Creating Utopia through Real Struggle: A Case Study of the Rialto Community Housing Campaign

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory Hearne

The article examines the potential of a symbiotic strategy to transform capitalism in a more socialist direction through a case study of a community campaign to address substandard housing conditions resulting from neoliberal property-based regeneration policies and austerity. The case study contrasts the empowerment of disadvantaged groups with dominant partnership approaches to achieving social justice in Ireland. It concludes that while such human rights approaches offer the potential to achieve improvements in people's living conditions, their prospect for symbiotic transformation is limited, unless they link to wider social and political forces challenging structural inequalities, including class and gender.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1035719X2110436
Author(s):  
Jeffery Adams ◽  
Stephen Neville

Evaluators are committed to practice that is high quality and conducted ethically. Despite this, gender and sexually diverse populations are not always adequately considered in evaluation practice. Ensuring fuller inclusion of gender and sexually diverse people is required to give effect to human rights obligations and to enable comparatively poorer wellbeing outcomes for these groups to be addressed. Based on our experience conducting evaluation (and research) with both general populations and gender and sexually diverse populations, we suggest a need to build inclusive practice among evaluators. To guide inclusive evaluation practice, we outline three domains for consideration – terminology and language, processes of research inclusion and implications of inclusion. These are not offered as a checklist but as a way to encourage reflexive practice among evaluators. Given evaluators are often concerned with promoting equity and social justice, we are hopeful that actions taken by evaluators can enhance the inclusion of gender and sexually diverse people in evaluation activities and contribute to better wellbeing outcomes for them.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Collinson ◽  
Alice Diver ◽  
Sharon McAvoy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a case study of an innovative, three-module pathway designed by the Department of Law and Criminology at Edge Hill University (England) in 2014. In addition to supporting the work of its campus pro-bono law clinic, the first-two modules aim to enhance and evidence the legal skills of EHU’s undergraduate LLB students, to embed a deeper awareness of the (legal) ethics needed for sustainable legal practice (within PRME), and to highlight the increasing need for socially responsible advocates, able to defend the rights of marginalised, vulnerable clients.Design/methodology/approachThe critical analysis of the content and scope of an innovative, work-based learning LLB module pathway, which furthers the aim of the UN Global Compact and the PRME, and ties them firmly to socio-legal issues and advocacy involving recent jurisprudence.FindingsThe case law used within the modules, and the practical work of the students in the campus law clinic, are relevant to social justice issues and to the promotion of PRME values—they promote awareness of human rights principles, highlight the importance of access to legal services and provide students with knowledge of legal ethics. Enhanced employability skills flow from this.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a narrow case study but still provides a useful analysis of an innovative, PRME relevant module pathway. The model mirrors international trends in clinical legal education and also offers a template for other law schools keen to promote the concept of ethical, just legal practice.Practical implicationsThe paper posits that enhanced employability can flow from real world tasks such as advocacy for marginalised or disadvantaged groups and presents an exemplar for other law schools wishing to embed ethics/clinical law practice into their curriculum.Social implicationsThe paper highlights how the campus law clinic serves the public in a deprived region—it raises awareness of human rights and of social justice issues. It has the potential to feed into litigation on social welfare issues (housing, social security, child welfare, etc.).Originality/valueThe discussion of the human rights case law that is used in the Year 2 “bridging module” (which prepares students for working in the law clinic in their final year) is particularly relevant and is analysed in detail, highlighting how this module pathway is aimed at promoting PRME and UN Global Compact principles.


Author(s):  
Augustine Nduka Eneanya

Persisting absence of human rights, widening inequality, and social justice in healthcare delivery systems within and between countries present significant challenges to the focus and practice of contemporary public health. This chapter compares how cases of human rights, equity, and social justice are integrated in America's and Nigeria's healthcare policies. Qualitative research and case study design were adopted. Data were collected from secondary sources, such as reviewed literature, textbooks, journal articles, government reports, and internet. Content and critical case studies analysis methods were utilized to analyze, explain, and compare America's and Nigeria's health policies. Findings reveal absence of human rights, equity, and social justice among sub-groups in healthcare service delivery in America and Nigeria. The chapter concludes by suggesting that human rights, equity, and social justice should be integrated into health policies of America and Nigeria in order to make access to healthcare service delivery a right for citizens.


Author(s):  
Christine (Cricket) Keating ◽  
Cynthia Burack

This chapter examines the issue of the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people (LGBTI). In recent years, LGBTI groups have used the language and frameworks of human rights to organize against state, civil society, religious, and interpersonal violence and discrimination. The broadening of the human rights framework to address issues of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) has been an important development in both the human rights and the LGBTI movements. The chapter begins with a discussion of SOGI rights as human rights, focusing on questions such as the central human rights issues for LGBTI people; how these groups have organized to address these challenges through a human rights framework; and the challenges faced by LGBTI human rights advocates and what successes they have had. It also considers critiques of SOGI human rights activism and concludes with a case study of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill.


Social Change ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-415
Author(s):  
Raju Adagale

Water is one of the most vital resources required for human existence. Yet access to this natural resource has not been easy, especially for dalits living in rural India. There have been numerous violent incidents that have been perpetrated against dalits, ranging from verbal to physical abuse and sometimes even ending in murder when this under-privileged community has asserted its right to water. A multi-case study method has been used in selected villages located in Beed district of Maharashtra to examine the various forms of violence that have been employed to prevent dalits from accessing water. Most have occurred because upper caste Hindus believe that since the so-called ‘impure’ dalits in villages pollute water therefore it should be denied to them. The study concludes with B. R. Ambedkar’s views on accessing water on the principle of social justice, equality and human rights.


2015 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 30-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Breanne Fahs

This essay outlines a recent assignment I designed for an upper-division cross-listed women and gender studies/social justice and human rights course I teach called, “Trash, Freaks, and SCUM.”  In the context of the students reading Edward Humes’ (2012) Garbology, the trash bag assignment asked that students carry around their trash for two 48-hour periods and that they present it to the class.  While the first two day period assesses their actual trash output, students are asked to produce as little trash as possible for the second two day period. This assignment aims to make trash visible and to help students learn about climate change, sustainability, conspicuous consumption, and how their individual carbon footprint contributes to the “big picture” of environmental strain.  I describe this assignment and its goals in this essay, followed by an assessment of its role in teaching about social justice, in order to underscore the importance of experiential learning with trash and to highlight how this assignment fits the mission of my courses on feminism and social justice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Charlotte Roh ◽  
Vanessa Gabler

As librarians and library publishers, we frequently engage in scholarly communication efforts that serve a social justice agenda. For example, at the University of San Francisco, we are proud to publish the International Journal of Human Rights Education, of which the latest issue is devoted to indigenous women in research. There are moments, however, when we are reminded that, despite our best efforts, we still operate in an educational and academic system that is rooted in white supremacy and colonialism. The following are examples of bias encountered by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh’s (ULS) publishing program and others, as well as a discussion of the ways in which we as librarians and library publishers can push back against systemic injustices.


Author(s):  
Angelika von Wahl

When do social movements support policies that do not benefit them directly? Which factors help build stronger feminist alliances? To answer these questions, this article traces the coalition behind the emergence of the third sex in Germany. This legal recognition cracks open the categorical male–female pair and sheds light on a path-breaking feminist alliance among women’s, trans and intersex groups. Case-study methodology and interviews provide insights into the weakening power of categorical pairs, add nuance to the concept of opportunity hoarding and provide important organisational, social and discursive lessons about when and how groups cooperate productively.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>The article contributes theoretically to the underutilised concepts of categorical pairs and opportunity hoarding, and applies them to an analysis of inter-movement negotiations and feminist alliances.</li><br /><li>It furthermore identifies three factors that support feminist alliance building among dissimilar groups: (1) organisational fit; (2) social brokerage; and (3) shared frames of women’s and human rights.</li></ul>


Author(s):  
Kyle Kirkup ◽  
Lee Airton ◽  
Allison McMillan ◽  
Jacob DesRochers

AbstractBetween 2002 and 2017, Canadian lawmakers sought to redress the pervasive levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence experienced by transgender and/or non-binary people by adding the terms “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to federal, provincial, and territorial human rights instruments. This paper tracks the complex, iterative ways in which antidiscrimination protections are brought to life outside courts and tribunals. Using Ontario’s publicly-funded English language secular school boards as a case study, we examine how the introduction of explicit human rights protections on the basis of “gender identity” and “gender expression” in 2012 worked to produce a series of responses across the education sector. Given that “gender identity” and “gender expression” remain legally undefined terms in the Ontario Human Rights Code, and only provisionally defined by Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) policy, we argue that school boards constitute important actors engaged in constructing the meanings of these terms in policy and practice. In decentering courts and tribunals in our analysis, we aim to uncover the everyday practices of parallel norm-making taking place in the education context. These everyday practices shape how we collectively understand the meaning of “gender identity” and “gender expression.” By carefully tracking these post-legislative developments, which rarely make their way into reported decisions, we suggest that human rights law reforms might open up space for the emergence of norms that allow people to do gender in a variety of ways.


Author(s):  
Sue Clayton ◽  
Anna Gupta ◽  
Katie Willis

This chapter draws together themes emerging from the preceding chapters, as well as identifying policy recommendations. It starts by highlighting the insights drawn from the cross-disciplinary approach adopted in the book. It then moves on to stress the social justice and human rights perspective, including the implications of how unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are framed by the authorities that are dealing with their cases. It discusses the need to acknowledge and support young people in exercising their agency, albeit within the confines of structural inequalities. The chapter then provides policy recommendations including the implementation of current laws and guidelines, and a review of age assessment processes. The chapter concludes with examples of new practices and new critical thinking that have emerged in the face of challenges associated with supporting unaccompanied young migrants in recent years.


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