scholarly journals Unravelling Resistance: Data Activism Configurations in Latin American Civil Society

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Carolina Aguerre ◽  
Raquel Tarullo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Symbolic Domination ◽  
Asymmetrical Power ◽  
Empirical Approaches ◽  
Resistance Data ◽  
American Civil Society

This work examines the evolution of Latin American Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs) resistance practices in the context of datafication and how these relate with the overall notions of symbolic domination denounced by the Latin American School of Communication. Although CSOs in Latin America are still exploring the problems surrounding datafication, signs of vitality are already showing in broader debates around human rights, community development, and media policies. The study identifies the main themes underlying datafication work by Latin American CSOs and assesses how they shape resistance practices and CSOs’ perceptions of asymmetrical power relations. While some patterns can fall into existing conceptualisations surrounding resistance practices and data activism, this paper identifies new conceptual and empirical approaches to face the challenges posed by a datafied society.

‘It is time to reterritorialise utopian thinking’: community, the commons and the funding of autonomous movements in Latin America – an interview with Marcelo Lopes de Souza

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Utopian Thinking ◽  
The Commons ◽  
American Civil Society

This chapter presents an interview with Marcelo Lopes de Souza, a scholar who cooperates with social movements, and professor in the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Drawing on the experiences of Latin American social movements, Marcelo discusses the implications of a commitment to radical autonomy for the funding of community-based movements and for emancipatory community development more broadly. Among the topics covered are the importance of ‘the commons’ in the life of communities; the role of ‘autonomous’ movements in community empowerment; the so-called ‘NGOisation’ of Latin American civil society and the extent to which this phenomenon has been a feature of the movements that Marcelo is familiar as well as its effects.

A National Treasure? The Role of Civil Society in Promoting and Enforcing Human Rights in the United Kingdom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social And Economic Rights

Abstract The article investigates the negative attitude towards civil society over the last decade in the United Kingdom and the repercussions for human rights. It considers this in the context of the United Kingdom government’s implementation of the policy of austerity. It reflects on the various policy and legal changes, and the impact on the campaigning and advocacy work of civil society organizations, particularly those that work on social and economic rights.

scholarly journals Silencing Their Critics: How Government Restrictions Against Civil Society Affect International ‘Naming and Shaming’

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Smidt ◽  
Dominic Perera ◽  
Neil J. Mitchell ◽  
Kristin M. Bakke
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The One ◽  
Naming And Shaming ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Cross National

Abstract International ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns rely on domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) for information on local human rights conditions. To stop this flow of information, some governments restrict CSOs, for example by limiting their access to funding. Do such restrictions reduce international naming and shaming campaigns that rely on information from domestic CSOs? This article argues that on the one hand, restrictions may reduce CSOs’ ability and motives to monitor local abuses. On the other hand, these organizations may mobilize against restrictions and find new ways of delivering information on human rights violations to international publics. Using a cross-national dataset and in-depth evidence from Egypt, the study finds that low numbers of restrictions trigger shaming by international non-governmental organizations. Yet once governments impose multiple types of restrictions, it becomes harder for CSOs to adapt, resulting in fewer international shaming campaigns.

Cybersecurity, Human Rights, and Empiricism

2021 ◽  
pp. 408-426
Author(s):  
Jonathon Penney
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Sensitive Information ◽  
Surveillance Studies ◽  
Digital Surveillance ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
International Rights ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Empirical Approaches

This chapter examines recent research on the impact of surveillance, both mass and targeted forms, and considers these insights and their implications for cybersecurity. State surveillance has been central to the ‘securitization’ in cybersecurity, particularly the increasing sophistication and expansion of digital surveillance. The chapter looks at different theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding the impact of such surveillance activities, particularly surveillance studies and chilling effects theory. It also considers how new research shows that surveillance has an impact on a range of fundamental human rights and freedoms, with important implications for civil society and deliberative democracy. Awareness of surveillance, or the threat of it, can have a substantial chilling effect on people’s exercise of these rights, leading them to self-censor or avoid seeking or imparting certain sensitive information. Surveillance can also be said to violate international rights against discrimination and protections for minorities, in that it has unequal or disproportionate impact on certain groups, including vulnerable minorities. The chapter then argues for new frameworks for cybersecurity centred on civil society or human rights.

The Protective Shields

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kinda Mohamadieh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Arab Region ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges

This chapter examines the various roles undertaken by civil society organizations (CSOs), or nongovernmental organizations, in the Arab region and their implications for collaboration between CSOs and the United Nations, with particular emphasis on how CSOs figure in policy debates and the human rights movement. CSOs in the Arab region, mainly those working on policy and legislative issues, have been engaged with UN-led processes and conferences since the 1992 Earth Summit, and including the 1995 Summit on Social Development and the 2000 Millennium Summit. However, as some UN agencies, driven by a quest for funding, have moved into programmatic interventions, tensions have sometimes emerged between CSOs and UN agencies when some UN agencies have ended up potentially competing with CSOs for funding or crowding out the space available for CSOs. This chapter first traces the history of CSO-UN interactions in the Arab region before discussing the new challenges and possibilities raised during the period of the Arab uprisings.

Body Abjectification as a Tool to Represent Poverty in Black Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Floribert Patrick C. Endong
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Age Stereotypes ◽  
African People ◽  
Black Africa

Many human rights activists and West-based INGOs have entrenched the questionable culture of using pathetic and socially pornographic images to boost their advertising, mobilization and fundraising campaigns aimed at tackling social problems in Africa. The images deployed by these advocacy entities most often function as double edged swords: they do not only capture the wisdom and rhetoric marketed by the campaign organizers but sometimes subtly act as negative symbols or metaphors of the African continent. Many of these visuals as used in posters and ad copies subliminally abjectify Africans, thereby reinforcing the myriad of decades-old myths and stereotypes of the continent and its people – notably abject poverty, famine, illiteracy, and backwardness, among others. This chapter illustrates the above-mentioned thesis through a semiotic analysis of posters and image-based ads recently deployed by some West-based civil society organizations during the Nigeria-born #BringBackOurGirl movement. The chapter specifically illustrates how the visuals and anchorages used in the #BringBackOurGirl posters hyperbolically abjectify and denigrate African people, associating them with old-age stereotypes.

scholarly journals Transformational development in a changing context: A Latin American perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelique J.W.M. van Zeeland
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Humanitarian Response ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
Development Context ◽  
Transformational Development ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

This article analyses the challenges for the strategies and practices of transformational development in a changing context. This reflection is based on contributions received during the process of dialogues and regional consultations, realised from August 2012 until March 2014, of the ACT Alliance, an international coalition of churches and faith-based organisations (FBOs) working in the areas of humanitarian response, development and advocacy. The main processes that affect the changing development context are addressed, such as the ongoing globalisation as well as the consequences, mainly regarding the shrinking space for civil society. It discusses the concepts of human development and of transformational development, based on a people-centred development vision, a human rights-based approach and advocacy, which addresses the root causes and effects of poverty, inequality and injustice. Transformational development practices, from Latin America, are presented and analysed. The article concludes that the changing development context also offers opportunities, especially regarding regional and global alliances of FBOs, civil society organisations and of social movements.

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