Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Who Practices Rights-Based Development? A Progress Report On Work At The Nexus Of Human Rights And Development (Abstract), Paul Nelson, Ellen Dorsey

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In 2003 we wrote in World Development that a growing nexus between human rights and development practice could transform both fields and advance struggles against extreme poverty, inequalities and patterns of rights violations. The present paper examines the work of international development and human rights agencies to update our understanding of human rights-inspired development work at the nexus. Examining work in the two sectors now, we see more significant changes among human rights agencies than among agencies in development. Some development actors have embraced human rights language and a handful use human rights principles and strategies to define project and …

From Activism To Invested Scholarship: When Outsiders Are Insiders (Abstract), Kristi Heather Kenyon, Tal Nitsán

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Social science methodologies frequently assume that the researcher is ahistorical, bringing no background or investment to the topic they study. Yet, as activists and scholars of human rights activism we are drawn to the movements we study precisely because of our engagement with these groups, places and topics. How does our research and teaching change if we are viewed as participants rather than outside observers in the movements we study? How do we navigate interviews with people who know us as activists rather than scholars? How do we interpret materials in which our own words and images appear?

Coming to …

Fostering Empathy Through Visual Culture Art Intergration (Abstract), R. Darden Bradshaw

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Our lives are mediated through the visual (Mirzoeff, 1999; Freedman, 2002). This mediation 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 (Kincheloe, 2004) 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. Learners are …

Practicing Human Rights: How Human Rights Practitioners Shape The Field (Abstract), Robin Redhead

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This working paper summarises my initial findings of a study into the politics of human rights practice looking specifically at how practitioners shape the human rights field. Through a series of interviews with lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats and activists I have mapped the ‘work’ that takes place within the field of human rights and analysed how this ‘work’ shapes what Nash (2009) refers to as the cultural politics of human rights. Within the national and international arenas, human rights practices are cultural capital that practitioners trade for political gains. In order to assure the future of the human rights movement we …

A Human Rights Lens On Full Employment And Decent Work In The Post-2015 Development Agenda (Abstract), Diane F. Frey, Gillian Macnaughton

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Since the turn of the Millennium the elimination of global poverty has been a top priority of the international community. In the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the leaders from 189 nations committed to work together for poverty eradication, human rights and global peace. Toward these ends, the Declaration was transformed into Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and targets that aimed to unify governments, international organizations, foundations and nongovernmental organizations to focus their expertise, efforts and funds on achieving specific targets in the areas of poverty reduction, education, gender equality, health and other areas of human development.

Yet, the MDGs failed to …

Global Human Rights Direct: Connecting Human Rights Voices From Around The Globe (Abstract), William Simmons

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Scholars and activists (e.g., Simmons 2011, Baxi 2007, Ife 2009) have increasingly argued for a larger role for on-the-ground stakeholders, especially marginalized populations, in defining and implementing human rights around the globe. This paper describes the Global Human Rights Direct (GHRD) initiative at the University of Arizona that seeks to connect and empower human rights stakeholders from across the globe through videoconferencing. GHRD is a searchable database of human rights stakeholders willing to participate in videoconferences with interested individuals and groups from around the globe. It will be used by university instructors, high school teachers, community groups, and government officials …

The Normative Implication Of The B Corp Movement In The Business And Human Rights Context (Abstract), Cindy Woods

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Over the past decades, issues of corporate accountability and social responsibility have risen to the forefront of international debate. The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Guiding Principles), endorsed by the U.N. HRC in June 2011, lays out authoritatively the state duty to protect and the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. In an effort to operationalize the Guiding Principles, the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights has called on all states to develop a National Action Plan (NAP) regarding domestic implementation of the Guiding Principles. A key first-step in the creation of a NAP is …

Exploring Public Opinion On The Role Of Human Rights In Foreign Policy (Abstract), Michelle Allendoerfer

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Much of the literature on human rights foreign policy assumes - sometimes explicitly but usually implicitly - that constituents want foreign policy conditioned on human rights or that human rights policy is a political “good” for policymakers to pursue. Yet, little scholarly work has been done to support this assumption, either in terms of providing theoretical foundations for this assumption or assessing the empirical support for it. And this assumption matters not just for the academic literature but also for the practice of human rights advocacy. One tool to promote human rights norms globally and to improve conditions is through …

Cultural Differences In Support For Human Rights (Abstract), Sam Mcfarland, William Hornsby

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This article reviews cultural (and country) differences in support for human rights through multiple conceptual and theoretical lenses. This review will include (a) discussion of the difficulties that language translation imposes of measuring human rights support consistently across countries, (b) studies of whether persons in different cultures have a common understanding of the meaning of human rights, (c) the general level of support for human rights across the world, (d) the stability of cultural differences in support for human rights across the years, and (e) evidence related to whether events that happen within a country (e.g., a terrorist attack) alter …

Promoting Human Rights Through The Professions (Abstract), Debra Delaet, Emily Sadecki, Holly Atkinson

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper examines the ways in which professionals in a range of fields—the health professions, education, journalism, and law to name just a few—have the capacity to engage in critical work in the promotion of human rights. Whereas the scholarly study of human rights focuses largely on formal law and governance processes, this paper explores how strategies for promoting human rights might be integrated into the everyday work lives of professionals. Our focus on this everyday lever for human rights promotion seeks to broaden the vision of what constitutes human rights and justice work by exploring the capacities of actors …

Campus Tour

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Shuttles will pick up attendees at selected hotels; tour begins at Fitz Hall, home of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. Maps are available as well:

• One is included in your registration materials.
• Download one using download button above.
• Link to an interactive map here >>>.

Human Rights Organizations As Agents Of Change: When Do They Succeed And When Do They Fail?, Kyla Mcentire, Matthew Krain, Michele Leiby

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

As a key actor within the human rights transnational advocacy network, NGOs, such as Amnesty International, strive to shape individuals’ values on such contentious issues as the use of torture and to mobilize them to act on their values. While much has been written describing this advocacy work, little systematic research has been done evaluating its efficacy. We conducted archival research to identify the three most common messaging techniques employed by AI: (1) informational frames, where the focus is to educate the reader by presenting them with core facts and statistics; (2) personal frames, where a personal narrative is told …