Notes from the Margins: Human-Rights Related Activism, Advocacy, and Humanitarianism in Southeast Europe

© KHK EViR

International Workshop

Thursday, 27 June 2024 to Friday, 28 June 2024

Venue:

JurGrad
Königsstraße 51–53
48143 Münster

Organisation:

Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schulz
Universität Münster
doschulz@uni-muenster.de

Kostadin Karavasilev
Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Universität Münster
kostadin.karavasilev@uni-muenster.de

Concept

Human rights have stirred numerous debates about their legitimacy and applicability at a global scale to the point that their greatest critics consider them an instrument for colonisation whereas their most avid proponents see them as a solution to global inequalities. Stepping aside from such polar oppositions, this workshop aims to provide a perspective on human rights focusing on their practical application in doing activism, advocacy, and humanitarianism. Looking at Southeast Europe – a region that is seldom addressed in international anthropological and other humanities’ research on human rights – the workshop brings together scholars in the humanities, activists, and advocates. It aims to trace the intertwining of local laws, politics, and socio-cultural norms with pursuits for legal, social, and political change that draw on transnational human rights treaties and rights discourses. On a broader level, through the Southeast European examples the workshop invites speculation on the directions in which theories and applications of human rights are going and could go.

Programme

Thursday, 27 June 2024

15.30–16.00
Coffee & Tea

16.00–16.30
Dorothea Schulz (University of Münster) & Kostadin Karavasilev (Käte Hamburger Kolleg Münster)
Welcome and Introduction

16.30–18.00
Keynote
Chair: Dorothea Schulz

Čarna Brković (University of Mainz)
Humanitarian Aid and Complex Differences in a ‘Global East’

18.00–18.10
Coffee Break

Section 1: Approaching Social Justice through Women’s and LGBTQIA+ Rights in Greece
Chair: João Figueiredo (Käte Hamburger Kolleg Münster)

18.10–18.55
Eva Xevgeni (Greece)
“Who is Afraid of Human Rights?” Political Activism, Human Rights and Law-Making in Greece

19.00
Dinner

Friday, 28 June 2024

9.30–10.00
Coffee & Tea

Section 2: Post-Socialist Legacies and the Rights of People with Disabilities
Chair: Olaf Zenker (Käte Hamburger Kolleg Münster)

10.00–10.45
Teodor Mladenov (University of Dundee)
Barriers to Realising Disabled People’s Rights in the Postsocialist Region of Central and Eastern Europe

10.45–11.30
Aneta Genova (Bulgaria)
Psycho-Social Disabilities and Human Rights. Strategic Litigation in Bulgaria

11.30–12.00
Coffee Break

Section 3: The ‘Other’ of Human Rights-Based Justice
Chair: Irina Savu-Cristea (Freie Universität Berlin)

12.00–12.45
Cyrille Cartier (University of Zadar)
The Inevitability of Othering? How the Geo-Political Meets the Local in an Arts-Based Organization in Croatia

12.45–13.30
Jelena Kupsjak (University of Zadar)
Free to Sue: Exploring the Limits of Human Rights Discourse in Mental Health and LGBTQ Legislation in Croatia

13.30–15.00
Lunch Break

15.00–16.30
Section 4: Roundtable
Moderator: Kostadin Karavasilev

Contributors: Nadja Bobičić (University of Belgrade) & Ivo Gruev (Academy for European Human Rights Protection)

Discussant: Mark Goodale (University of Oxford/University of Lausanne)

16.30–17.00
Final Discussion

17.00
Farewell and Outlook