Django REST framework object level permissions

I have done this in the past using a custom permission and overridden has_object_permission like the following:

from rest_framework import permissions


class MyUserPermissions(permissions.BasePermission):
    """
    Handles permissions for users.  The basic rules are

     - owner may GET, PUT, POST, DELETE
     - nobody else can access
     """

    def has_object_permission(self, request, view, obj):

        # check if user is owner
        return request.user == obj

You can do some more detailed things such as deny specific request types (for instance to allow a GET requests for all users):

class MyUserPermissions(permissions.BasePermission):

    def has_object_permission(self, request, view, obj):

        # Allow get requests for all
        if request.method == 'GET':
            return True
        return request.user == obj

Then in your view you tell it to use the permissions class:

from my_custom_permissions import MyUserPermissions

class UserView(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
    ...
    permission_classes = (MyUserPermissions, )
    ...