166-417 Human Rights Theory & Practice: S.E.Asia

Formerly available as 166-107. Students who have completed 166-107 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in political science, public policy and management or Asian studies, or postgraduate coursework programs in MIALS.

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 political community. We will explore the factors that have given rise to radically different conception of rights and justice (ie. 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 strenthening the nation-states in Southeast Asia; are they sites of resistance or complicity? The seminar introduces students to different 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; and other formations of violence that cannot be recuperated or inventoried in conventional human rights discourses. 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 and be able to analyse political violence beyond inventorising violations and narratives of victimisation.

Two 2500-word essays.

• P Hirsch & C Warren (eds), The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia. Routledge, 1998.
• W Bello, S Cunningham & L Keng Poh (eds), A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand. St Martin's Press, 1999.
• J Fox & D Soares (eds), Out of the Ashes: The Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor.