In Struggles for the Human, Lara Montesinos Coleman blends ethnography, political philosophy, and critical theory to reorient debates on human rights through attention to understandings of legality, ethics, and humanity in anticapitalist and decolonial struggle. Drawing on her extensive involvement with grassroots social movements in Colombia, Coleman observes that mainstream expressions of human rights have become counterparts to capitalist violence, even as this discourse disavows capitalism’s deadly implications. She rejects claims that human rights are inherently tied to capitalism, liberalism, or colonialism, instead showing how human rights can be used to combat these forces. Coleman demonstrates that social justice struggles that are rooted in marginalized communities’ lived experiences can reframe human rights in order to challenge oppressive power structures and offer a blueprint for constructing alternative political economies. By examining the practice of redefining human rights away from abstract universals and contextualizing them within concrete struggles for justice, Coleman reveals the transformative potential of human rights and invites readers to question and reshape dominant legal and ethical narratives.

Lara Montesinos Coleman is Reader in International Relations, Law, and Development and Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex and coeditor of Situating Global Resistance: Between Discipline and Dissent.

Acknowledgments  xi
Introduction. Human Rights in Struggle  1
1. Necroeconomics: Violence, Law, and Twenty-First-Century Plunder  27
2. Deadly Colonial Ethics: Development Policy-Speak and Corporate Responsibility  57
3. Privatizing Workers’ Rights: Social Partnership in a Neoliberal World  81
4. Elusive Justice: Capital, Impunity, and Counterlegality  105
5. From Pernicious Optimism to Radical Hope: Human Rights beyond Abstract Values  132
6. For an Insurgent Humanism  153
Conclusion. What Do We Make of Human Rights? Ten Points  170
Notes  175
Bibliography  213
Index  239