socioeconomic and political ends. Ibhawoh challenges the linear progressivism that dominates human rights scholarship by arguing that, in the colonial African context, rights discourses were not simple monolithic or progressive narratives. They served both to insulate and legitimize power just as much as they facilitated transformative processes. Drawing extensively on archival material, this book shows how the language of rights, like that of "civilization" and "modernity," became an important part of the discourses deployed to rationalize and legitimize empire.

על המחבר

Bonny Ibhawoh is Assistant Professor of History at McMaster University, Canada.