2005-2006 Organizing Principle
LSHR's organizing principle for 2005-2006 is Displaced Persons. The category is purposefully broad. As it relates to human rights, "displaced persons" is intended to encompass those fleeing from persecution as asylum-seekers and refugees, those who have been forced to move by economic or social marginalization, as well as those driven from home by natural disasters. In all cases where people have been displaced, our goal is to elucidate and advocate for the obligations that States (and others) owe to those in need.
posted by lshr at 7:41 AM
8 Comments:
I'm testing out the comment function, and I also wanted to put my 2 cents in on Displaced Persons. I think it could encompass discussions on asylum, immigration, refugees and refugee camps, role of international organizations, etc. which is applicable both on a domestic and international level, and certainly at a NYC level as well.
This is Sarah. I also supported Displaced Persons, though I didn't nominate it in the first place. Being in Southern Africa brings it home pretty strongly - it's obviously a massive and terrifying problem in Zim and the DRC right now, but even here in South Africa 30,000 people's shacks were bulldozed the week I got here. I think it's a problem that is too ignored and too prevelant. Also, it would allow us to keep attention on tsunami relief which has completely fallen out of the news. And I like the scope - global, but not so broad as to become meaningless.
I did nominate "Legacies of Colonialism," but then decided not to vote for it becuase it's so incredibly broad. What I was thinking was that it would be a way to talk about race (as we were discussing at the time), but also talk about economics and not let "ethnicity" swamp politics and economics as the cause of so many conflicts.
Matt says:
Just to clarify, my concern about Torture/Extra Judicial Detention is only that it may be difficult to continue to capture people's attention with this topic. I still think the topic is interesting and worthy. (I voted for it.) I guess capturing students' attention will always be a bit of a challenge. I'm afraid though that people are already starting to get complacent about torture and I wonder if we'll be successful in trying to educate and engage on this matter.
Regarding how many choices we send to the group, I don't have a preference between two or three. I would recommend though that if it's three we should use the instant runoff system. I really like the instant runoff (in which people rank their choices. The last place topic is then discarded and the second choice votes of those who voted for the least popular choice are tallied instead.) I hope it will gain popularity in real elections, so I want to make more people familiar with it.
This is Caroline--
I'm so glad this is working. I guess the discussion I tried to start ended up showing up too (it's right below this one on the main page), I couldn't seem to make it show up for me. Anyway, I am all for the instant run-off voting, especially since it will likely prevent having to vote more than once. Does anyone have any further endorsements to add for either Legacies of Colonialism or Torture/Extrajudicial Detentions, because I have quite a bit on Displaced Persons?
Hey this is Eric. I'm sorry I haven't participated until this point but I just received my first lshr steering comittee e-mail a few days ago. My first vote would be for displaced persons. I am not sure how broadly this subject is usually interpreted. However, I think it would be cool to look at it as broadly as possible, and include people who are economically displaced, displaced by war, displaced by natural disasters, etc. In a broad sense, it would include all the people living in illegal shantytowns within their countries around the world for whatever reasons. I am watching economic displacement occur now in Argentina following the 2001 economic crisis and have seen it occur elsewhere in S. America. I also apologize if someone already made this point. The colonialism idea would be my second choice, but again I would prefer to read it broadly so as to include the human rights issues that are arising today in countries that the USA is occupying. Perhaps the topic could be "Legacies of Colonialism and Foreign Occupation." It makes sense to send out 3 topics to LSHR and the runoff election scheme sounds good. I hope everyone is having a great summer and sleeping lots of siestas. Eric
Ahoy,
Bill here; thanks very much for putting this discussion up on the web. I voted for DP's and won't replicate my reasons here, because I agree with everything Eric said. So, have we agreed to do instant runoff voting, and to send those 3 pics to the LSHR list? Or has it already happened? If not, could I nominate Caroline (if she can access the listserv) to do it this week?
Sarah again. I think voting is in order. I kind of think it would be nice if the members saw some of our reasons for supporting these various headings and how we're conceiving them - so maybe, Caroline (assuming you're the listserve person which I think is the case)?, you could pick a couple sentences about each one from what we've all emailed and posted to send out with the "ballot?" (To be honest, my fear is that people will go for the sexiest or most "current" sounding heading, and displaced persons will lose out...)
Matt's instant runoff idea sounded good to me.
It's Caroline --
Hi guys,
Yes of course I will send blurbs with each of them and do it today. I was hoping to get a few more lines on extrajudicial detention and especially legacies of colonialism from people because I have quite a bit of stuff on displaced persons. I can come up with something more easily on torture and extrajudicial detention, but quite frankly I think the supporters (Jennifer? Stephanie? Eric?) of Legacies of Colonialism would do a better job describing it than me. Either way, I will be sending it out this evening (my time, mid-morning in NY).
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