RIGHT-TO-WORK - READING RIGHTS THROUGH DISCOURSE ON WORK

Recently certain post-modernist and post-modern feminist perspectives maintain that the language of rights and justice has outlived its eman cipatory potential sines ir is always addressed to the state and law, leading to arming of the state with more powers. While approving of th e need to counter this tendency of dependence on the state to initiate changes, this article argues that popular movements nevertheless cann ot do away with the language of rights as it remains the sole language of proclaiming their subjectivity and agency, Moreover, the privilegi ng of the particularistic nature af rights-claim in the post-modem dis course is itself paradoxically premised on a universal nation of equal ity for its justification. All people have a right to their own way of life, cultures and belief-systems only if we hold that no single cult ure or rationality can be privileged over the others.