Translating women's human rights in a globalizing world: the spiral process in reducing gender injustice in Baroda, India

Abstract

In this article we analyse the translation of global women's rights ideas in a local context, based on an ethnographic study of three women's organizations from Baroda, Gujarat state, India. On a macro‐level, the local social and cultural norms, the development context, and the nature and role of the state strongly shaped the translation process. Micro processes of translation depend on the organization's core activity, the actors who direct the translation and where they are culturally anchored. Translation involves meaning‐making, which consists of several simultaneous processes, including recuperation, hybridization, simplification and compartmentalization. The direction of the translation process is not linear, but resembles a spiral with ideas moving from global to local to global. Lastly, there are different types of translators, including converters, generators, conveyers, adaptors and transformers.

Translating Human Rights of the “Enemy”: The Case of Israeli NGOs Defending Palestinian Rights

“…This process is sometimes spiral as ideas move from local to global arenas and back (Rajaram and Zararia ).…”

The Adaptation of Human Rights Norms in Local Settings: Intersections of Local and Bureaucratic Knowledge in an Israeli NGO

“…In response to these and other research lacunae and in keeping with the abovementioned anthropological theoretical perspectives on human rights, anthropologists have recently conducted ethnographic studies that, as Levitt and Merry (2009) indicate, examine the diffusion of transnational norms as a cultural act (Riles 2000;Stern 2005;Goldstein 2007;Speed 2007;Rajaram and Zararia 2009;Ş erban Rosen and Yoon 2009;Merry et al 2010). These studies often stress the crucial role of human rights NGOs in this process and tend to point to more dynamic processes of translation and modification of global human rights norms in domestic communities.…”

India's Distorted Sex Ratio

“…Nongovernmental organization (NGO) and other organizational schemes have failed. As noted by Rajaram and Zararia (2009), rights in law books must cross over to rights perpetuated by social norms within local communities, in order to positively impact the lives of poor women. The mission hospital has begun sending nurses out into the villages to engage in community health nursing.…”