Adams V
Department of Anthropology, Princeton University, USA.
Med Anthropol Q. 1998 Mar;12(1):74-102. doi: 10.1525/maq.1998.12.1.74.
Tibetan refugees and Western activists note that if universal human rights standards were enforced in China, Tibetans would suffer less and come closer to political independence. This article explores potential problems of universalism and individualism in human rights discourse by examining understandings of the body and suffering among Lhasa Tibetan women. Data are taken from accounts of political prisoners and women patients at Lhasa's traditional Tibetan medical hospital. The data suggest a collective subjectivity, based on ideas about karma and congruences of body, mind, and society that contrast with those found in international human rights discourse. Tibetans are forced to adopt universalist and individualist positions to make their claims for human rights heard while ironically articulating ideas about suffering that would contest such universalist positions. The article proposes a need for alternative conceptualizations of human rights taken from Tibetan epistemologies of suffering, and illustrates the utility of medical anthropological inquiries about embodiment and subjectivity for addressing larger political debates about human rights.
藏人难民和西方活动人士指出，如果在中国实施普遍的人权标准，藏人遭受的苦难将会减少，并更接近政治独立。通过考察拉萨藏族妇女对身体和苦难的理解，本文探讨了人权话语中普遍主义和个人主义的潜在问题。数据取自政治犯的叙述以及拉萨传统藏医院女性患者的情况。数据表明，基于业力以及身体、心灵和社会一致性的观念，存在一种集体主体性，这与国际人权话语中的观念形成对比。藏人被迫采取普遍主义和个人主义立场，以便让他们的人权诉求得到倾听，然而具有讽刺意味的是，他们所表达的关于苦难的观念却会对这种普遍主义立场提出质疑。本文提出需要从藏人关于苦难的认识论中获取人权的替代概念，并说明了医学人类学对身体体现和主体性的探究在解决有关人权的更大政治辩论方面的效用。
