Agenda for January 23 meeting of the Committee on the Human Rights/Social Justice Initiative
The agenda of the January 23 meeting is provided below to give you an overview of the work in which the committee is currently engaged. Three initiative being considered are revisions to the UG cirriculum, a cross-school graduate certificate, and the creation of a center.
1. Review of Minutes from 12/3/07 meeting.
2. Review of Carole Biewener’s comments on human rights/social justice [see below]
3. Review of Meaghan O’Connors’ research on partner organizations
4. Review of Bill Schulz’s meeting with the Advancement Department
5. Review of three Task Force reports (Undergraduate, Graduate, Center)
6. Recommendations on Procuring Additional Community Feedback
7. Recommendations on a “Kick Off event” in the fall.
8. Review of Process Going Forward/Next Steps
Developing an International Human Rights Component
for the Existing Minor in Social Justice
Carole Biewener
Introduction: Human Rights in Relation to Social Justice
Clearly there are many different ways of articulating the relationship between “Human Rights” and “Social Justice,” given that both have different and contested meanings and these terms have developed within different traditions. This is complicated even further by the addition of the modifier “international” to the consideration of human rights.
As the Social Justice Steering Committee has discussed the incorporation of a human rights component within the curriculum (in conjunction with the IR Steering Committee), we have developed some preliminary orientations that we are comfortable with and which I outline here to provide a context for what I address more fully below with respect to what is needed to incorporate an International HR track within the existing minor, and the pros and cons of doing so (though please understand that this is a “conversation in process” and the SJ steering committee has not had a chance to fully discuss this among ourselves nor with the International Relations Steering Committee).
First, there is a general sense that a “human rights” orientation comes out of the context of the UN Declaration on Human Rights on the one hand, and as a strategy for addressing social injustices on the other. Thus, it has provided both an ethical justification for interventions oriented toward social change (establishing internationally recognized norms) and, given the political and social developments throughout the 20th century, has offered concrete institutionalized political avenues for pursuing social change interventions (laws, conventions, regional agreements, the international court of justice, etc).
In this understanding then, the concern with “human rights” is a particular way in which mobilizations to address social injustices have been manifested, and this has been especially apparent (and effective) in the international arena. Thus, in a sense, a “human rights” orientation is a particular focus within a social justice orientation.
Given the broader scope then of the Social Justice Minor, there has been some discussion as to whether it would be best to develop an “international social justice” track within the minor, rather than an “international human rights” track.. However, at this point we think that because “human rights” has currency within the international community and because this track is being developed in large part in response to interest expressed by International Relations students, it makes sense to use the “human rights” language.
Therefore, when thinking concretely about how to incorporate a “human rights” component within the existing Social Justice curriculum, we would like to provide a curriculum that aims to develop students’ knowledge of and critical thinking about the following:
~ the institutional and political context within which human rights discourse, mobilizations and interventions have developed (with a knowledge and appreciation of the international context and key players);
~ an understanding of the three generations of human rights discourse (civil, economic, and cultural) and an appreciation of debates within this tradition (e.g., between individual and social rights);
~ how mobilizations using the language and institutionalized norms based upon human rights are a particular strategy for social change interventions (among others); and
~ the opportunities and limitations of such strategies (including debates about the extent to which the turn to “human rights” is Eurocentric, or “western” or “liberal,” and/or “androcentric”).
Second, with regard to the “international” aspect of human rights, there is a clear sense that we want to avoid having an “international” track within the SJ minor that reinscribes the problematic hierarchies of a traditional “international versus U.S.” focus. In the SJ minor we have worked very hard to have our students think about the ways that globalization is at play in the United States, so that “international” issues are not just about people “outside” the U.S. – as this reinforces the first world/third world dichotomies that help enable many aspects of inequality. We would like for one of the distinguishing aspects of the Simmons approach to social justice and human rights to be this refusal to separate social justice work into “domestic” versus “international” arenas.
This, therefore, involves several challenges with respect to
i) providing a curriculum in which students recognize how international issues and globalization are at play in the United States (and in Boston);
ii) developing students’ understanding that work or activity “abroad” is not, in itself, sufficient to constitute “international”;
iii) clarifying how “community based organizing” relates to organizing around international human rights.
Posted: January 15, 2008 1:59 pm | 0 comments
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