Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice

369 Pages·2018·3.404 MB·English

by  Rajini Srikanth (editor), Elora Halim Chowdhury (editor)

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human
Rights
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice is an
edited collection that brings together analyses of human rights work from
multiple disciplines. Within the academic sphere, this book will garner inter-
est from scholars who are invested inhuman rights as a field ofstudy,as well
as those who research, and are engaged in, the praxis of human rights.
Referring to the historical and cross-cultural study of human rights, the
volume engages with disciplinary debates in political philosophy, gender and
women’s studies, Global South/Third World studies, international relations,
psychology, and anthropology. At the same time, the authors employ diverse
methodologies including oral history, theoretical and discourse analysis, eth-
nography, and literary and cinema studies. Within the field of human rights
studies,thisbookattends tothecriticalacademicgap oninterdisciplinary and
praxis-based approaches to the field, as opposed to a predominantly legalistic
focus, drawing from case studies from a wide range of contexts in the Global
South, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Haiti, India, Mexico, Palestine, and
Sudan, as well as from Australia and the United States in the Global North.
For students who will go on to become researchers, practitioners, policy
makers, and activists, this collection of essays will demonstrate the multi-
faceted landscape of human rights and the multiple forces (philosophical,
political, cultural, economic, historical) that affect it.
RajiniSrikanthisProfessorofEnglishandDeanoftheHonorsCollegeatthe
University of Massachusetts Boston, USA. Her research interests include the
intersectionbetweenliteratureandhumanrights,post-apartheidSouthAfrica,
comparativeraceandethnicstudies,andAsianAmericanliterature.Herrecent
publicationsinclude Constructingthe Enemy:Empathy/Antipathy inUSLiterature
andLaw(2012)andTheCambridgeHistoryofAsianAmericanLiterature(2016).
Elora Halim Chowdhury is Professor and Chair of Women’s, Gender and
SexualityStudiesattheUniversityofMassachusettsBoston,USA.Herresearch
interests include transnational feminisms, film and culture, and human rights
narrative with an emphasis on South Asia. Her recent publications include
TransnationalismReversed:WomenOrganizingagainstGenderedViolenceinBangla-
desh(2011)andDissidentFriendships:Feminism,ImperialismandTransnationalSoli-
darity(2016).
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Interdisciplinary Approaches
to Human Rights
History, Politics, Practice
Edited by
Rajini Srikanth and Elora Halim
Chowdhury
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
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andbyRoutledge
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Chowdhury;individualchapters,thecontributors
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Chowdhury,EloraHalim,editor.|Srikanth,Rajini,editor.
Title:Interdisciplinaryapproachestohumanrights:history,politics,
practice/editedbyEloraHalimChowdhuryandRajiniSrikanth.
Description:Firstedition.|London;NewYork:Routledge,2019.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2018028642|
ISBN9781138482050(hardback:alk.paper)|
ISBN9781138482265(pbk.:alk.paper)|
ISBN9781351058438(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Humanrights.
Classification:LCCJC571.I5742019|DDC323--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018028642
ISBN:978-1-138-48205-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-48226-5(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-351-05843-8(ebk)
TypesetinGoudy
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of tables viii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xvi
Introduction 1
RAJINISRIKANTHANDELORAHALIMCHOWDHURY
PARTI
Human rights discourse: context and history 17
1 Imaginary and real strangers: Constructing and reconstructing
the human in human rights discourse and instruments 19
MICKAELLAPERINA
2 Rise of the global human rights regime: Challenging power with
humanity 34
DARRENKEW,MALCOLMRUSSELL-EINHORNAND
ADRIANARINCÓNVILLEGAS
3 Between nothingness and infinity: Settlement and anti-blackness
as the overdetermination of human rights 50
ANDRÉSFABIÁNHENAOCASTRO
4 Human rights, Latin America, and left internationalism during
the Cold War 65
STEVESTRIFFLER
5 Women, gender, and human rights 79
NADAMUSTAFAALI
6 The United States–Mexico border and human rights 98
LUISF.JIMÉNEZ
vi Contents
7 Unintended consequences in the postcolonies: When struggling
South Africans experience rights discourse as disempowering 111
SINDISOMNISIWEEKS
PARTII
Critical areas in human rights 129
8 The mysterious disappearance of human rights in the 2030
Development Agenda 131
GILLIANMACNAUGHTON
9 Addressing General Recommendation no. 35 from an
intersectional perspective on violence, gender, and disability in
Mexico 148
ANAMARÍASÁNCHEZRODRÍGUEZ
10 Global LGBTQ politics and human rights 165
JAMIEJ.HAGEN
11 Refugee camps and the (educational) rights of the child 180
RAJINISRIKANTH
12 Persistent voices: A history of indigenous people and human
rights in Australia, 1950s–2000s 196
MARIAJOHN
PARTIII
Praxis and human rights 213
13 So, you want to work in human rights? 215
JEAN-PHILIPPEBELLEAU
14 Migrant workers in the Gulf: Theoretical and human rights
dilemmas 228
AMANIELJACK
15 Ethical reckoning: Theorizing gender, vulnerability, and agency
in Bangladeshi Muktijuddho film 243
ELORAHALIMCHOWDHURY
16 Rightnowinnoplacewithstrangers:EudoraWelty’squeerlove 261
AVAKHASRATIAN
Contents vii
17 On the human right to peace in times of contemporary colonial
power 285
ADRIANARINCÓNVILLEGAS
18 Beyond dignity: A case study of the mis/use of human rights
discourse in development campaigns 297
CHRISBOBEL
19 Teaching health and human rights in a psychology capstone:
Cultivating connections between rights, personal wellness, and
social justice 312
ESTERSHAPIRO,FERNANDOANDINOVALDEZ,YASMINBAILEY,
GRACEFURTADO,DIANALAMOTHE,KOSARMOHAMMAD,MARDIAPIERRE
ANDNICKWOOD
Appendix 331
BRYANGANGEMIANDRITAARDITTI
Index 335
Tables
8.1 The Millennium Development Goals (2001–2015) 134
8.2 Sustainable Development Goals (2015) 140
Contributors
Nada Mustafa Ali is a scholar, practitioner, and an activist whose scholar-
ship spans the fields of comparative politics: women’s, gender, and fem-
inist studies, development studies, and African and Middle Eastern
studies. A visiting associate professor in the Women’s and Gender Stu-
dies Department, Nada has worked as a researcher or consultant at a
number of international and grassroots organizations and United Nations
(UN) agencies. She has worked as the Women’s Program Coordinator at
the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies in Egypt, and as the Africa
Women’s Rights Researcher at Human Rights Watch. She has consulted
for a range of organizations and agencies including UN Women, UN
Development Programme, UN Population Fund, USAID, US Institute of
Peace, the Small Arms Survey, Almanar, and the South Sudan Women’s
Empowerment Network. She is the author of the book, Gender, Race and
Sudan’s Exile Politics: Do We All Belong to This Country?
Rita Arditti was a founding member of the Human Rights Working Group
at UMass Boston. A PhD in biology, Rita spent three decades of her
career teaching doctoral students in an interdisciplinary program at the
Union Institute and university. Always an activist, she co-founded three
political projects – Science for the People, New Words Bookstore, and
the Women’s Community Cancer Project. She wrote Searching for Life:
The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argen-
tina (1999) and co-edited two other books: Science and Liberation, with Pat
Brennan and Steve Cavrak (1980); and Test Tube Women: What Future for
Motherhood? with Renate Klein and Shelley Minden (1984). Rita died in
2009 after living with metastatic breast cancer for over 30 years.
Yasmin Bailey, University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) BA
December 2017, majored in psychology with a minor in human rights,
where she was president of the award-winning Poetry Slam Club. A
daughter of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, she is a strong voice for local,
global, andcoalitionalmulti-racialandgenderjusticeactivismthroughher
work on campus, with Beacon Leadership for Service, and with commu-
nity non-profits. She is currently Lead Organizer of Campaigns and