This essay draws on my scholarly work to introduce a new theoretical approach to a broader scholarly community beyond the U.S. sociology audience. I recently published an article titled “Rights Projects: A Relational Sociology of Rights in Globalization” in the journal Sociological Theory.1 In this article, I develop what I call a relational sociology of rights. Rather than viewing rights as fixed entities – like a set list of privileges and entitlements – I argue that rights should be understood as relational constructs. Their meaning and significance arise from the specific social relations in which they are embedded. To explain how rights are constructed through relationships on a global scale, I introduce the concept of a “rights project.” A rights project refers to the complex efforts of marginalized communities to imagine, claim, and realize rights on their own terms, in ways that resonate with them. This involves mobilizing symbolic and material resources across various relational contexts, from interpersonal interactions to institutions, and across different scales, from local to global. In these contexts, “rights” take on specific meanings, which can either enable or constrain certain actions. Each rights project has its own distinct goals, priorities, strategies, legitimizing particular actors, institutions, and spaces in the practice of rights. These projects emerge from the intersection of global, regional, and local forces, where the meaning and impact of rights are continuously redefined.

Theoretically, I build on the framework of relational sociology, drawing from the work of scholars like Matthew Desmond,2 Mustafa Emirbayer,3 and Margaret Somers4 to explore how rights are constructed in global and transnational contexts. I also take seriously the calls from postcolonial sociologists, including Julian Go5 and Vrushali Patil,6 to pay attention to the colonial and imperial dynamics that continue to shape our social world and even the way we think about concepts like rights. What I am doing differently here is broadening this relational approach to include not just the West and its former colonies but also emerging global powers and interactions within the Global South and other non-Western regions. I am situating the relational construction of rights on a global scale, which means I am not suggesting that human rights discourse, as formulated by the UN or the U.S., just trickles down to the rest of the world. Nor am I saying that rights are inherently Western and therefore always rejected in the non-Western world. Instead, I argue that we need to look at how different historical, geopolitical, and transnational relationships – like the rise of China as a global power, or the influence of neoliberal economies – play a role in shaping how rights are understood and contested worldwide. A relational sociology of rights means examining how long-standing colonial and imperial dynamics interact with newer global and transnational factors. It is about exploring how rights are politicized and contested in this complex, interconnected world.

Conceptually, I am pushing the boundaries of the political and cultural sociology of rights by introducing the “rights project” concept as a new analytic tool. This concept addresses the limitations of existing approaches by focusing on how the very notion of rights is imagined, articulated, and enacted differently in various relational settings and contexts. Compared to existing concepts such as “human rights regimes,” “human rights enterprise,” “human rights markets,” “human rights industry,” or “human rights field,” which often view rights through a fixed lens – whether as universal norms, indigenous traditions, or colonial impositions – I am suggesting a shift in understanding rights as relational constructs. This means that the concept of rights changes its form and meaning depending on particular geographic, historical, and cultural contexts. In essence, my work takes the call for a “critical sociology of rights” by offering this relational perspective. What I am really challenging here is the idea that rights are some kind of universal norm or, alternatively, just an imposition of Western values. Instead, I advocate for an understanding of rights as relational constructs, whose meanings and significance emerge from the specific social, historical, and cultural contexts in which they are pursued. The idea of a rights project shows how rights take on different forms and meanings in different places and times, requiring us to look closely at how these rights are constructed in relation to the particular contexts in which they exist.

When studying rights projects, there are three sets of key questions to explore. First, what conditions lead to the emergence of a rights project? What global, regional, and local factors influence the production and reproduction of a particular rights project? How does a rights project in one place connect with or affect ideas and practices elsewhere? Second, how do rights projects build their claims from the ground up? How do marginalized communities envision, articulate, and pursue their specific meanings of rights, along with their unique goals, priorities, and strategies? How do these processes unfold among various groups, organizations, and institutions? Third, what are the broader effects and implications of a rights project? Since the development of a rights project often intertwines with other political and cultural forces, it is more complex than just passing a law or policy or changing attitudes and media portrayals. So how do we make sense of the nuanced and sometimes contradictory impacts of a rights project within its relational context? In other words, how do rights become meaningful projects within a network of relationships?

I approach rights projects as “relational objects” of study rather than focusing on specific groups or locations. Relational sociologists use various methods, from archival research to ethnography, to understand the web of relationships involved. While relational analysis is often seen as an alternative to comparative methods, which tend to assume coherent, separate entities like nation-states, I believe that relational and comparative approaches can be compatible in studying rights projects. To study a rights project as a relational object, one must examine the relationships between different actors and institutions and understand how people interpret these relationships, sometimes across different social spaces and national borders. Comparative analysis does not always have to reinforce the idea of bounded identities or territories. For example, ethnographic comparisons across different field sites or cases can enrich relational analysis by showing how insights from one context can be applied to others and by revealing connections across cases. Building on this idea, I illustrate how rights projects are relationally constructed in two different contexts.

Some of my empirical research shows that “LGBTQ rights” are not simply accepted as global norms or dismissed as Western impositions. Instead, they are translated and reimagined in various relational settings, turning into specific projects involving a network of social relationships and actors. For instance, my article in Social Movement Studies demonstrates that, in Taiwan, queer activists focus on “equality,” working on legal changes and pushing their successes onto the international stage, often in strategic partnership with state actors.7 Another article of mine, published in The Sociological Review, presents a contrasting case in Singapore, where queer activists frame their efforts around “diversity,” forming alliances with transnational corporations and building communities within the private sector.8 These two cases show that “LGBTQ rights” cannot be boiled down to single-issue laws or associated solely with Western strategies like “coming out” or public demonstrations. Instead, they need to be understood as context-specific projects built across multiple relational settings and scales.

My work focuses on LGBTQ rights politics to re-examine some of the critiques and dismissals of the notion of rights within gender and sexuality studies. There has been a tendency in these fields to view rights as inherently liberal and individualistic, which has led to a widespread rejection of the concept. For instance, queer studies have critiqued mainstream LGBTQ movements for being too closely tied to liberal ideals of normalcy, respectability, and assimilation, particularly within the context of neoliberalization. In this view, “LGBTQ rights” often get equated with the privileges of white, middle-class LGBTQ individuals, to the detriment of other marginalized queer communities. While these critiques have shed light on the specific U.S. context in which these rights have been pursued, they do not necessarily apply in the same way to other relational contexts. My research suggests that a relational sociology of rights can help decenter the U.S.-centric universalism that often underlies both the concept and the critiques of rights. Through the concept of a rights project, I offer a way to better understand how U.S.-based queer politics developed in relation to factors like U.S. imperialism, anti-Black and anti-immigrant racism, and neoliberalism. When we look at similar pursuits of LGBTQ rights in other contexts, we might see different rights projects with distinct goals, priorities, and strategies. My work advocates moving away from both the U.S.-centric foundations of the notion of rights and the radical rejection of rights per se, toward a decolonial approach that considers how rights are embraced, negotiated, or even rejected by marginalized communities in diverse relational contexts around the world.