File(s) not publicly available
Governing (through) rights: statistics as technologies of governmentality
An increasing amount of attention is being given to the use of human rights measurement indicators in monitoring ‘progress’ in rights and there is consequently a growing focus on statistics and information. This article concentrates on the use of statistics in rights discourse, with reference to the new human rights institution for the European Union: the Fundamental Rights Agency. The article has two main objectives: first, to show that statistics operate as technologies of governmentality – by explaining that statistics both govern rights and govern through rights. Second, the article discusses the implications that this has for rights discourse – rights become a discourse of governmentality, that is a normalizing and regulating discourse. In doing so, the article stresses the importance of critique and questioning new socio-legal methodologies, which involve the collection and dissemination of information and data (statistics), in rights discourse.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Social & Legal StudiesISSN
0964-6639Publisher
SAGE PublicationsExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
20Page range
139-156Department affiliated with
- Law Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2016-11-14Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC