Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Patriotism, Pandemic, And Precarity: How The Alt-Right And White Nationalist Movement Used The Pandemic, Arthur J. Jipson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore how the so-called Alt-Right and White Nationalist movement used conspiracy theories around the origin and challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic to recruit members, advance their causes, and create social and cultural discord in an effort to create legitimacy for their racist and white supremacist attacks on community. After a discussion of the current state of the Alt-Right and White Nationalist movement, the workshop will interrogate the various online tools used by these groups to attack and dismantle community and human rights initiatives. The workshop concludes with an interactive activity that helps participants explore how these efforts …

Corporate Accountability In Transitional Justice: Reflections On An Ongoing Social Lab (Roundtable), Tatiana Devia, Avery Kelly, Kaushik Sunder Rajan

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This roundtable describes and reflects upon the Corporate Liability and Sustainable Peace (CLASP) Lab, a “social lab” convened to advance corporate accountability in post-conflict and transitional justice settings around the world. Launched in February 2021, the CLASP Lab is a virtual forum in three languages, bringing together more than 40 lawyers and community activists from 25 countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East to share experiences and devise strategies for holding corporations accountable for human rights violations, as part of processes of transitional justice.

The Rights Of Children And Families: Local Initiatives In The Miami Valley, Kelly S. Johnson, Raymond L. Fitz, Vanessa Ward, Jan Lepore-Jentleson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Dayton’s Committee on the Place-Based Two-Generation Approach to Poverty completed a working paper titled “A Call for Community Long-Term Recovery Plan” in January of 2021, arguing for an approach to recovery that is strategic, efficient, equity-focused, and regional. Practitioners and theorists connected to this document will address challenges and opportunities for addressing the rights of children in this area, particularly addressing the ways a regional approach can help to dismantle the legacy of historical injustices as we try to build back better.

Interesting Times: Returning To Blended Activism In A Culture Of Impunity, Eugene R. Sensenig

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Presentation

Does Human Rights Derogation Limit Covid-19 Infections?, Brian K. Gran, Reema Sen

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The purpose of this project is to model and understand socio-legal responses to the spread of COVID-19—in particular, emergency measures that derogate from states’ human rights commitments. Derogation of human rights in response to COVID-19 is unprecedented, according to some experts (Scheinin 2020). This project investigates whether combinations of conditions, such as moderate human rights derogation in combination with strong health infrastructures, reduce degrees of virus transmission and promote prevention. Its preliminary findings indicate that suspension of some rights appears crucial to limiting COVID-19 infections, but suspension of many rights has limited impacts, raising questions for practices of human rights …

Holistic Well-Being And Humanitarian Workers During Covid-19: Concepts, Challenges, And Recommendations, Nicholas Sherwood

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated conflict dynamics and humanitarian disasters around the world, including Syria, Yemen, and East Africa. Humanitarian efforts designed to address these dynamics and disasters are also falling prey to the fallout of COVID, most notably increases in psychological distress experienced by humanitarian workers (HW) operating on the front lines of humanitarian zones. As such, new and innovative practices must be explored to support HW as they continue their desperately needed work; this imperative is further bolstered by calls in international human rights-based documents (e.g., Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant …

Norm Diffusion Or Norm Backsliding? A Text Analysis Of Anti-Lgbtq Rhetoric, Christopher Patane, Marc S. Polizzi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

How are counter-norms manufactured, and what are their components? Current literature on norm diffusion largely views the process as linearly progressive. In other words, norms progress towards greater inclusion. However, notable cases such as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s controversial use of traditional values in the UN Human Rights Council demonstrates a potential backlash to this progression. Building on our previous case study work of Russian anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and its spread to the United States, in this paper we examine the timing and content of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric using text analysis. This allows us to model the sequencing of messaging and whether …

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 …

A Case Study Of Pregnant Migrants In Detention, Abby Wheatley, Samantha Nabaty

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

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 …

Mental Health In The Undocuqueer Community, Cailan Cordwell

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Trauma is increasingly experienced by people in transit as border militarization increases migrants’ exposure to violence and forces them into more precarious situations. For queer migrants, this includes situations where they are more likely to experience persecution and sexual violence. This presentation explores the availability of care for queer undocumented migrants in the United States after surviving a precarious and potentially deadly journey from their country of origin to the US, as well as forms of alternative care developed by the undocuqueer community. In particular, I focus on access to care for LGBT migrants, who face stigmatization on multiple levels …

Developing A Practice In Remote Sensing For Next-Generation Human Rights Researchers, Theresa Harris, Jonathan Drake, Umesh K. Haritashya, Wumi Asubiaro Dada, Fredy Cumes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Remote sensing is increasingly recognized as an important tool for documenting human rights abuses. When used alongside interviews, case studies, surveys, forensic science, and other well-established research methods in human rights and humanitarian practice, remotely sensed data can effectively geolocate and establish chronologies for mass graves, forced displacement, destruction of cultural heritage sites, and other violations. But as a highly technical field of science that relies on ever-changing technologies, remote sensing and geospatial analysis are not readily accessible for human rights and humanitarian practitioners. The community of practice grew out of innovative work by practitioners at NGOs and specialized inter-governmental …

Migration And Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, And Survival In The Americas, Miranda Cady Hallett, Joseph Nevins, Jamie Longazel, Amelia Frank-Vitale, Alicia Yvonne Estrada, Abby C. Wheatley

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This panel presents research from the new edited volume Migration and Mortality (edited by Longazel and Hallett, Temple University Press, 2021). Death threatens migrants physically during perilous border crossings between Central and North America, but many also experience legal, social, and economic mortality. Rooted in histories of colonialism and conquest, exclusionary policies and practices deliberately take aim at racialized, dispossessed people in transit. Once in the new land, migrants endure a web of systems across every facet of their world—work, home, healthcare, culture, justice—that strips them of their personhood, denies them resources, and creates additional obstacles that deprive them of …

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 …

Pilot Assessment Plan: Intercultural And Global Learning, Amy Anderson, Sangita Gosalia, Zoe Krzywda, Kelly Trail, Kelly Bohrer

Learning Teaching Forum

During the 2019-2020 academic year, this project team reviewed tools for intercultural and global learning and assessment. Our objective was to consider opportunities to support student growth and development and assess student learning at the program and/or institutional levels. We looked at some instruments we currently use, along with several others. In addition, we reviewed several content platforms that support student learning. While each had its pros and cons, we identified three tools for a pilot:

• Assessment - The Global Engagement Survey
• Content platform - Solidarity Modules
• Content platform - Global Competency Certificate

Participants will have the opportunity to learn …

Contesting Human Rights Defenders At The Un Human Rights Council, M. Joel Voss

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights defenders are being increasingly targeted across the globe. The rise of nationalist, populist regimes is of great concern to both human rights defenders and those that advocate for the rights of defenders. The problem is not only of domestic concern. The UN Human Rights Council, the UN’s preeminent human rights institution, is also seeing an increasing number of attacks on defenders, both in formal settings like discussions on resolutions and the Universal Periodic Review process and informally, through threats to participants at the Council.

This paper attempts to better understand and predict which states will both try to …

Toward A Human Rights Impact Assessment Tool, Mona Younis

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights organizations are increasingly questioned about impact, which is particularly challenging for overextended and under-resourced groups that tackle complex issues requiring a long view to be achieved. They would greatly benefit from a manageable assessment tool to capture how well they are doing on key dimensions that are essential for that long-view impact. Building on my experience with the Ford Foundation’s Organizational Mapping Tool designed to assess organizational capacity, I propose to develop a tool to assess human rights impact.

The tool will enable any human rights organization to assess how it is doing in areas that are essential …

Professional Resistance Of Lawyers: Defending Human Rights And The Rule Of Law In Hong Kong After Umbrella Movement, Yan-Ho Lai

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Purpose: Against the backdrops of deteriorating human rights protections and the rule of law after the unprecedented Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, this paper investigates the roles and impacts of mobilised legal profession in resisting China’s authoritarian rule over and defending domestic human rights regime in Hong Kong. This paper argues that, despite the legal profession of Hong Kong becomes further divided under the political and economic statecraft, lawyer activism as a professional resistance becomes a new force to resist the political intervention of the rule of law as well as deepening the cultural and institutional foundations of the rule …

Modeling Resilience In Resettled Syrian Refugees With Disabilities, Nicholas Sherwood

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Since 2011, the ongoing conflict in Syria has displaced millions of individuals, many of whom are now resettled across foreign borders. The US currently hosts 21,000 Syrian refugees, and of these, at least 5,000 have a form of disability. Furthermore, many US-based resettlement agencies currently experience strain providing the specialized care required by many of these resettled Syrian refugees with disabilities (RSRD) in large part due to austerity measures imposed by the US Federal government. This research project asks of RSRD themselves: given the limitations placed on your care providers, what personal sources of strength do you utilize when you …

From Birmingham To Lima: Expanding Mobility For Persons With Disabilities, Shane Burns

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Social issues such as resource allocation, distributive justice, and civic participation have been the hallmarks of human rights discourse. These issues are particularly salient to persons with disabilities, arguably one of the most excluded communities in the world despite representing over 15% of the global population. Inaccessibly built environments are one the key barriers for persons with disabilities because they prohibit full access to spaces and services that promote social inclusion. Additionally, persons with disabilities have drawn limited attention from the realms of urban planning and development. As a result, the importance of disability rights must be viewed as a …

The Campus Human Rights Index: Measuring University Commitment To Human Rights, Charles Crabtree, Volha Chykina, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Michelle Bellino

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

To what extent do universities respect human rights? Despite the prevailing view that universities are bastions of progressive ideas with a bias for rights protection, anecdotal evidence suggests that they diverge significantly in their commitment to promote and protect human rights, even within the U.S. To this point, though, there exists no systematic measure of university human rights commitments. In this manuscript, we introduce the first such indicator - the Campus Human Rights Index (CHRI). We describe the measure and introduce our initial ranking of universities. We then formally assess the construct validity of our measure by comparing it to …

Ferguson To Geneva: Bringing An American Movement For Racial Justice To The World, Joel Pruce

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In December 2014, nearly four months after the shooting of Michael Brown, a delegation that included Brown's parents testified in front of the Committee against Torture in Geneva, Switzerland. While protest continued on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri (USA), this team delivered a report to the Committee that articulated the human rights claims of protestors to the international community. But, why? What did the delegation hope to accomplish that could not be satisfied through domestic channels, especially in a liberal democracy? Drawing on interviews with delegates and primary source research, I will examine rationales that may explain the political strategy …

Obstacles To Excellence: Academic Freedom And China's Quest For World-Class Universities, Chelsea Blackburn Cohen

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

China’s government has made significant investments to develop universities that already compete with the world’s best. Their progress has captured global attention over the years, with universities around the world forging partnerships with institutions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and scholars and students around the world flocking to study, teach, and research in the country. But while China continues to stoke its ambitions for developing more world-class universities, respect for academic freedom and other human rights essential to quality higher education lags behind, leaving scholars and students at risk, and the country’s goals in balance.

With the recent …

Human Rights And The Smart City, Tina Reuter

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper examines how technological solutions, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and smart city initiatives can become avenues to produce urban spaces that reflect fundamental human rights values such as non-discrimination, equality, and access for all.Cities today are drivers of human rights activity and serve as hubs for technological advances, political and economic innovation, and social justice. Nevertheless, the inclusion of marginalized communities continues to be a challenge. ICTs and smart city initiatives are often cited to foster urban integration, to improve citizen participation in decision-making processes, and to enhancecommunity resilience. At the same time, using technologies can amplify social …

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 …

Grassroots Globalism: Human Rights Cities And Local Human Rights Implementation, Jackie Smith

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This presentation reports on how local human rights activists are mobilizing around the United States's 2019-2020 Universal Periodic Review process in the UN Human Rights Council. Organizers with the US Human Rights Cities Alliance have been promoting "UPR Cities" to engage local activists in work to document local human rights conditions and develop recommendations for a national civil society stakeholder report that will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council. The UPR Cities serves three key purposes: First, it helps inform and inspire local and trans-local mobilization and alliance building around a human rights framework, advancing analyses of the …

Engaging And Mobilizing Men To Promote Women's Human Rights, Rus Ervin Funk

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Over the past twenty years, there have been increasing of and progressively more effective efforts to engage, mobilize and organize men in support of advancing women’s human rights. The Declaration from the UN conference on Women in Beijing, the Declaration from the UN Report on, and the UNHCR Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women all make powerful statements as to the need to engage men and boys in efforts to promote and enhance gender equality and women’s human rights. Most recently, the UN HCR agreed upon Declaration 35/10 (2017) outlined in very concrete and specific ways that male …

On The Need For Human Rights To Constitute Structural Change: Lessons For Colombia From The Arab Spring’S Failures, Anthony Chase

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Transitional processes have nowhere failed as spectacularly than in the wake of the Arab Spring's "revolutions." Contrary to popular expectations, these revolutions gave way to counter-revolutions rather than transitions to democracy and pluralistic politics. This article argues that, by settling for transitions to mere formal democracies, an opportunity was lost to engage in necessary structural change. While understandable that transitional processes shied away from addressing controversial issues -- including how to translate diversity in religious, gender, sexual, and ideological domains into the foundation of new political communities -- not doing so was a fatal error as it left untouched preexisting …

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 …