Workshop 16
Confronting Human Rights
Violations
Convenors:
Marie-Bénédicte
Dembour, University of Sussex
Eva Kalny, University of
Vienna
What is a human right
violation? How do we recognise it? What
do we do with it?
Human rights are a
relatively new, but increasingly necessary,
field for anthropologists,
and it would be good to share our
experiences and theories.
We are interested in contributions
that reflect upon
anthropologists’ personal reaction to violations
of human rights in the
field but also in contributions that arise
from a more analytical
framework. By human rights, we mean
indigenous rights, minority
rights, women’s rights, migrants’
rights, economic and social
rights as well – of course - as political
and civil rights.
We want to know how you
have dealt, in practice, with the
violations you have
encountered in the process of undertaking
research both towards and
by people with whom you were
working. What practical
dilemmas did this raise? How did the
experience force you to
revise your analytical framework? What
is the relation between
ethics in research and human rights?
On a theoretical front we
seek contributions that clarify and/or
debunk assumptions made in
the human rights discourse. Is there
one discourse or a
plurality of discourses on human rights that
talk to each other at
cross-purposes? What are the assumptions
behind the human rights
discourse(s). One of particular interest
to us is the triangular
relationship between victim/violator/human
rights protector. Are
things as clear-cut as that in practice or is
reality more complex? You
may have found other assumptions
which similarly need to be
reconceptualised.
Given, Won or Malleable:
Three Concepts of Human Rights
Marie-Bénédicte
Dembour, University of Sussex
Property, Rumours, and
Human Rights: The “Brumarescu vs
Romania” Law-Case
Behind the Stage
Filippo M. Zerilli,
University of Cagliari
‘Stick to your
culture!‘ Human Rights Activists in the Global
South and White
Chauvinism
Eva Kalny, University of
Vienna
Women‘s Rights in
Armenia. Local Networks and Global
Perspectives
Andrea Strasser, Austrian
Academy of Sciences
Dealing with Clandestine
Lives: National Refugee Policies and
the Freedom of Movement
Roos Willems, Catholic
University of Leuven