Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Critiquing And Constructing Hre In Higher Education, Sarita Cargas, Kristina R. Eberbach, Glenn Mitoma, Kristi Rudelius-Palmer, Sandra Sirota

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore the histories of human rights programs in various institutional contexts; share promising practices and current challenges in the areas of teaching, research, and engagement; and present a draft roadmap for collaborative efforts to advance HRE in colleges and universities. The steering committee of the University and College Consortium will address these themes and present outcomes from a meeting of human rights higher education programs that takes place in August 2019. That meeting included representatives from more than a dozen leading US human rights programs, and featured in-depth and candid discussions of the past, present, and future …

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 …

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 …

Delinking The "Human" From Human Rights: Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism And The Future Of Human Rights, A. Kayum Ahmed

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human rights discourses are deeply embedded in an epistemic anthropocentricism that centers the human in human rights. However, conceptions of what constitutes the human are being eroded through the development of artificial intelligence, bio-hacking and transhumanism, all of which, support the emergence of new kinds of humans.These emergent humans include the enhanced human who possesses abilities that compel us to reconsider the parameters of humanness, as well as computer systems that demonstrate characteristics thought of as uniquely human. The blurring of the divide between human and machine therefore compels us to reconsider our understanding of the human in human rights, …

Ud In The News Sept. 30-Oct. 4, University Of Dayton

News Releases

Inside Higher Ed prominently featured the School of Law's online hybrid J.D. program; CNBC.com tapped aviation historian Janet Bednarek's expertise for its story, 'How U.S. airports make money'; and The Atlantic interviewed political scientist Joshua Ambrosius for a story on the 2020 election.

Connection, Interaction, Inspiration — Our Roesch Library, Paul Benson

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Provost Paul Benson reflects on the strength and adaptability of libraries in his remarks during the Sept. 27, 2019, dedication of the Roesch Library renovation, dubbed "Roesch Refresh."

Moving Forward From Tragedy, Lauren Durham

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Two months after a mass shooting in Dayton, campus continues to care for its own and talk about how to stay safe and well.

Faculty Affairs Committee Minutes Of The Academic Senate 2019-10-04, University Of Dayton. Faculty Affairs Committee

All Committee Minutes

Approved minutes of a meeting of the Faculty Affairs Committee of the Academic Senate of the University of Dayton.

2019-10-04 Minutes Of The Executive Committee Of The Academic Senate, University Of Dayton. Academic Senate. Executive Committee

ECAS Minutes

Approved minutes of a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Academic Senate of the University of Dayton.

Power And Participation In Philanthropy: Human Rights As A Goal Or A Process?, Katy Love, Diana Samarasan, Allistair Mallillin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This session will examine why it is critical — when addressing human rights — to break down traditional funder approaches and barriers in favor of participation, transparency, accountability, and collaboration.

Rehumanization Among Veterans Of The Yugoslav Wars: Rethinking Reconciliation And Post-Conflict Justice, Jordan N. Kiper

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Rehumanization is a central element in powerful social movements after war. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the Balkans, I consider the convergence and divergence between notions of rehumanization found in human rights literature and the role of rehumanization among veterans in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. Rehumanization plays a prominent role among these veterans because of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has had varied social effects on Balkan communities. By supporting the ICTY, veteran associations have vetted themselves of potential war criminals, and thereby developed overlapping justice discourses that converge on the notion of reconciliation. There are …

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.

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 …

Finding Restoration In The Prison Classroom: Teaching Transitional Justice On The Inside, Carrie Booth Walling

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

I would speak to the experience and lessons of teaching human rights and transitional justice courses inside a state correctional facility with a combined student cohort of traditional undergraduate students and incarcerated students in a shared classroom behind prison walls. The course focuses on collaborative learning and community building and was a revolutionary way to explore core transitional justice themes of forgiveness, reconciliation, truth telling and the tensions between restorative and retributive justice. Collectively we build hope by recognizing our common humanity.

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 …

Addressing Mass Atrocity In Chile: Learning And Unlearning As A Function Of Social Memory, Irving Epstein

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this presentation, I reference a chapter, that is taken from my newly published book, Affect Theory and Comparative Education Discourse: Essays on Fear and Loathing in Response to Global Educational Policy and Practice (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). I argue that when schools fail to address issues of social memory or basic existential questions involved in the pursuit of meaning-making for the purposes of understanding human rights issues, popular support evolves for other institutions to fill the void. Through examining the case of Chile, efforts to memorialize victims of the Pinochet dictatorship occur in the absence of robust initiatives to address …

Cultivating Political Engagement On The Migrant Trail, Abby Wheatley

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this paper, I examine the political dimensions and possibilities of the Migrant Trail, a 7-day, 75-mile collective walk from Sasabe, Sonora to Tucson, Arizona that seeks to witness and contest the dangerous and sometimes fatal conditions created by US border enforcement. I conceptualize the Migrant Trail as both a space of encounter (encuentro) and a pedagogical space that facilitates learning by exposing the consequences of prevention through deterrence strategies that weaponize the desert to control migration. As an autonomous political intervention, the Migrant Trail acts politically by reframing relations between people and creating a political space for dialogue that …

Institutionalizing Rights: The Rise And Fall Of The Human Rights Paradigm In Managing Migration, Todd Scribner

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In a December 2018 message to a gathering in Rome, Pope Francis challenged attendees to place “human rights at the centre of all policies,” even if it meant going against the grain of popular opinion. The occasion for his message was the 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, at least rhetorically, placed human rights at the center of the international order. Three years after its proclamation, the United Nations used the Universal Declaration as a key pillar on which it built its Convention Related to the Status of Refugees, thus making human rights a …

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 …

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.

Innovations In Corporate Accountability, Joanne Bauer, Paul Rissman, Charity Ryerson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Where corporate actors are behind human rights abuse, how do we hold them accountable? How can victims access remedy, and what means do we have to deter corporate crime? This dynamic conversation will explore the potential emergent strategies in the field of human rights that aim to address the shortfalls of past efforts, and consider the many challenges that remain.

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 …

Human Rights Litigation And Anti-Sodomy Laws In Kenya And Botswana, Andrew Novak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In May 2019, the Kenya High Court is expected to rule on Sections 162 and 165 of the penal code, which criminalize consensual sex between two adult men. Similarly, the Botswana High Court will rule on its equivalent penal code provisions, Sections 164 and 165, in June 2019. Regardless of the outcomes of these decisions, both will contribute to a global “judicial dialogue” on the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws. In jurisdictions as diverse as Northern Ireland, Belize, Singapore, South Africa, the United States, and most recently India, courts around the world have considered whether anti-sodomy laws violate the rights to …

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 …

“Water Is A Human Right”: Exploring The Paradox Of Framing Water As A Human Right In A Hostile Political Climate, Sabrina Kozikis

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Many communities across the United States experience challenges in accessing clean and affordable water. In response, civil society and grassroots organizations are using a human rights framework to advocate for safe and affordable services for all. This is a curious trend, given that the United States is a country in which human rights, specifically socio-economic rights, are not recognized as relevant for domestic policy and even met with hostility. This study explores this tension: why do civil society actors, grassroots organizers, and national level advocates in the United States use a human rights framework to advocate for access to clean …

Innovative Collaboration To Further Community Self-Determination, Matthew Currie, Amaha Sellassie

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The built urban environment is the product of more than a century of policy decisions that have both intentionally discriminated and have had the effect of discriminating, against African Americas, immigrants, the work class, low income individuals and other undesirables. While more than fifty years have passed since the passage of civil rights legislation in the United States, individuals in today’s cities are living out our discriminatory legacy.

In Dayton, Ohio, a new movement has risen from the community to disrupt the legacy of de jure and de facto discrimination by the collaborative efforts of the impactive individuals, neighborhood leaders, …

Fiscal Citizenship: How Can Tax Efficiency And Isonomy Aid In The Promotion Of Economic Rights, Social Participation, Political Accountability, And Cultural Diversity?, Gustavo Voeroes Dénes

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

According to the World Inequality Report 2018 (WID 2017), Brazil is one of the few countries that has not recently displayed an increase in income inequality, having instead sustained it on persistently very high levels, actually composing the world’s “inequality frontier”. While such levels of inequality may be partly attributed to poor distribution of property rights, human capital endowments, and specificity of labor relations, a significant part of it is undoubtedly due the national fiscal system’s reduced distributive capacity, compromised by one the worst taxation systems in the world. Occupying the 184th position out of 190 countries in the World …

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 …