Book Reviews: PEDRO PITARCH, SHANNON SPEED AND XOCHITL LEYVA SOLANO (eds) Human Rights in the Maya Region: Global Politics, Cultural Contentions, and Moral Engagements. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2008, pp. 392, ISBN 9780822343134, £13.99 (pbk)
| Author | Kasey L McCall-Smith |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639110200010705 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
contemporary debates (see Allen, 1987) with violent female offenders being ‘rendered
harmless’ and seen as not fully accountable for their acts. However, some discussion
of the inequality that resulted from this treatment of women in Irelandat this time would
have beenappropriate here. Men who killed women and who sometimes feigned insan-
ity as a defence received much lighter sentences than women who killed men. The
notion of respectability and the concepts of ‘double deviance’ and ‘double jeopardy’
are also pertinent here as one of the few women to be executed was alleged to be having
an affair with a younger man. This was never proven but she still received the death
penalty for killing her husband.
This book provides a detailed examinationof mental disorder, punishment and gender
in nineteenth-century Ireland. The cases ‘come to life’ through the use of quotes from
original documents, and the backgrounddiscussion of crime, punishment and mental dis-
order sets the scene forthe second half of the book. It would have added some depthto the
theoretical discussion about gender if contemporary feminist debates had been acknowl-
edged more clearly and the inequalities facedby women in the criminal justice system at
this time been more forcefully highlighted and discussed. However, this book is recom-
mended for those with an interest in punishment,gender and mental disorder, as the issues
raised by Prior have significance for ongoing contemporary debates in this area.
Reference
Allen H (1987) Rendering them harmless: The professional portrayal of women charged with
serious violent crimes. In: Carlen P and Worrall A (eds) Gender, Crime and Justice. Milton
Keynes: Open University Press, 81–94.
Fiona Hutton
Victoria University, New Zealand
PEDRO PITARCH, SHANNON SPEED AND XOCHITL LEYVA SOLANO (eds)
Human Rights in the Maya Region: Global Politics, Cultural Contentions, and Moral
Engagements. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2008, pp. 392,
ISBN 9780822343134, £13.99 (pbk).
For years, those in the human rights field have searched for solutions to the problems
associated with promoting human rights to indigenous peoples. From a legal perspective,
there is often a disassociation between the law as a set of norms embodied in interna-
tional human rights treaties and the perils of implementing these norms equally in every
state. It is from the social science perspective that the perils of juxtaposing universal
human rights discourse with centuries-old indigenous community practice are illumi-
nated. It is this illumination that necessitates the evaluation of the international human
rights discourse in the context of indigenous peoples.
Most observers agree that human rights discourse appeared in Central America
simultaneously with the neo-liberalization of the region. Looking at the environments
Book reviews 129
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