Quote of the week
It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.
Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.
The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.
Call for papers – 50 years of Human Rights Activism: Comemorating Sharpville
CALL FOR PAPERS
50 YEARS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM: COMMEMORATING SHARPEVILLE
21 March 2010 marks 50 years since the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, which is today commemorated annually as Human Rights Day in South Africa. To mark this event, the Democratic Governance and Right Unit (DGRU) of the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the Political Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), are convening a conference to consider some contemporary issues confronting civil society activists and human rights practitioners. Papers, to be presented at the conference in March 2010, are invited to address the following themes / questions:
What is the meaning of Sharpeville in a contemporary context? How should we define the relationship between the state and civil society, contrasting 1960 and the post-1994 era?
- Visual representations of landmark events in the SA human rights calendar, and the “politics of remembering”. How are seminal moments in history captured, used, co-opted or distorted to articulate particular political ends?
- The emergence of gender-based hate crimes in the context of LGBT rights. Is civil society continuing to advance the rights of LGBT people?
- Are popular struggles to articulate social and economic rights in the present in contrast with the civil and political struggles of the past, and what is the role of civil society in these struggles?
- What are some of the emerging theoretical debates about human rights, and has the language human rights become problematic for social mobilization? How are struggles for group identity, opposition politics or environmental issues articulated in terms of their human rights implications?
- What is the role of progressive churches and religious bodies as champions of human rights. What is the legacy of liberation theology and struggle icons from religious institutions?
- In the context of the current debate on judicial selection, whose interests do judges represent, and how does their training prepare them for adjudicating the rights of poor and marginalized people?
Please send an abstract of 300 words to Dr Kristina Bentley, kristina.bentley@uct.ac.za by 2 October 2009. Authors of the selected papers will be invited to a workshop in early December to present their papers for discussion ahead of the conference in March 2010. The papers will be published in a special edition of a local peer reviewed journal.
