On the Uses and Misuses of Human Rights: a Critical Approach to Advocacy

Andreopoulos, George; Arat, Zehra F. Kabasakal

doi:10.1057/9781137408341_1

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…While the idea of empowerment is foundational in community psychology and is part of virtually any HR framework, it is crucial to explore the limits to this concept to avoid reducing it to a matter of personal responsibility and action. To this respect, Andreopoulos and Arat (2014) question the legitimacy of advocating under the overly broad and sometimes totalizing framework of HR. For these authors, power dynamics between the provider of humanitarian help and its beneficiary are always at play and will influence the ways HR violations are inferred and understood.…”

Section: A Non-individualized and Processual Model Of Human Rights As...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This was the case of the Child Labor Deterrence Act: It intended to ban the import to the European Union of goods produced through child labor and, according to the UNICEF, caused around 50,000 children in Bangladesh to lose their jobs in the textile industry. Without their jobs and other means to sustain themselves, but also without education and social support, many of these children were forced into worse forms of exploitation, such as prostitution or stone-crushing (Andreopoulos & Arat, 2014).…”

Section: A Non-individualized and Processual Model Of Human Rights As...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is little doubt about the notional importance of the International Declaration of Human Rights as a milestone of civilization principles and as a post-WWII statement about the basics of human life and dignity. Yet, as it usually happens, the devil is in the details: It is at the interpretations of the specific content of human rights (HR) policies and how they should be applied where issues start emerging (Andreopoulos & Arat, 2014). No one questions, for example, the importance of the right to education for everyone (Art.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Critical Reflexivity and Intersectionality in Human Rights

Gemignani

Hernández-Albújar

2019

European Psychologist

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Abstract. Within traditional social, community, and clinical psychologies, the human rights framework has typically been interpreted and adopted from a person- or patient-based perspective. While useful and well meaning, ideological values concerning empowerment, agency, and resiliency have often framed human rights interventions or programs within psychology. We propose in this manuscript a theoretical shift for psychology to decentralize the role of the individual human being while at the same time avoiding forms of social behaviorism that tend to portray the person as passive or as reacting to external stimuli. Following this first shift from the individual to the collective, we suggest adopting anti-essentialist discourses about the parties, agents, and issues involved in human rights. To this goal, the philosophical framework of process or relational ontology may be especially useful. Based on critical theory, critical feminism, social constructionist, and post-human views of knowledge and reality, process ontology considers reality as complex, fluid, discursive, and dialogical. The separations between the personal and the political are questioned to underscore the entanglement and inseparability of dimensions of possibility and actions, which are continuous reconstructions. To conclude, we reflect on the ways in which these two movements toward anti-individualism and relational ontology might inform specific practices and reflections within human rights frameworks in psychology.

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Section: A Non-individualized and Processual Model Of Human Rights As...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Non-individualized and Processual Model Of Human Rights As...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Critical Reflexivity and Intersectionality in Human Rights

Gemignani

Hernández-Albújar

2019

European Psychologist

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“…In the process, women move away from protest movements and try to engage the state through lobbying or providing expertise (Craske and Molyneux 2002;Ecevit 2007). The depoliticizing impact of the "professionalization" of human rights advocacy work, as well as the "bureaucratization" and co-optation of NGOs by funding agencies and foundations (which are often extensions of capitalists enterprises), are already noted by some alarmed observers (Andreopoulos and Arat 2014;Guilhot 2005; The Revolution will not be Funded 2007).…”

Section: Human Rights and Feminism For A Transformative Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Feminisms, Women's Rights, and the UN: Would Achieving Gender Equality Empower Women?

Arat¹

2015

Am Polit Sci Rev

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104

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Although all theories that oppose the subordination of women can be called feminist, beyond this common denominator, feminisms vary in terms of what they see as the cause of women's subordination, alternatives to patriarchal society, and proposed strategies to achieve the desired change. This article offers a critical examination of the interaction of feminist theories and the international human rights discourses as articulated at the UN forums and documents. It contends that although a range of feminisms that elucidate the diversity of women's experiences and complexities of oppression have been incorporated into some UN documents, the overall women's rights approach of the UN is still informed by the demands and expectations of liberal feminism. This is particularly evident in the aggregate indicators that are employed to assess the “empowerment of women.” In addition to explaining why liberal feminism trumps other feminisms, the article addresses the problems with following policies that are informed by liberal feminism. Noting that the integrative approach of liberal feminism may establish gender equality without empowering the majority of women, it criticizes using aggregate indicators of empowerment for conflating sources of power with empowerment and making false assumptions.

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“…When the reference is to historical events, they are typically read as representing "actual" instances of social justice, even if this "actuality" is always politically situated. For instance, it has been argued that the United Nations General Assembly (1948), which was this first global codification of social values, embodies forms of unjust cultural hegemony (Andreopoulos & Arat, 2014). In the application of human rights and social justice, multiple definitions and values unfold in relation to concepts and practices that cannot be defined once and for all without the risk of perpetuating inequalities (Gemignani & Hernández-Albújar, 2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

Social justice narrative research: From articulation to intra-action and ethico-onto-epistemology.

Gemignani,

Pujol-Tarrés,

Gandarias-Goikoetxea

2023

Qualitative Psychology

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Narrative production and negotiation are common discursive practices in the field of social justice. Narrative inquiry has traditionally focused on either or both the subjective understandings of experiences and social and political structures. Even if the level of agency that is attributed to the agent(s) producing the narratives may vary significantly across styles of narrative analysis, it is generally assumed that the interaction among participants produces consensual and context-based narratives. This articulatory approach conceives participating agents as holding and negotiating among interconnected and distinguished positions. In contrast, we develop a new-materialist approach that conceptualizes narratives as intra-actions and, therefore, as onto-epistemological processes and situated practices. From this perspective, narratives are not just epistemological practices or representations of the phenomenon. Instead, they are agentic and ontological entanglements in the sense that tellings, researchers, and research practices participate in the becoming of the phenomenon under study. We will contrast articulatory and intra-action understandings of narrative inquiry through the example of a communitybased initiative concerned with immigrant women's rights. Finally, we explore the implications that new-materialist perspectives may have for reconceptualizing narrative inquiry and for narrative ethics of social justice.

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On the Uses and Misuses of Human Rights: a Critical Approach to Advocacy

Cited by 3 publications

References 37 publications

Critical Reflexivity and Intersectionality in Human Rights

Critical Reflexivity and Intersectionality in Human Rights

Feminisms, Women's Rights, and the UN: Would Achieving Gender Equality Empower Women?

Social justice narrative research: From articulation to intra-action and ethico-onto-epistemology.

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