From Human Rights to a Politics of Care

Responding to claims that human rights have for too long dominated the imaginative space of emancipation, in this paper we aim to center stage the politics of care. After demonstrating the inadequacy of the so-called "subject of human rights" which has been construed in binary terms as either independent or dependent, we highlight the contribution of feminist ethics of care scholars in underscoring interdependency as an essential component of the human condition. We then draw on the work of Audre Lorde and Judith Butler to offer a new conceptualization of interdependency, one unmoored from the liberal subject. By way of conclusion, we interweave this new understanding of interdependency with insights drawn from The Care Manifesto and abolitionist care scholars to offer an alternative political framework, one that offers a collaborative utopian counter-narrative for the 21st century.