ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to the human rights city. It situates the idea in the expanding academic literature on human rights and cities and then defines the human rights city against competing conceptualisations. A sociological approach to the study of the human rights city is subsequently offered, drawing on the works of Bourdieu and Foucault. The human rights city emerges out of the competition and collaboration between a variety of social agents and their organisations, from civil society and human rights institutions to municipalities and their networks. This process is characterised by the production of discourses towards imposing certain definitions and uses of human rights in cities. As the focus moves from human rights agents to local governments, a critical emphasis is placed on the added value of processes of institutionalisation of human rights in cities, as well as the relation and tension between a human rights and a neoliberal practice of city. The chapter then moves to position the human rights city in its historical and political context. Finally, a discussion is offered of the methodology and of the three cities examined in the book, as well as a short chapter overview.
