Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Jonathan Hill
(Southern Illinois University)
Vytis Ciubrinskas (Vytautas Magnus University)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- Aula Magna-Spelbomskan
- Sessions:
- Thursday 16 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
Case studies of refugee populations, transnational migrants, displaced indigenous peoples, and marginalised minority communities will be used to explore broader tensions between universal human rights and locally and nationally defined political subjectivities both within and between nation-states.
Long Abstract:
This panel seeks to open up a broadly comparative discussion of the tensions between human rights based on universalist notions of the dignity of human subjectivities and the legal, civil, and political rights that specific nation-states claim to provide for citizens, denizens, residents (both documented and undocumented), and visitors. These tensions are most clearly expressed in contexts of transnational migrations, such as refugees fleeing war zones or workers and their families seeking to escape conditions of economic destitution, gang violence, or state-sponsored terror.
These same tensions are also at work in domestic political struggles of indigenous and other minority groups who are impoverished or otherwise disenfranchised within nation-states. Both transnational migrations and domestic political engagements of 'others' who are stereotyped only because of their lifestyles are met with a rising backlash of cultural fundamentalism, nativism, and hyper-nationalist policies of cultural heritage and ethnic purity promoting new forms of exclusion.
The organizers of this session seek to gather scholars with specialized knowledge of contemporary engagements and counter-movements that demonstrate how local communities' social networks are creating new political and interpretive public spaces in motion as they negotiate the discrepancies and indeterminacies of local, regional, national, and international political-legal systems.
Case studies for the session could include but are not limited to: refugee populations fleeing from political oppression and/or economic deprivation; transnational migrants and other ethnic minorities fighting against institutionalized racism or hyper-nationalist policies; indigenous communities facing invasions of their lands by settler colonists, hydroelectric dam-building, or other destructive programs.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 16 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
Documentation and analysis of large-scale hydroelectric dam projects in the Brazilian Amazon as weapons of mass destruction that transform indigenous communities into landless migrants will lead to an exploration of pro-indigenous and environmentalist movements against the building of such mega-dams
Paper long abstract:
This paper will document the removal of indigenous and other rural inhabitants living along major tributaries of the Amazon River in Brazil resulting from the building of large-scale hydroelectric dams. The paper will also explore political opposition to the building of the enormous hydroelectric dam at Belo Monte in the lower Xingu River valley as a countervailing movement consisting of indigenous activists and a number of grass-roots pro-indigenous and environmentalist organizations. It is argued that the government's licensing of these mega-dam projects is a weapon of mass destruction that has the effect of uprooting communities practicing small-scale, sustainable activities of fishing, hunting, gardening, and forestry and transforming them into landless, or 'deterritorialized,' migrant populations. Although such mega-dams employ technologies that are relatively recent 20th century developments, the forced removal of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands is the continuation of a long history of actual and structural violence in South America. What is new, however, is the extent to which indigenous activists have been able to make their voices heard at national and international levels through use of social media, digital communication, and alliances with pro-indigenous and environmentalist organizations. This paper will explore indigenous strategies as they emerged in the recent struggles to block the building of a massive hydroelectric dam at Belo Monte on the lower Xingu River as well as ongoing domestic political opposition to the government's call for construction of at least 25 additional mega-dams as part of a national Accelerated Growth Program.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the dynamics of countervailing strategies observable in France, the country seen as mythical for Human Rights, in situations experienced by asylum seekers, stateless seekers and by political refugees from Western Sahara who have been settling in waves in Bordeaux since 2013
Paper long abstract:
This case study considers the countervailing strategies and citizen mobilization in Bordeaux since 2015 towards the Sahrawis living here. Legally, they are asylum seekers or applicants for statelessness, or with granted political refugee status. Otherwise, they are in an illegal situation, or are here due to a regularized situation in Spain. They form a population between 200 and 350 people, and call themselves: "Sahrawis of Bordeaux". Around 200 of them live in an illegal camp more or less tolerated, situated 800m from the city center, and the rest in squats (between 10 and 20). Few Sahrawis live in shelters or in housing usually accorded within the rules of application for asylum seekers and political refugees. They don't always receive help they are entitled to through the legal devices including accommodation and the decent minimum to live in the mythical country of Human Rights. Faced with this situation, several forms of citizen mobilization have developed. Who are the mobilized actors? How are they structured? What is the role of FB pages? What are the different counter-movements? As the Sahrawis themselves are actors of countervailing initiatives, how do they articulate themselves or not with the other strategies?
This approach is based on an intensive ethnographical immersion linked to an applied anthropology conducted since 2015 with the Sahrawis in their daily public and private life: on the camp, in the squats, in the courts and in the administrations, in situations of care, work, resumption of studies, learning French, in travel, exhibitions, conferences, etc.
Paper short abstract:
Through examining recent discourses in Latvia on the third country nationals this paper intends to tackle the paradox of highly discrepant frameworks in which various categories of immigrants are being dealt with.
Paper long abstract:
As a study on representations of migration in Latvia's mass media found, refugees were viewed as burden and threat in 2016 (Rožukalne et al 2017). Correspondingly, 78 per cent survey respondents wished Latvia accepted no refugees from Asia or Africa (SKDS, 2016). Such attitudes toward migration are often drawing on sentiments of cultural fundamentalism.
Dzenovska (2015) has analysed such sentiments in an effort to formulate an anthropologically grounded response to the commentaries in Western media accusing East Europeans of lacking moral maturity vis-à-vis refugee crisis. Among opinion leaders in Latvia, on the other hand, a consensus has been observed (ibid.) that a moral argument is not a valid argument because it insufficiently engages with the concrete political situation in the country.
Neither those who are in favour of providing asylum to refugees in Latvia, nor those who have objected such a policy, however, have drawn on a potentially crucial argument, namely, that a foresighted policy could turn the 'burden' into a resource, e.g. for labour supply and sustainability of the country's welfare system. Such an argument was advanced by two Canadian delegations to Riga in 2016-2017 but did not ignite wider debates. Only since mid-2017, the shortage of labour force in numerous companies has convincingly entered the country's political and media agenda.
Through examining recent discourses in Latvia on the third country nationals my paper intends to tackle the paradox of highly discrepant frameworks in which various categories of immigrants are being dealt with.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the 'right to work', how the interpretation has been modified so that the right's principles also apply to irregular migrants, how international organizations contribute to the interpretation's promotion, and how the Indonesian government has subsequently reported compliance.
Paper long abstract:
The multi-directional nature of labour migration flows has resulted in an increasing number of countries having become both senders and receivers of regular and irregular migrants. However, some countries continue to see themselves primarily as senders and so ignore their role as a receiving country, which can have negative implications for the rights of migrants in their territory. Using the example of Indonesia, which is State Party to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, this paper demonstrates that irregular migrants have the legal right to protection against labour exploitation even when they work despite the government's prohibition on employment. It discusses the 'right to work', how the interpretation has been modified so that the right's underlying principles also apply to irregular migrants, how international organizations contribute to the interpretation's promotion, and how the Indonesian government has subsequently reported compliance. The paper then canvasses the institutional set-up for enforcement of labour rights in Indonesia, paying particular attention to the technical reasons why certain groups of irregular migrants are denied access. It offers two case studies about the Indonesian government's responses to an asylum seeker and person trafficked for forced labour whose situations had both immigration and labour dimensions before going on to discuss tensions between the competing policy priorities of employment prohibition and the right to protection from labour exploitation.
Paper short abstract:
This research sheds light on local vernacularization of human rights of people with disabilities in Haredi communities in Israel. It analyzes how the human rights conceptualized and interpreted, and how knowledge about these rights is socially constructed, diffused and translated.
Paper long abstract:
Transnational human rights norms are translated in complex ways when they are introduced to local communities. This research aims to cast light on the local 'vernacularization', or adaptation, reinterpretation and appropriation of human rights in Israeli society. The study focuses on the human rights of people with disabilities in Haredi communities in Israel as a case study. Based on qualitative ethnographic methods, the study analyzes how the human rights of individuals with disabilities are conceptualized and interpreted in different Haredi communities and by different stakeholders. It explains how knowledge about different types of rights is socially constructed, diffused and translated. It emphasizes the role of activists and community organizations in this process as intermediaries between the global and the local arenas, and examines the activists' dilemmas and challenges.
The findings point to a complex hybridization of transnational and local norms and conceptions, and illuminate the role played by many factors, including: (1) Halakhic questions surrounding people with disabilities, such as the question of marriage; (2) the question of whether Judaism emphasizes duties and obligations as opposed to rights; (3) the stigma towards people with disabilities in Haredi society, which is affected by matchmaking as well as social boundary work; (4) invisible disabilities as "open secrets" that people actively avoid discussing; (5) the prevalence of charitable activities and "acts of mercy" on behalf of people with disabilities; (6) Haredi society's valuing of social continuity and conservatism rather than change, and its consequent resistance to addressing key human rights issues.