ALICE Interviews
ALICE_Interview_13 – Mark Goodale – Bruno Sena Martins 12/03/2014
2014-09-24

Interview in English / Entrevista em Inglês Short Summary: Mark Goodale explains that he is an anthropologist who went to Bolivia in the 1990s to study conflict resolution, focusing particularly in the rural areas and in outside the boundaries of the State. During his fieldwork in Bolivia the country was in the midst of what he calls a human rights revolution in face of the transformations imposed by the spread of the neoliberal model. Mark Goodale claims that after the Cold War Human Rights has become the only legitimate program – the only secular framework – for political change in the international community. In that sense, Mark argues that Human Rights are not so much a vehicle for social change as the framework in which social change takes place. From there question arises: “Is it an effective framework for social change?” Trying to answer to this difficult question, Mark recalls several political historical processes that illuminate his reflections on the possibilities and limits of human rights in the contemporary world. Biography: Complete information about the course of Mark Goodale can be obtained on your personal Website: http://www.mark-goodale.com/#!__biography Biografia: Informações completas sobre o percurso de Mark Goodale podem ser obtidas no seu Website pessoal: http://www.mark-goodale.com/#!__biography Questions: Tell me about your personal and intellectual history. How did you become interested by human rights? What is the role for human rights in tackling the dominance of neoliberalism and capitalism in the contemporary world? You have recently published the book “Human Rights at the Crossroads”. What is the role for human rights in the contemporary world? You are an Anthropogist. How do you see the practice of ethnography in a time when social life is so transnational? What do you think that Europe – with its history of colonialism, epistemological arrogance – can learn with the rest of the world, in particular with the Global South? Literature: Neoliberalism, Interrupted: Social Change and Contested Governance in Contemporary Latin America Human Rights at the Crossroads The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local