Mark Goodale

Goodale is an uneven writer. His prose is often clunky, with the heavy flavorings of dissertation. The twelve line sentence on page 111 is one face of this habit, as is his barely-repressed impulse to include irrelevant citations merely to demonstrate how well-read he is.

That said, this book in particular contains some solid insights, both historical and theoretical, on the relationship of anthropology to the development of the idea of the "human right." In short, anthropology was AWOL in the post-WWII formative stages, and didn't return until later interest in indigenous rights gained disciplinary prominence. Goodale is unclear how, exactly, the UDHR stage would have been different if anthropologists had been more actively involved, but even failing the counterfactual analysis, the absence does not reflect well on anthropology.

He appears more optimistic about the future, but here the argument is exceedingly utopian and unanthropological in that he envisions a possible future reality ("post-national") in which states have been superseded and replaced with a more suffused idea of mutual recognition. Barring a significant disruption, sovereign states appear to be the political unit for the foreseeable future. Tying the contributions of anthropology to human rights discussion to the emergence of a fantasy alternative reality is thus unhelpful as a scientific model, even if intriguing as a thought experiment.… (mehr)