Displaced Persons and Discourse of Rights

Rights can have emancipatory potential, depending largely on their location within a larger political project, of radical democracy or social justice. Perceptions of the failure' of rights to effectuate such a project on its own strength entails, not despondency about rights themselves, but rather a second look at the social and economic structures that make such an emancipatory politics difficult to achieve. Likewise, the contradictions in the political practice of social movements championing the cause of the displaced, stem as much from their ambiguous social composition as from the confusion regarding the object of rights-claims.