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This chapter covers indigenous rights and language sovereignty. It discusses the underlying logic and role of settler colonialism in the dispossession and erasure of Indigenous people. Human rights practice lies at the intersection of languages, Indigeneity, and sovereignty. The human rights world has been primarily dominated by a Western colonial mindset as the dispossession and forced migration of Indigenous people resulted in the erasure of identities and persistence of racial hierarchies, overt racism, and cultural biases. The chapter clarifies that language is not neutral as the approach and access to language needs to be decolonized and language is inextricably linked to cultural identity. It also expounds on how human rights could harm Indigenous language knowledge keepers by referencing the work of Communidades Indígenas en Liderazgo (CIELO) on language rights and language sovereignty.

This chapter analyses the politics of human rights from a performative perspective. It starts with identifying rights claiming as one of the most common ways to highlight and demand redress for injustice across the world. The practice and promise of human rights have a clear gap as human rights violations remain a global issue despite the years of political activism, international human rights standards, and human rights theories. Indeed, several scholars are sceptical about the power of human rights in bringing an end to injustice and inequality. The chapter then covers the ideology of performativity correlating to a theory of language, gender, and politics. It explains that rights claiming may employ non-traditional forms of political engagement and depend on the state to secure the desired change.

This chapter describes discourse analysis. In linguistics, discourse is generally defined as a continuous expression of connected written or spoken language that is larger than a sentence. However, as a method in the social sciences, discourse analysis (DA) gave rise to diatribes about where to set the borders of discourse. As language constitutes the very entry point to the world, some discourse analysts argue that all that exists acquires meaning through language. Does this mean that discourse constitutes reality? Is there anything outside text and discourse? Or is discourse one among many means of social construction? The evolution of DA in social science unearths an ontological debate between ‘realists’ and ‘nominalists’, which eventually reverberates in epistemological strategies.

This chapter examines the key debates that have shaped the development of constructivism in International Relations (IR). It first considers the idea that international relations is a social construction, as it emerged from the critique of more traditional theories of IR. It then explores the distinctions among various constructivisms, with particular emphasis on the contrast between those who seek a ‘better’ social science, and hence better theory, versus those who argue that constructivism is an approach that rests on assumptions at odds with those of positivist method. The chapter proceeds by discussing constructivists’ critique of rationalism, along with constructivism as a ‘middle ground’ between rationalist and poststructuralist approaches to IR. It also analyses the role of language and causality in the debate between rationalists and constructivists. Finally, it links all these insights to the War on Terror and the war on Covid-19.

This chapter examines the key debates that have shaped the development of constructivism in International Relations (IR). It first considers the idea that international relations is a social construction, as it emerged from the critique of more traditional theories of IR. It then explores the distinctions among various constructivisms, with particular emphasis on the contrast between those who seek a ‘better’ social science, and hence better theory, versus those who argue that constructivism is an approach that rests on assumptions at odds with those of positivist method. The chapter proceeds by discussing constructivists’ critique of rationalism, along with constructivism as a ‘middle ground’ between rationalist and poststructuralist approaches to IR. It also analyses the role of language and causality in the debate between rationalists and constructivists. Finally, it links all these insights to the ‘war’ on Covid-19.