Are universal rights bound to colonialism? Are they culturally imperialistic? By juxtaposing Morocco's practice of torture with its discourse of cultural relativism, this study links popular resistance to universal rights to a deliberate politics that delegitimizes those very same rights, requiring a new, more inclusive system of universalism.

Recent events such as ‘Iran’s Green Revolution’ and the ‘Arab Uprisings’ have exploded notions that human rights are irrelevant to Middle Eastern and North African politics. Increasingly seen as a global concern, human rights are at the fulcrum of the region’s on-the-ground politics, transnational intellectual debates, and global political intersections. The Routledge Handbook on Human Rights and the Middle East and North Africa: emphasises the need to consider human rights in all their dimensions, rather than solely focusing on the political dimension, in order to understand the structural reasons behind the persistence of human rights violations; explores the various frameworks in which to consider human rights—conceptual, political and transnational/international; discusses issue areas subject to particularly intense debate—gender, religion, sexuality, transitions and accountability; contains contributions from perspectives that span from global theory to grassroots reflections, emphasising the need for academic work on human rights to seriously engage with the thoughts and practices of those working on the ground. A multidisciplinary approach from scholars with a wide range of expertise allows the book to capture the complex dynamics by which human rights have had, or could have, an impact on Middle Eastern and North African politics. This book will therefore be a key resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern and North African politics and society, as well as anyone with a concern for Human Rights across the globe.

This book is the first to formulate an ideology of emancipation for women in Morocco. Beginning with constructs of the body, femininity and masculinity, it analyzes the central role played by the sociopolitical writing of sexuality in creating gender hierarchy. The author focuses on Morocco, while drawing parallels with Hollywood cinema, one of the great producers of femininity and masculinity, and conducts an exhaustive examination of constructs of femininity and masculinity in language, social practices, cultural productions and legal texts. The objectives of this project are tripartite: it exposes the dynamics that devalue women’s humanity; it charts the schemas of their sexual, economic and sociopolitical exploitation; and it advances concrete solutions for re-establishing women’s human dignity.

A historical reference work on Morocco must take as its subject al-maghrib al-aqsa (the far west) as the Arabic scholars have generally referred to the approximate region of present-day Morocco, roughly the north-west corner of Africa but at times including much of the Iberian peninsula, because the modern nation-state is a relatively recent creation owing much to events in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. External influences on Morocco tend to come across the narrow straits of Gibraltar to the north, from the east along the Mediterranean litoral, or up from the Sahara. In each case, access is constrained by geography and continued control from outside the region has been difficult to manage over the long term. Although many of the dynasties that came to power in Morocco conquered much broader regions, history and topology have so conspired that there is still more coherence to an historical focus on al-maghrib al-aqsa than is the case for most modern nation-states. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Morocco contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 600 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Morocco.

Domestic and caregiving work has been at the core of human existence throughout history. Poorly paid or even unpaid, this work has been assigned to women in most societes and occasionally to men often as enslaved, indentures, "adopted" workers. While some use domestic service as training for their own future independent households, others are confined to it for life and try to avoid damage to their identities (Part One). Employment conditions are even worse in colonizer-colonized dichotomies, in which the subalternized have to run the households of administrators who believe they are running an empire (Part Two). Societies and states set the discriminatory rules, those employed develop strategies of resistance or self-protection (Part Three). A team of international scholars addresses these issues globally with a deep historical background. Contributors are: Ally Shireen, Eileen Boris, Dana Cooper, Jennifer Fish, David R. Goodman, Mary Gene De Guzman, Jaira Harrington, Victoria Haskins, Dirk Hoerder, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, Majda Hrženjak, Elizabeth Hutchison, Dimitris Kalantzopoulos, Bela Kashyap, Marta Kindler, Anna Kordasiewicz, Ms Lokesh, Sabrina Marchetti, Robyn Pariser, Jessica Richter, Magaly Rodríguez García, Raffaella Sarti, Adéla Souralová, Yukari Takai, and Andrew Urban.

Part 2 of Volume 3 addresses in detail the conflicts between humor and cruelty, i.e., how cruelty can be unleashed against humor and, conversely, humor can be utilized against cruelty. Potent enmities to mirth and jollity are retrieved from a variety of socio-historical contexts, ranging from Europe’s medieval monasteries to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre. Special attention is paid to the cruel humor and humorous cruelty arising thereof, insofar as such phenomena can reveal critical aspects of today’s neoliberal socio-economic order. In parallel, settings where humor has been used as an instrument to cope with suffered cruelty, whether natural or human in origin, are also retrieved and discussed. These also vary greatly and encompass domains such as hospital wards, 20th-century Jewish ghettoes, and contemporary funeral homes. A set of concluding reflections is then offered on the psychological, theological, ethical, and metaphysical roots of humor—and its cruel rejection.

Are universal rights bound to colonialism? Are they culturally imperialistic? By juxtaposing Morocco's practice of torture with its discourse of cultural relativism, this study links popular resistance to universal rights to a deliberate politics that delegitimizes those very same rights, requiring a new, more inclusive system of universalism.

The book shows how state-enforced religious laws impact human rights, and what people do to advance their rights from within.

Investigating minority and indigenous women’s rights in Muslim-majority states, this book critically examines the human rights regime within international law. Based on extensive and diverse ethnographic research on Amazigh women in Morocco, the book unpacks and challenges generally accepted notions of rights and equality. Significantly, and controversially, the book challenges the supposedly ‘emancipatory’ power vested in the human rights project; arguing that rights-based discourses are sites of contestation for different groups that use them to assert their agency in society. More specifically, it shows how the very conditions that make minority and indigenous women instrumental to the preservation of their culture may condemn them to a position of subalternity. In response, and engaging the notion and meaning of Islamic feminism, the book proposes that feminism should be interpreted and contextualised locally in order to be effective and inclusive, and so in order for the human rights project to fully realise its potential to empower the marginalised and make space for their voices to be heard. Providing a detailed, empirically based, analysis of rights in action, this book will be of relevance to scholars, students and practitioners in human rights policy and practice, in international law, minorities’ and indigenous peoples’ rights, gender studies, and Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

In a comparative context: N. Barney Pityana