Human rights and development

PhD student Julia Suarez Krabbe holds a PhD grant jointly funded and supervised by Roskilde University and CBS. She started her work in 2008 and has spent the past year at the Center for the Study of the Americas working on her project and teaching in the BA programme. She will return to Roskilde University in the autumn to add the finishing touches to her dissertation which is expected to be handed in in December.

The working title of the project is "Human rights and development. An 'other' side of the story". Based on her study of the spiritual and political authorities (the Mamos) of four Indian groups in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia, Julia Suarez Krabbe applies Indian theory to the discussion of cases and concepts central to western perceptions of human rights and development. The criticism launched by the Mamos of western understanding of these areas has a practical, empirical component, an epistemological, theoretical component, and requires an understanding of global processes as they are anchored in specific localities and historical periods.

Futher information about the project can be obtained from Julia Suarez Krabbe at jskrabbe@ruc.dk .