Human Rights and Emotions from the Perspective of the Colonised: Anthropofagi, Legal Surrealism and Subaltern Studies

Abstract

The Third World can easily experience a form of ghost existence: We speak but are not heard. However, in our culture there are a number of trends and positions that are relevant to the task of thinking human rights in a new light. Among them, the critiques of rationalism advanced by Oswald de Andrade and Luis Alberto Warat in Brasil and Argentina — where there is a possibility of integrating the emotions into human rights theory. Sharing a preoccupation with those excluded from the ‘world order’ and the appeal to sensibility, Subaltern Studies have advanced some insights pointing at establishing a link between colonialism, human rights and suffering. This is the case in the work of Upendra Baxi, who has made a criticism of Western theorisations of law and crafted a fruitful encounter between the insights of Subaltern Studies and the theory of human rights.

Keywords: Manifesto Antropófago, emotions, legal surrealism, Subaltern Studies, de-colonial theory, Eurocentrism, human rights