Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Fratelli Tutti: Pope Francis And The Catholic Response To Human Rights, Tiffany Hunsinger

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

On October 4, 2020, Pope Francis issued a letter to the world entitled Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship.

The document served as a culmination of the Church’s response to the global pandemic, as well as the more considerable perils of throwaway culture. This presentation will explore the specific response of the Catholic Church as it attempts to counter destructive boundaries and structure of its institution.

Pope Francis continues a tradition in pastoral response to the “signs of the times.” However, can the Church respond effectively in this current world?

Or do the needed changes surpass the capability …

Witnessing Anew: Human Rights Advocacy For Migrants At The U.S. Southern Border In Covid-19 Times, Ellen Maccarone

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this paper I provide a case study of transnational migrant advocacy done by the Kino Border Initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before the pandemic I spent a week with KBI for an immersion experience part of which focused on the ideas of human rights advocacy and witnessing. “Witness” in this context has both a spiritual/moral dimension and an experiential one that can form a foundation for advocacy. Using accounts of migrants to inform and humanize changed when interpersonal witnessing became impossible during the pandemic. This increased the levels of human rights abuses experienced by migrants and limited the …

Captivity As Crisis Response: Migration, The Pandemic, And Forms Of Confinement, Eleanor Paynter

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

During Europe’s recent “refugee crisis,” Italy responded to increased migrant arrivals by sea with progressively restrictive border and asylum policies. While crisis-response restrictions are perhaps unsurprising, those implemented since 2014 have produced a set of situations that appear, at least initially, paradoxical: Following Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s 2018 “Closed Ports” campaign, independently-operated rescue ships continue to be blocked from disembarking the migrants they have rescued. At the same time, asylum officials have rejected claims for protection at higher rates, while border officials deport a minority of those whose claims are rejected. Thus, under the guise of crisis management, some migrants …

Refugee Homes And The Right To Property: Sunk Costs And Networked Mobility, Jordan Hayes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

For refugees outside their state of origin, access to humanitarian protection can come at the cost of the right to own a home. Following Anneke Smit’s scholarship on the possible contradictions between humanitarian protection and property rights, this paper explores the case of refugee homes built in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by Syrian asylum seekers. Interviews with Syrian refugees collected in Iraq from 2018-2019 reveal the paradoxical situation faced by refugees who invest time, expertise, memory, hope, and money in a house—yet do not own it. While non-citizens in the KRI rarely have the chance to secure legal …

Get Home Safe: Art As Resistance, Human Rights Education, And Liberation In Incarcerated Spaces, Marissa Gutierrez-Vicario

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Abstract:

In this presentation, Marissa Gutierrez-Vicario will speak about her work with Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), a New York-based non-governmental organization that works to amplify the voices of young people for human rights change through the visual arts. ARTE works in public schools, with community organizations, and in carceral facilities. As part of ARTE’s work, the presentation will discuss the joys and challenges of delivering human rights education and arts-based curriculum inside of jail facilities in a post-pandemic world, while simultaneously advocating for abolition as part of the mass incarceration movement within the United States. Also throughout the …

Comic Books, Satire, And The American Police State: Lessons From The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Jamie Michaels

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the spirit of the #DefundThePolice and #BlackLivesMatter movements, protestors in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) declared sovereignty over 5½ city blocks. Emboldened by the potential for mass mobilization enabled by the COVID-19 pandemic protestors attempted to establish a racially egalitarian society that would exist without the police, the traditional enforcement mechanism of the white supremacist American state.

This paper explores how Alex Graham’s Dog Biscuits (2021) and Simon Hanselmann’s, Crisis Zone (2021) portray the ways CHAZ protestors utilized absurdity in the face of extreme violence to enact indiffernation—a unique affect comprised of indifference and determination. This affect …

Charles Gibson And Indian Territory's Periodical Press, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

I argue that Charles Gibson (Creek writer and journalist) offers an important but woefully understudied voice of resistance to the changes imposed upon the tribes of Indian Territory around the turn of the 20th century (such as forced allotment of tribal lands, dissolution of tribal governments, and Oklahoma statehood). In his regular column, “Rifle Shots,” Gibson offered a dynamic space in which to process and comment upon these changes. More specifically, while Gibson was quite outspoken in his critiques of the ways in which U.S. policies threatened Creeks’ sovereignty, culture, and well-being, his column also frequently contained reworkings of traditional …

The Power Of Collaboration: Cross-Boundary Contributions To Students’ Holistic Success, Dorothy Mensah-Aggrey

Learning Teaching Forum

Kennedy Union 311

Cross boundary and collaborative education have existed in the past. The University of Dayton’s attempt to reignite these concepts of education is in line with its Catholic Marianist identity. Education can be achieved in silos or collaboration of various entities on campus, both face-to-face and in current times, online as well. This presentation will offer ways in which the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives has in the past achieved collaboration with other departments on campus, and how this can be done across the board for maximum student development.

Keywords: Catholic, collaborate, develop, educate, students, whole person, online formation, …

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

Reclaiming Impact In The Age Of Awareness-Raising For Human Rights, Azadeh Pourzand, Ali Arab

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the last decade, the practice of awareness-raising for human rights has appeared as notably common across the board. Nevertheless, widespread awareness-raising has not necessarily always resulted in meaningful and sustainable impact. Accepting that awareness raising is not a panacea, we challenge the global collective fascination with big impact, while considering the power of small strategic impact that invests in education, and building alliances, and has the potential to last and to expand by way of gradual encroachment through contextually-defined grassroots means natural to its course.

Empowered through social media, advocates are increasingly enthusiastic about reaching massive audiences by way …

The Segregation Of Religion: How Othering Influences Society’S Narrative Understanding About The Symbiotic Relationship Among Racism, Sexism, And The Church, Ajanet Rountree

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The social dependence on the sociology of male spiritual leadership is substantial. This dependence accomplishes two ideas: neutralizes the feminine experience and obviates the anthropological implications of religion in the perpetuation of oppression and subjugation. When considering racism and sexism in religion, specifically as they relate to the Black Christian church, a dismissal of accusations and assertions occurs by yielding to the context of the social era. This paper seeks to further clarify the position of women, who pushed against the grain of the gendered and racialized spaces of their churches and communities, as they sought to establish human rights …

Risking Rescue: The Politics Of Precarity In Mediterranean Crossing, Eleanor Paynter

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Over the course of Europe’s recent refugee crisis, the role of Search and Rescue (SAR) has changed dramatically, first forming a critical part of (inter)national responses to the crisis, and now occupying an antagonistic position, as countries have closed their ports to NGO-operated vessels and the European Commission (EC) has ceased naval Search and Rescue operations. As a result, migrants crossing the Central Mediterranean face different and increased risks, including dying at sea, being held by European authorities, or being apprehended closer to Libya and sent to a Libyan detention camp.

In response to these shifts, groups that continue SAR …

Grassroots Activism In Resolving Intractable Human Rights Problems: Theory And Case Studies From Ghana And Barcelona, Mette Brogden, Phyllis Taoua, Rashid Abubakar Iddrisu, Durado Brooks Jr, Francis M. Abugbilla

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Five presentations comprise this panel discussing grassroots activism in resolving intractable human rights problems. Presenters will provide case studies, theoretical framings, and practical steps to create salutogenic trajectories toward healthy societies and communities where marginalized people can realize human rights and freedoms to attain lives "they have reason to value" (cf. Amartya Sen). The Ghanaian and U.S. presenters include academic researchers, human rights practitioners, and independent artist/filmmakers.

Wounds, Remembrance, Sutures: Performing Existence In Times Of Gore Capitalism, Christina Baker

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Since 2006, the initiation of Mexico’s “War on Drugs,” the nation has experienced horrific violence despite increased militarization of its streets. As cartels have deepened their networks, controlling the northern border states and beyond, (random) acts of violence have become an endemic crisis. In this Mexico, one where a new daily vernacular constantly evolves to articulate brutal acts and the state has routinely espoused a rhetoric of ignorance, performer-activists have turned to creative initiatives to combat efforts that invisibilize and derealize victims. From her work, Gore Capitalism, in which she explores the human body as commodity and casualty in …

Literary Didacticism In Indigenous & Latinx Human Rights Literature, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This presentation offers a survey of the complex strategies literary advocates for indigenous and Latinx human rights have used for successfully educating, persuading, and engaging readers. I argue that the history of human rights literature demonstrates that finding an effective balance between political persuasion and constructing an engaging piece of fiction is quite challenging, while also suggesting strategies that have been proven over time to be more effective than others.

The Strategies And Risks Of Performing Citizenship And Rights Through Music, Carolin Mueller

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

My work explores the capacity of cultural producers to perform “insurgent citizenship,” a term theorized by James Holsten (2008) to describe how the peripheries of social organization can propel alternative modes of civic participation, through music. I utilize Engin Isin’s performative dimension of citizenship (2017) to investigate such forms of insurgent citizenship as they evolve in social and cultural peripheries of the contemporary arts and culture industry in the city of Dresden, Germany to identify the pathways they open to socio-political participation and autonomy for refugees.

While Germany understands itself as a nation of culture, cultural policy unevenly addresses the …

Hate Music On Youtube: The Dark Side Of Advancing Digital Freedom In Myanmar, Heather Maclachlan

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The International Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations has condemned Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya people as one of the world’s worst instances of ethnic cleansing, calling it “genocidal in intent.” The Rohingya are only one of many Muslim communities in Myanmar, a number of which have been subject to violent attacks by Buddhists in recent years (Wade 2017). This presentation explains the role that music plays in fostering anti-Muslim prejudice in the country’s majority Buddhist population. I present an analysis of the lyrics and accompanying videos of a corpus of recently recorded songs, all available on Youtube, and argue that …

Firing Queer Teachers From Catholic Schools: Ethical And Theological Considerations, Ish Ruiz

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Since 2007, there have been over 90 cases of queer employees fired from Catholic institutions – many of which include dismissals of queer educators from Catholic schools. As religious institutions, Catholic schools are constitutionally protected by a ministerial exception that offers legal immunity to Catholic educational institutions that fire queer employees (which are sometimes considered “ministers” by the courts). The ministerial exception is an extension of the institution’s right to religious freedom to promote its doctrine though its schools. Although this right to discriminate is legally protected, from a moral standpoint, one may argue that the exercise of one human …

The Rise Of ‘Right-Wing’ Human Rights Rhetoric: A Palestinian & Israeli Case Study, Leah Wilson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights are historically understood as ‘liberal’ rhetoric, yet the following study will present an unprecedented turn by an Israeli ‘right-wing’ organization to human rights language and methodologies as a means to advance their goals. For context, the study will review how ‘liberal’ organizations in the region have employed rights-based frameworks, dating back to the rise of the first intifada in the late 1980’s. Specifically, the study focuses on three organizations that utilize the Israeli court system for their work: ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel), Adalah (The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel), and HaMoked. Human …

Pope Francis, Human Rights, And The Crises Of Our Time, John Sniegocki

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

My paper/presentation will explore the holistic understanding of human rights contained in Catholic social teaching, with a focus on how Pope Francis applies this tradition to some of the major crises of our time. Particular attention will be given to issues of economic inequality, ecological devastation, migration, violence, and the rise of neo-fascist populist movements around the world. Francis’ integrated analysis of the common roots of these problems and his proposed constructive responses will be explored and assessed. Strong emphasis will be placed upon his understanding of the critical role to be played by grassroots movements and widespread popular mobilization.

Memoria Y Resistencia: Sharing Ud Experiences At The Encuentro To Close The School Of The Americas, Mary Niebler, Christina Baker

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

At UD, our Catholic and Marianist values inform us to uphold the human rights of all people, especially those whose agency has been diminished by unjust laws and corporate government policies. Guided by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, including solidarity with the poor, we seek ways to join together to bring about a more peaceful and just world. The annual SOA Watch Encuentro, a peaceful protest to close the School of the Americas (SOA), is such a movement.

Established in 1946, the SOA has operated at Fort Benning, Georgia since the 1980s. Technically closed in 2000, it immediately reopened …

Pre-Service Teachers And Middle School Students: A Collaboration For Social Justice Art Education, R. Darden Bradshaw

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Our lives are mediated through the visual which informs, in multiple and conflicting ways, our views, our beliefs, attitudes and mores, our choices, and thereby our resulting actions. This barrage of the visual impacts the postmodern student encountered in K-12 education. Students readily gain access to information that was once the sole domain of adults yet the prevailing system of education has not adapted. Visual culture is seldom used as an engagement strategy in school despite its ubiquitous role as hidden curriculum and ever-present place in the world beyond the school.

Social justice education underscores humanizing pedagogy as it examines …

Why Love Matters For Human Rights, Lena Khor

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights are typically thought of as a matter of justice, but I argue that at its core, human rights are a matter of love. To develop this argument, I analyze select literary representations of human rights at work including Dave Eggers’ What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Novel (2006) and Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003). My concept of love builds on the vision of “open love” proposed by French philosopher Henri Bergson in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion …

Biafra And The Politics Of Humanitarian Consumption, Chi-Chi Ayalogu

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70) is overwhelmingly represented by photographs of malnourished, sickly looking and often protein-deficient children, iconic and complex images that encapsulate the narrative of an impoverished black Africa in the western imagination. While these photographs reveal the grievous, inhuman atrocities that took place in Biafra, they have come to be negatively associated with the entirety of black Africa, as they tend to validate inaccurate ideas of homogeneity on the continent. Yet despite their homogenizing effect, Biafran leaders re-appropriated images of suffering for propaganda use, specifically to elicit a humanitarian response and thereby procure aid and resources from denizens …

Facing Human Rights: Theorizing Out Of The Experience Of Suffering, Patrick Ahern

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In contending that “the freedom of philosophy is nothing but the capacity to lend a voice to unfreedom,” Adorno recognized that the role of philosophy is to illuminate the deformity of that which is deformed in the structures of power and the institutions that preserve the status quo. A critical treatment of those concepts that obfuscate the realization of emancipation led Adorno, along with Horkheimer, to claim that, “the purpose of human rights was to promise happiness even where power is lacking.” In other words, the language of human rights served to stifle the experiences of the oppressed classes under …

The Right To Religious Freedom And Its Political Significance: Catholic And Islamic Approaches, Matthew Bagot

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

It is generally agreed that the Catholic Church formally committed itself to modern human rights in 1963 as a result of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical, Pacem in Terris.But it was the more specific historical development regarding the right to religious freedom that took place two years later at the Second Vatican Council, which really prompted global change. As Samuel Huntington wrote, the Church’s commitment to religious liberty on the part of all persons (and to the liberty of non-religious persons) had an extraordinary impact on democracy movements around the world. Indeed, Huntington referred to these movements as a “Catholic …

Partnering With Faith Communities: Challenges Of Religious And Secular Literacy, Rob Brodrick, Kelly S. Johnson, Anwar Khan, Leocadie Lushombo, Edith Tapia

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Partnering with Faith Communities: Challenges of Religious and Secular Literacy

While many scholars have noted the necessity of a grasp of the complexity of religious belief for engagement in international relations, human rights, and humanitarian work, the topic of religious belief remains fraught and underdeveloped in human rights activism. Concerns include the conviction that religion must be treated as private in order to preserve an inclusive public life; evidence that religious communities may oppose the human rights' groups commitments on LGBTQI and women's rights; and anxieties that various religious groups will exclude or manipulate those who are not members and …

Faking The News: Antiwar Activists, The Italo-Ethiopian War, And The Practice Of Human Rights, Caroline Waldron Merithew

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In “Faking the News,” I bring past and present together to underscore lessons already learned by antifascist antiwar activists from the 1930s. These activists used, what they termed, "Authentic News," to combat the propaganda Benito Mussolini's regime was making up about the Italo-Ethiopian war. How might knowing about how people faked the news,and faked out fascism, in the past shape current and future human rights actions and help us go against the grain today for a better world tomorrow?

No Human Right To Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition To Sogi Human Rights, Cynthia Burack

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The American Christian conservative movement is the most consistent and persistent adversary of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) civil rights in the US. In recent years, the Christian right has responded to changes in attitudes to same-sex sexuality in the US by relocating some of their attention and operations to issues and arenas of contest outside the US that hold more promise for implacable antagonism to rights and recognition for LGBTQ people. In some parts of the world, these US-based anti-LGBTQ actors have become recognized as “experts” on gender and sexual minorities and the dire consequences the existence of …

Human Development, Human Rights, And The 50th Anniversary Of Populorum Progressio, Ellen Maccarone

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

At the 50^th anniversary of the encyclical Populorum Progressio, we have a critical opportunity to bring Paul VI’s insights to the social practice of human rights. The development of peoples discussed by the encyclical isolates areas of significant concern to the Church and humanity more broadly. This, however, is not to say that there are not other issues overlooked in Populorum Progressio that also need to be addressed.

In this paper I argue that the understanding of human development found in Populorum Progressio serves as an important yet sometimes overlooked foundation in Catholic social teaching for the advancement of …