Negotiating Social Norms and Relations in the Micromobilization of Human Rights: The Case of Burmese Lesbian Activism

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
pp. 643-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynette J. Chua
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Marginalized Populations ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This article provides the first sociolegal analysis of lesbian rights activism in Myanmar. It elucidates the processes through which a group of lesbian activists navigate sexual and gender norms that oppress lesbians as sexual minorities and as women while they use human rights discourse to carry out micromobilization work, organizing constituents and building up grassroots participation in Myanmar. It analyzes how the collective deployment of human rights encompasses resistance against social norms that pose organizing obstacles for activists and the negotiations of social relations to counter them. These micromobilization processes shape whether and how activists adopt human-rights-based strategies and tactics. Bringing together law and society scholarship and social movement studies, the article highlights the importance of understanding human rights mobilization by marginalized populations who face multiple, overlapping forms of oppression and contend with plural sources of power.

Islamic Law and Human Rights

2015 ◽  
pp. 818-842
Author(s):  
Shannon Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
Second World

This article explores the question of whether Islamic law and universal human rights are compatible. It begins with an overview of human rights discourse after the Second World War before discussing Islamic human rights declarations and the claims of Muslim apologists regarding human rights, along with challenges to Muslim apologetics in human rights discourse. It then considers the issues of gender and gender equality, feminism, and freedom of religion in relation to human rights. It also examines four basic scholarly orientations to the topic of Islam and human rights since the end of the Second World War: a model that privileges a secular (non-religious) paradigm for rights; a Muslim apologist model, which privileges a purely “Islamic” conception of rights over secular models; a Marxist/postcolonial critique of rights as a western imposition of power; and a Muslim reformist paradigm of rights that highlights points of continuity between western legal and Muslim legal traditions.

scholarly journals Review of Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice by Zakiya Luna (New York University Press)

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Djuna Hallsworth
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
New York University ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Zakiya Luna’s rich study combines comprehensive discourse analysis of political rhetoric and archival documents with her own ethnographic experiences within the reproductive justice movement. This book is an entry point into this often-marginalized arena, presenting a unique perspective informed by years of participant observation and thorough research which has produced additional projects, attesting to Luna’s expertise in this field of study. As a woman of color, Luna’s work is symbolically significant, and her intersectional lens renders this study broadly applicable to scholars of law, sociology, and gender studies, to policymakers and activists, and, indeed, to all women, who the reproductive justice movement indirectly or directly impacts. In tracing the way that reproductive justice has been framed as a “human right,” Luna addresses the potential for the human rights discourse to deliver on its intrinsic promise to secure freedom and equity for all.

Reach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Ron ◽  
Shannon Golden ◽  
David Crow ◽  
Archana Pandya
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Movement Mobilization ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
Rights Consciousness

This chapter analyzes the diffusion of human rights consciousness among global South publics. Survey data reveal broad diffusion of human rights discourse, as respondents report hearing “human rights” regularly in their lives. Actual engagement with organized human rights activities is much lower, however, as knowledge about, contact with, and participation in human rights organizations is relatively rare. Concerning to those who hope the human rights sector is reaching and engaging those most likely in need of human rights protections, statistical analysis shows those with lower socioeconomic statuses are less likely to engage with human rights organizations or activities. This chapter discusses implications for social movement mobilization, including potential strategies for increasing participation in local human rights activities among diverse publics.

scholarly journals Rights for Some, Not for Others: On the Move and Margins of Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
Yumna Jamal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
World Order ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
International Borders ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Rights are meant to make meanings and to have positive impacts on people’s lives. By having space ordained by the interests of dominant powers and people confined within a space that is delineated, controlled, and divided into class, racial, and gender hierarchies, the right to space and freedom of movement, mostly for those in the Global South, is rendered meaningless. Drawing on my lived experience, I explore the connection between space and power on two different levels: national institutions, and across international borders over six-years period between 2011 and 2016. Reflecting on the policies and politics of space, I examine the implications of control over space on people’s lives and identities. I argue that the dominant discourse of human rights, as it appears, not only violates the basic right to free choice but also serves as instrumental to the maintenance of the current world order and hierarchies. The fact that rights, today, very much rest on spatial, capital, gender, and racial divisions suggests that the UN human rights political project is insufficient and requires us to seriously consider its devastating effects, even when these are unintentional. Thus, we must rethink rights beyond nation-state and its ideological institutions and open up its scope for constructive alternative mechanisms and strategies that center the marginalized rather than maintain a hierarchal system in which some people are unfairly privileged over others. Until we rethink and rewrite international human rights discourse in a way that stands for justice for all and that fosters creative alternatives, it will continue to be hollow, dysfunctional, and even instrumental to existing racial, class, and gender hierarchies.

Risk, Desire and Adaptation: The Paradox of Queer Solidarity and the Political Possibility of Death Under Neoliberalism and Homonationalism

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sexual Rights ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Strategy I

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.

Housing as a Basic Human Right: A Reflection on South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mziwandile Sobantu ◽  
Nqobile Zulu ◽  
Ntandoyenkosi Maphosa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This paper reflects on human rights in the post-apartheid South Africa housing context from a social development lens. The Constitution guarantees access to adequate housing as a basic human right, a prerequisite for the optimum development of individuals, families and communities. Without the other related socio-economic rights, the provision of access to housing is limited in its service delivery. We argue that housing rights are inseparable from the broader human rights discourse and social development endeavours underway in the country. While government has made much progress through the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the reality of informal settlements and backyard shacks continues to undermine the human rights prospects of the urban poor. Forced evictions undermine some poor citizens’ human rights leading courts to play an active role in enforcing housing and human rights through establishing a jurisprudence that invariably advances a social development agenda. The authors argue that the post-1994 government needs to galvanise the citizenship of the urban poor through development-oriented housing delivery.

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