What might a truly global mobilisation look like for migrants' rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights?
The decades-long ascendancy and triumphant march of human rights since 1948, culminating in the long decade of global liberal consensus following 1989, would suggest that these rights should have by now gained currency as self-evident and irreversible. Yet, it would be, at best, naïve, at worst, dangerous to succumb to this illusion of irreversibility and universal acceptance. There are many direct challenges and violations, which, when taken together, can give a sense of human rights in retreat. Human rights may also be the subject of rhetorical ruses and ideological trickery, with governors demagogically claiming continued commitment to the core values of human rights that they undermine.
While much has been said about the causes and consequences of such hard and soft challenges to human rights, this talk highlights a structural feature that often receives short shrift in contemporary debates: the role of demography. The event will also investigate two interlinked facets. First, majoritarian electoral politics, in which regimes seek to draw legitimacy based on the claim to speak in the name of the “pure” or “real” people, coupled with whipping up historical or current ethno-nationalist grievances against minorities and migrants. Second, demographic panics that are used to curtail women’s rights and reproductive autonomy in the name of an existential threat to the nation, couched in a rhetoric of demographic security. Together, these not only result in a range of rights violations, but also justify them as necessary to ensure continued national survival.
At the same time, we also see how human rights have been renewed in the face of these demography-based challenges: the courage of Iranian women leading the movement for freedom and bodily autonomy, or the resistance of Afghan women continuing to insist on their right to education. Just as the demographic challenges to human rights span the Global North and South, so do efforts to counteract them. What, then, might a truly global mobilisation look like for migrants' rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights?
Speaker: Professor Shalini Randeria, president and rector of Central European University. Chair: Professor Jo Shaw, Head of the School of Law and former IASH Director.
This joint Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Young Academy of Scotland (YAS), Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), and Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh (IASH) event will run between 17:30-19:00 at the Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh, Bristo Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9AL.
A reception between 19:00 - 20:00 will be held at the Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9AB.
Tickets are free but booking is essential. Reserve a space here.