Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Human Rights
Episode: Sally Engle Merry, “The Seduction of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking” (U. of Chicago Press, 2016)
Description: Quantification is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when hearing or reading about the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR). Yet in the 21st century, a wide range of policy and advocacy agendas begin with numbers. Those numbers become indicators, composites, standards, and measurement tools, which then get adopted in advocacy rhetoric or policy practice.In The Seduction of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Sally Engle Merry combines ethnography, human rights, and science and technology studies to explore how people living in vulnerable situations...