Personalising Human Rights

This chapter looks into this question through the contested norm of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights. I examine the relationship between human rights and storytelling, and how the latter is being used as evidence, a mobilisation tool and means of localising the global normative packages. Moving on to the UNDP’s project Being LGBT in Asia, the first UN initiative addressing LGBT rights in the region, I trace the ways in which personal stories are chosen. Instead of training and empowering the narrators, norm translators focus on the selection and organisation of typical stories in order to highlight structural restraints in defined areas and justify normative changes. Furthermore, the selected personal stories maintain the centrality of individuals in human rights advocacy, while redefining and shifting the meaning of individuality and personhood to include local norms such as family roles.