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Course Detail

Course Name Introduction to Human Rights
Course Code 26SWK514
Semester 2
Credits 1
Campus Amritapuri, Coimbatore

Syllabus

Syllabus

Course Outline and Readings

NOTE: For weekly objectives, see the Class D2L page. Rhythm of the Course

The general flow of the course will be as follows. I will post a PPT to VoiceThread on Sunday or Monday. It will include background information, a discussion of the required readings as well as your mission for the week. Over the next few days, you will do the readings and participate in the VoiceThread, including working on any problem-based assignments. Feel free to make comments or ask questions on any of the VT slides. You should also prep for the videoconference guest who will generally join us later in the week. You should be ready with very thoughtful, nuanced questions for the guest speaker. We then finish up the VoiceThread and come up with follow-up questions for the guest speaker. Then, we take a deep breath before the next week’s work. Meanwhile, you should be making steady progress on your class projects throughout the semester.

NOTE: This class is designed to allow each student to explore topics of their own interest in relation to the weekly class material. Each week will be anchored by a guest speaker and one or two readings or films. Each student should focus on those during the week. But, there will also be a number of other issues and readings/films that students can explore as they see fit. Some of the material is designed to give a larger context or background to the main issues. Others are intended to widen the scope of your learning by looking at the issues in other contexts across time and space. Some material is designed to get you to think deeper about some specific aspects of the main issues. So, you do not need to read or view all of the material listed below in the Course Outline. Also, feel free to read or view additional material not listed below.

Week 1: Introduction to the Course, the Class Projects, and Human Rights in Global

Aug 22-27

Week 2: The DRC, Colonization, and the History of Human Rights

Aug 28-Sep 3

  • Readings: “M23 militia’s artillery fire, backed by Rwanda, ratchets up tensions in endangered gorillas’ Congolese home” (Internet)
  • “Armed Group Atrocities Creating Havoc in Eastern DR Congo” (Internet) Sharon Sliwinski, “The Childhood of Human Rights: The Kodak on the Congo”
  • Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Selections, Library)
  • Films: Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death, dir. Peter Bate
  • Lumumba, dir. Raoul Peck
  • Virunga, dir. Orlando von Einsiedel (Netflix)
  • City of Joy, dir. Madeleine Gavin (Netflix) or
  • The Man Who Mends Women: The Wrath of Hippocrates, Dir. Thierry Michel (UA Library) Guest: David Kasali (Recorded Videoconference) TBD
  • Assigned: VoiceThread: Colonialism, the First/Second Congo War, etc. (10 Points)

Week 3: Progressive Development of Contemporary Human Rights Law, Strategic Litigation, Gender-Based Violence

September 4-10

  • Readings: Rhona K. Smith, Textbook on International Human Rights, Chapters 1-6 (D2L, Skim, almost solely for reference)
  • “Status of Ratification: Interactive Dashboard” (http://indicators.ohchr.org/)
  • Simmons, “Deconstruction, Concrete Universalisms, and Human Rights of the Other” in
  • Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other (D2L)
  • Katie Redford and Beth Stephens, “The Story of Doe v. UNOCAL: Justice Delayed But Not Denied” (D2L)

Possibly Some Material on Eritrea and Tigray

  • Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Eritrea (A/HRC/26/45) (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/ERIndex.aspx)
  • Human Rights Concern – Eritrea, “Their Voice Is Ours… Their Suffering Too!” (Internet) “Eritrea: 1st Periodic Report, 1999-2016” (ACHPR Website)
  • Various Shadow Reports on Eritrea (for CEDAW and ACHPR, Internet) Latest News and Reports on Tigray
  • Video: Milena Kaneva (dir.) Total Denial (YouTube) Guests: Gaye Sowe, IHRDA
  • Ka Hsaw Wa, Earthrights International (Recorded)
  • Assigned: Voice Thread: Strategic Litigation and GBV in Africa (10 Points)

Week 4: The White Savior Complex, Participatory Development, and Feminist Epistemology

Sep 11-17

  • Readings: Richa Nagar, Muddying the Waters: Coauthoring Feminisms across Scholarship and Activism (Selections, D2L)
  • Yohanna Abdou, et al. “Localizing International Human Rights Norms through Participatory Video with People Affected by Leprosy in Niger, Nigeria, and Mozambique”
  • Simmons, Handout: “Participation in Development and Human Rights Discourse: Panacea, Tyranny, Transformation” (D2L)
  • Valerie Miller and Maria Suarez Toro, “Resonance and the Butterfly Effect: Feminist Epistemology and Popular Education” (D2L)
  • Valerie Miller, “Rights-Based Approaches and Beyond: Challenges of Linking Rights and Participation” (Internet)
  • Jordan Flaherty, No More Heroes (Selections, D2L)
  • Teju Cole, “The White-Savior Industrial Complex” (Internet) William Simmons, “Feminism, Ignorance, and Human Rights” (D2L)
  • Lucy Ferguson, “‘This is Our Gender Person’: The Messy Business of Working as a Gender Expert in International Development” (Library Database)
  • Wendy Harcourt, “Another Hotel Room, Another City, Another Training: Reflections on Co- Optation of Feminism by Development” (Internet)
  • Guests: Dr. Angelina Mattijo, NTLI, University of Juba TBD from India
  • Assigned: Class VoiceThread including feminism and microfinance initiatives

Week 5: Joyful Human Rights, Perpetrators, Reconciliation, Resilience, PTSD,

Sep 18-24

  • Readings: William Paul Simmons, “Joyful Perpetrators,” “Joyful Activists,” and “Human Rights Winners” (D2L)
  • William Paul Simmons, “Making the Case for a More Joyful Approach to Human Rights” (Internet)
  • Clowns without Borders, “Joyful Human Rights: Interview with William Simmons,” https://www.facebook.com/clownswithoutborders.usa/videos/328760264893004
  • Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic” (D2L)
  • Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”
  • Simmons, et al. “Measuring Individual-Level Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth in International Development: The Case of an Arts-Based Intervention among Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh”
  • Brooke Elise Axtell, “What I Know of Silence” (D2L)
  • Brooke Elise Axtell, Beautiful Justice: Reclaiming My Worth After Human Trafficking and Sexual Abuse (Selections, D2L)
  • Films: The Act of Killing, Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer Guest: Naomi Schafer, Clowns without Borders-USA
  • Assigned: VoiceThread and/or Letters Dear Brooke and Dear Naomi (10 Points)

Week 6: Climate Change, Resilience, and Feminism

Sep 25–Oct 1

  • Readings: ICCP – Sixth Assessment Report; https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/ COP26 Website: https://ukcop26.org/
  • Simmons et al. “Measuring Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth at the Individual and Communal Levels in the Context of an Arts Intervention for Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh Robin Al-haddad, et al., Concept Note: “Their World: Experiencing Forced Migration through the Eyes of Rohingya Children” (D2L)
  • Guests: Rafiqul Montu, Independent Journalist
  • Panel Discussion on Climate Change and Human Rights (Recording) Assigned VT: Coastal Journalism Initiative

Week7: Srebrenica, Memory, and International Criminal Law and/or Decolonial Pedagogy and Critical Consciousness

Oct 2-8

Introduction

This course provides an overview of human rights practice and activism. The first part of the course will focus on the history of human rights with an emphasis on the growth of international organizations for advancing human rights. We will examine grassroots social movements and participatory approaches to human rights activism, including recent critiques of participatory human rights and development. The second part of the course focuses on critical skills needed to become more effective activists for advancing human rights. These include professional responsibility and ethics, interview skills and techniques, translating international norms into specific contexts, psychological issues such as trauma and memory, and various approaches to fieldwork.

Course Description

This is a required introductory course for both the MA and Grad Certificate in Human Rights Practice. Our focus will be on ways for moving human rights initiatives forward as well as practical methods for assessing, analyzing, and engaging human rights issues. Students should be generous in sharing their knowledge, research, and experiences with the class and should be receptive to the theories, methods, and knowledge of others including those presented in the readings and discussions. We are open to your ideas and input!

Objectives and Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the semester, it is expected that students will, inter alia, be able to:

  1. Discuss how human rights often advance through a combination of top-down and bottom-up
  2. Explainhow activists have shaped the progressive development of international human rights law in several contexts.
  3. Explainhow human rights instruments can advance social justice for marginalized groups by being translated into local conditions.
  4. Explainseveral major innovations in participatory development and grassroots human rights education
  5. Criticallyassess local, national, and transnational social
  6. Applya general set of norms and an ethos that is essential to human rights practice, especially when working with marginalized groups
  7. Recognizeinherent psychological issues, such as trauma, that are generally present in human rights fieldwork, and possess some strategies for addressing them.

Course Objectives

During this course students will:

  1. Readimportant recent works about advancing human
  2. Readimportant works on how to become more effective and critical activists for advancing human
  3. Engagewith external participants through guest videoconferences including major scholars and activists in the
  4. Organizeand lead discussions with virtual guest
  5. Engage in discussions via D2L with their colleagues on video conference guest lectures and the course readings.

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