Human Rights in Southeast Asia

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2008:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This seminar will focus on human rights and its critics from a historical and comparative perspective in the context of current debates about globalisation, democratisation, and development. We will explore the factors that have given rise to radically different conception of rights and justice (i.e. political, economic, cultural, religious, ideological) and look at their implementation and the obstacles at the local, national, and international levels. The first part of the course will deal briefly with specific conventions; the rest of the course will engage case studies for understanding the internationalisation of human rights discourses and the role of international organisations and NGOs in implementing them. What is the relationship and relevance of the international human rights movement to local notions of rights? What impact is this having on local gender relations and the relationships of women to their states and communities? Are human rights NGOs weakening or strengthening the nation-states in Southeast Asia; are they sites of resistance or complicity? The seminar introduces students to difference conceptions of rights, citizenship, constitutional rights, and social justice, including feminist critiques of rights discourse and of 'development'; historical analyses of the meaning of 'freedom' and 'sovereignty'; ethnographic studies on the relationship between attitudes towards bodily integrity and human rights; the debates about poverty, economic development and access to adequate health care as human rights. We shall draw upon a wide range of sources from theoretical works, philosophical and anthropological critiques of rights discourse, constitutional rights, legal treatises, judicial affairs, and NGO documents. On completion of the subject students should have a broad historical, comparative and critical perspective on the debates about rights and justice in Southeast Asia.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

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