New Books Podcast: The Politics of Rights in Southeast Asia

The Politics of Rights and Southeast Asia (Cambridge UP, 2022) by Lynette J. Chua offers an empirically grounded approach to understanding the mobilization of rights in the region. Instead of deriving definitions of rights from abstract philosophical texts, court verdicts, or statutes, the book advances a socio-legal approach that considers rights as social practices that take meaning from the various ways in which people enact, mobilize, and practice these rights. In doing so, the book offers a point of view that goes beyond the liberal versus critical rights perspective debate.

This episode was produced by NYSEAN partner the New Books Network.