This collection of essays hand explores a major undercurrent of the debate on rights, namely the question of universalism and cultural relativism.

The issue of rights is increasingly gaining interest among scholars of developing societies. This probably reflects the growing prominence of rights on political agendas in general. A great deal of research is centred around classical human rights, but other types of rights have also come into focus in the context of development, some under the candidacy of human rights. We talk about cultural rights, social rights and property rights - for example, rights to natural resources or to intellectual property. This collection, on the one hand, explores a major undercurrent of the debate on rights, namely, the question of universalism and cultural relativism. On the other, it explores how rights are claimed and contested, vindicated and politicised and, in different ways, transform social practice

Development and rights - tempering universalism and relativism, Christian Lund
on universal morality and the morality of universalism, Zygmunt Bauman
universal rights and the historical context, Per Bauhn
changing African land tenure - reflections on the incapacities of the state, Sally Falk Moore
politics and struggles for access to land - "grants from
above" and "squatters" in coastal Kenya, Karuti Kanyinga
past wrongs and gender rights - issues and conflicts in South
Africa's land reform, Susie Jacobs
women's human rights and African customary laws - between universalism and relativism - individualism and communitarianism, Anne Hellum
the interplay between collective rights and obligations and individual rights, Rie Odgaard, Agnette Weiss Bentzon
governance as multilateral development bank policy - the cases of the African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank.