Atelier 4 - Enseignement des Droits de la Personne (Présenté par la Section Enseignement)

W416 - Workshop 4 - Teaching Human Rights: Tensions and Transformation

Date: Jun 5 | Heure: 08:30am to 10:00am | Salle:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Saad Khan (University of Winnipeg)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Kristi Heather Kenyon (University of Winnipeg)

Strategies for linking global and local in human rights learning and praxis: Jackie Smith (University of Pittsburgh)
Abstract: This presentation offers lessons from my work with local and national human rights cities initiatives working to improve local implementation of human rights standards. As an activist and teacher-scholar, I have worked to create community learning opportunities that bring diverse residents together while helping connect university students and faculty with other community members. I discuss how we have involved students in work to support community human rights learning as well as in the compilation of human rights “shadow reports” submitted to UN human rights bodies as part of official reviews of human rights treaty compliance and related accountability processes. This work highlights the important roles that universities play in helping support human rights and democracy in local communities, and how such work reinforces global human rights law and institutions.

Teaching the Transformational Capacity of Human Rights while Doubting the Transformational Capacity of Human Rights: Nicole Bernhardt (University of Toronto Scarborough)
Abstract: This proposed talk, as part of the workshop on Human Rights Teaching, draws on my experience teaching a large A-level political science course on Human Rights and Equity within a Canadian context. The course seeks to introduce students to the study of political science, institutions, and government through a foundational exploration of human rights theory and practice. I cover a range of critical issues in human rights and equity, including social and economic rights, racism, disability justice, and incarceration. Throughout this course, canonical Canadian Political Science literature is placed in conversation with ‘real world’ political debates and critical approaches, and supplemented with policy documents, opinion pieces, and government reports. Teaching this course in the 2023 and 2024 Fall terms has meant contending with both "EDI backlash" (Mackenzie et al. 2024) and laments over an increasingly "post-human rights world" (Foulkes 2016, Strangio 2017). This creates pedagogical challenges around how to convey the fundamental significance of human rights values, while these values are being openly eschewed, and how to persuade students of the significance of human rights institutions, while these institutions are being openly ignored. These pedagogical challenges also open up opportunities to make visible to students the contested nature of human rights and the consequences at stake in these political contestations. But these teaching experiences also challenge my own faith in the transformational capacity of human rights. I welcome the opportunity to participate in roundtable dialogue with fellow members of Canada's human rights teaching community.

Peacebuilding through Promotion of Inclusive Identities: Human Rights Education in Afghan Universities: Seyed Ali Hosseini (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Abstract: Universities can assist peacebuilding by advocating for more inclusive identities in countries where specific identities are exploited by parties to the conflict. The promotion of inclusive identities pertains to the normative or cultural dimension of conflict, which are more subtle than physical violence. This is particularly crucial in Afghanistan, where the protracted conflict shaped by identity and ideology. As the most inclusive discourse, human rights could facilitate the transformation of Afghan politics and society towards sustainable peace following the initial Taliban rule, when international community were heavily involved in peacebuilding. This paper examines the role of higher education in facilitating the transition from particular identities to a broad human identity among the new generation in Afghanistan, 2001-2021. It is argued that teaching human rights served as an instrument of peacebuilding, particularly through the promotion of inclusive identities, and introduction of the human rights discourse into Afghan politics and society. Moreover, in the context of the Taliban's return to power, it is proposed that the human rights discourse has the potential to challenge both exclusive identity-based politics and the fundamentalism of the Taliban on a long-term basis. The central inquiry of this research is to identify the key opportunities and challenges of teaching of human rights in Afghan universities in the facilitation of conflict transformation. The findings of this case study contribute to the literature on peacebuilding, specifically on the cultural dimension of conflict and peace education in contexts where identity, religion, and harmful traditional practices are contributing to the conflict.

Embedding the experiential into human rights teaching: Can feeling all the feels shatter powerful hegemonies, embrace unlearning, and move us towards social justice?: Rusa Jeremic (George Brown College/ OISE/UofT)
Abstract: How dare you say that about our own people...What’s wrong with you...I’m Jewish...How can they say that? ...they’re Jewish.. What is Wrong with these people? What is wrong with them? How are you like this? -TikTok Video The video captures a young Jewish woman at a Jewish rally in support of Palestine. Her face displays sheer terror as her world – her Gramscian common sense (1971) – shatters. Unable to comprehend a reality in which Jewish people would support Palestine and want to co-exist peacefully, her ‘truth’ crumbles before our eyes in a matter of seconds. The level of discomfort and pain was palpable, but the missed potential for learning and unlearning leading to social change is also visible. This paper will present a social change pedagogical framework for human rights teaching that situates affect theory alongside traditional political discourse while centering peoples’ lived experiences. It will couple Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and consent (1971) with Boler’s Pedagogy of Discomfort (Boler: 1991; Head:2020; Bright & Eames: 2022; Cullin & Whalen: 2022) within experiential learning frameworks (Kolb: 1984) to interrogate the potentials and pitfalls of learning and unlearning in human rights pedagogy. Can feeling all the feels shatter powerful hegemonies, embrace unlearning, and move us towards social justice?