Towards a critique of rights talk in new democracies: the case of legal aid in Malawi

As an institutionalized form of human rights discourses, rights talk plays a prominent role in recently democratized countries. It also poses a challenge to critical analysts of language, because its contribution to maintaining inequalities is not apparent in its emancipatory rhetoric. This article examines rights talk at a non-governmental centre for free legal aid in Malawi. By deploying the notion of narrative inequality, the article shows how legal officers and their clients engage in a contest of contexts from unequal subject positions. While officers subscribe to an individualist concept of rights and seek piecemeal solutions to abuse, clients generally situate their complaints in complex moral narratives. The limited success of their claims leads to subtle forms of resistance against rights talk. The article shows that narrative inequality provides a perspective that both reaches beyond interlocutors' own terms and asserts the value of rigorous empirical analysis in the critical study of language.