The hierarchization of knowledge, new forms of governance at a distance and the mercantilization of Human Rights: neo-colonization, indicators and indices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37467/gka-revsocial.v7.1639Keywords:
Hierarchization of Knowledge, Human Rights, Indices, Neo-Colonization, GovernanceAbstract
The proliferation in the uses of indicators in the human rights area have rendered and naturalized them into new forms of knowledge construction and hierarchization, as well as tools of governance at a distance. As a consequence of this naturalization in its uses, the democratic political processes of reflexivity and concertation have been undermined by the hierarchical construction of technical knowledge as superior. Despite their huge limitations, opacity in their construction and essentialism, indicators are portrayed in our evermore imbued by corporate values societies, into new forms of power/knowledge, violence and neo-colonization. Through an ethnographic approach this research follows the historical evolution of indicators, from astronomical tools of measurement to their uses as instruments upon which political, economic and social policies are taken.
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