Introduction: Life Writing, Human Rights, and Young Women

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Ana Belén Martínez García
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Life Writing

Construction and collaboration in life-writing projects: Malala Yousafzai’s activist ‘I’

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 201-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Belén Martínez García
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Global South ◽  
Plural Pronoun ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Way

This article explores the storytelling practices employed in Malala Yousafzai’s life-writing texts as examples of collaboration in the co-construction of an activist agenda. It tracks the narrative ‘I’ and its movements in and out of the plural pronoun ‘we’ as it moves across communities and embraces the legacy of testimonial accounts by both former and contemporary human rights activists. In line with that tradition, it is necessary to include the stories of other victimized people in the life-writing text, so that the result advocates for change on a sociopolitical, not just individual, level. The fact that the texts are mediated by editors, translators, co-authors and collaborators every step of the way paves the collaborative path Global South young women activists traverse, a path fraught with potential pitfalls and ethical difficulties for them and for scholars alike.

Engaging Youth in Education for Sustainable Development: Strategies and Interventions

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khushgeet Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Education For Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
Opportunities To Learn ◽  
The World

Although youth are often thought of as targets for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programmes, they are also active partners in creating a more sustainable world and effective ESD programmes. Today, more than ever, young women and men are change-makers, building new realities for themselves and their communities. All over the world, youth are driving social change and innovation, claiming respect for their fundamental human rights and freedoms, and seeking new opportunities to learn and work together for a better future. The education sector is generally seen as the most appropriate forum for involving children and youth in sustainable development, and initiatives to this end have been adopted in many countries. The present paper puts forth such initiatives, interventions and strategies that can be undertaken to engage youth in education for sustainable development at the global as well as the local level.

Salinas, Raúl

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis G. Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Free Verse ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Prisoner Rights ◽  
Literary Output

The poetry, memoirs, essays, letters, prison journalism, and other forms of writing by Raúl Salinas (1934–2008) were grounded in his commitments to social justice and human rights. He was an early pioneer of contemporary Chicano pinto (prisoner) poetry whose work was characterized by a vernacular, bilingual, free verse aesthetics. Alongside other notables like Ricardo Sánchez, Luis Talamentez, Judy Lucero, and Jimmy Santiago Baca, Salinas helped make Chicana and Chicano prisoner rights an integral part of the agenda of the Chicana/o Movement through his writing and activism while incarcerated (1959–1972) and following his release. He was also a prolific prose writer in prison, and much of his journalism, reflective life writing, essays, and letters from his archives were published following his release. As important as his literary and political production in prisons was for establishing his literary recognition, it is important to note that the scope of his writing expands well beyond his prison experience. Though his literary and political interventions were important to a still emergent Chicana and Chicano literary, cultural, and political aesthetic, he was influenced by, but was not limited to, American and Latin American literary traditions. Given the scope of his life’s work, his indigenous and internationalist commitments, Salinas’ literary output make him a Xicanindio (indigenous identified Chicano) poet, a Latino internationalist, as well as a spoken word jazz and hip-hop artist whose work engaged, adapted and transformed elements of the American literary canon.

scholarly journals Beyond the Subject: Anglo-American Slave Narratives in the Netherlands, 1789-2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. VC56-VC84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke Huisman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Slave Narratives ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Dutch History

In recent years life writing scholars have increasingly linked the autobiographical genre to human rights causes, such as abolitionism. This article aims to historicize and contextualize the presupposed connection between human rights and the human subject of autobiographical discourse by focusing on the cultural mobility of Anglo-American slave narratives. Tracing their presence in the Netherlands since the late eighteenth century, it is demonstrated that slave narratives were considered of no value to Dutch abolitionism and Dutch debates on slavery and its legacy until very recently. Publishers and readers did, however make sense of slave narratives as sensational, gothic literature. Furthermore, the narratives were appropriated by Dutch fundamentalist Protestants advocating the nation’s emancipation from its state of spriritual “slavery”. Only when secularization converged with post-colonial migration patterns new interpretations stressing Black experience, agency, and subjectivity came to the fore in the Netherlands. Inspired by African-American rhetoric, Afro-Dutch migrants appropriated slave narratives in order to break the public silence on the Dutch history of slavery. This article was submitted to the European Journal of Life Writing in June 2014 and published in April 2015.

scholarly journals Moving beyond contemporary discourses: children, prostitution, modern slavery and human trafficking

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-221
Author(s):  
Helen Charnley ◽  
Pearson Nkhoma
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Modern Slavery ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Alternative Understanding ◽  
The Capability Approach

The relationship between prostitution, modern slavery and human trafficking is much debated in the academic literature. By contrast, discussion of children’s involvement in prostitution as a form of modern slavery and human trafficking constitutes a silent consensus. Drawing on the findings of a participatory study with girls and young women in Malawi, we prize open that consensus, illuminating the poverty of contemporary discourses that link children’s involvement in prostitution with modern slavery and human trafficking, and identifying a series of tensions that confound the development of conceptual clarity. We develop our argument by exploring the potential of the capability approach, rooted in principles of social justice and human rights, to offer an alternative understanding of children’s engagement and ongoing involvement in prostitution, and a critical lens through which to reframe the relationship between children, prostitution, modern slavery and human trafficking.

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