LibGuides: Human Rights: OERs

Welcome to OER & Public Domain Resources

This page contains resources that are either Open Educational Resources (OERs) that have a Creative Commons (CC) license or media that is currently in the Public Domain (usually the copyright has expired). When using these resources, please remember to check the licenses or verify that the information is in the public domain.

Open Textbooks

#identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has served as a major platform for political performance, social justice activism, and large-scale public debates over race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and nationality. It has empowered minoritarian groups to organize protests, articulate often-underrepresented perspectives, and form community. It has also spread hashtags that have been used to bully and silence women, people of color, and LGBTQ people.
Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.
Blame It On the WTO: A Human Rights Critique The World Trade Organization (WTO) is often accused of, at best, not paying enough attention to human rights or, at worst, facilitating and perpetuating human rights abuses. This book weighs these criticisms and examines their validity, incorporating legal arguments as well as some economic and political science perspectives. After introducing the respective WTO and human rights regimes, and discussing their legal and normative relationship to each other, the book presents a detailed analysis of the main human rights concerns relating to the WTO. These include the alleged democratic deficit within the Organization and the impact of WTO rules on the right to health, labour rights, the right to food, and on questions of poverty and development. Given that some of the most important issues within the WTO concern its impact on poor people within developing States, the book asks whether rich States have an obligation to the people of poorer States to construct a fairer trading system that better facilitates the alleviation of poverty and development. Against this background, the book examines the current Doha round proposals as well as suggestions for reform of the WTO to make it more ‘human rights-friendly’.
Blood Libel The ritual murder accusation is one of a series of myths that fall under the label blood libel, and describes the medieval legend that Jews require Christian blood for obscure religious purposes and are capable of committing murder to obtain it. This malicious myth continues to have an explosive afterlife in the public sphere, where Sarah Palin's 2011 gaffe is only the latest reminder of its power to excite controversy. Blood Libel is the first book-length study to analyze the recent historiography of the ritual murder accusation and to consider these debates in the context of intellectual and cultural history as well as methodology. Hannah R. Johnson articulates how ethics shapes methodological decisions in the study of the accusation and how questions about methodology, in turn, pose ethical problems of interpretation and understanding. Examining recent debates over the scholarship of historians such as Gavin Langmuir, Israel Yuval, and Ariel Toaff, Johnson argues that these discussions highlight an ongoing paradigm shift that seeks to reimagine questions of responsibility by deliberately refraining from a discourse of moral judgment and blame in favor of an emphasis on historical contingencies and hostile intergroup dynamics.
Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future.
Exit And Voices Exit and Voice is a compelling account of how Mexican migrants with strong ties to their home communities impact the economic and political welfare of those they leave behind. In many decentralized democracies like Mexico, migrants step in to supply public goods when local or state government cannot. Though migrants’ cross-border investments often improve citizens’ access to these goods and create a more responsive local government, their work allows them to unintentionally exert political engagement and power, undermining the influence of those still living in their hometowns. Exit and Voice sheds light on how migrant transnational engagement refashions the meaning of community, democratic governance, and practices of citizenship in the era of globalization.
Femicide across Europe Femicide, the killing of women and girls because of their gender, was until recently included in the category ‘homicide’, obscuring the special features of this social and gendered phenomenon. However, the majority of murders of women are perpetrated by men whom they know from family ties and are the result of intimate partner violence or so-called 'honour' killings. This book is the first one on femicide in Europe and presents the findings of a four-year project discussing various aspects of femicide. Written by leading international scholars with an interdiscplinary perspective, it looks at the prevention programmes and comparative quantitative and qualitative data collection, as well as the impact of culture. It proposes the establishment of a European Observatory on Femicide as a new direction for the future, showing the benefits of cross-national collaboration, united to prevent the murder of women and girls
Gender Violence and the Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime In Gender Violence and the Transnational Politics of the Honor Crime, Dana M. Olwan examines how certain forms of violence become known, recognized, and contested across multiple geopolitical contexts—looking specifically at a particular form of gender-based violence known as the “honor crime” and tracing how a range of legal, political, and literary texts inform normative and critical understandings of this term. Although studies now acknowledge the complicated mobilizations of honor crime discourses, the ways in which these discourses move across different geographies and contexts remain relatively unexplored. This book fills that void by providing a transnational feminist examination of the disparate yet interconnected sites of the US, Canada, Jordan, and Palestine, showing how the concept travels across nations and is deployed to promote hegemonic agendas.
Homotopia?: Gay Identity, Sameness & the Politics of Desire
Lesbians on Television The twenty-first century has seen LGBTQ+ rights emerge at the forefront of public discourse and national politics in ways that would once have been hard to imagine. Focusing on the small screens of Europe and North America, "Lesbians on Television" maps the contemporary shifts in lesbian visibility within popular media and, from this, extracts a figure of the new 'lesbian normal' that both helps and hinders those it represents. This book offers a unique and layered account of the complex dynamics in the modern moment of social change, drawing together critical social and cultural theory as well empirical research, which includes interviews and multi-platform media analyses. Structured around five central case studies of popular British and American television shows featuring lesbian, bisexual and queer women characters – "The L Word", "Skins", "Glee", "Coronation Street" and "The Fosters".
Migrants and Religion: Paths, Issues, and Lenses Despite the worldwide dramatic spread of religious-based discriminations, persecutions, and conflicts, both official data and academic literature have underestimated their role as a root cause of contemporary migrations. This multidisciplinary study aims to overcome this gap. Through an unprecedented collection of theoretical analysis and original empirical evidence, the book provides unique data and insights on the role of religion in the trajectories of asylum seekers and migrants – from the analysis of the religious geography of sending countries to the role of spirituality as a factor of resilience and adaptation. By enhancing both academic and political debate on these issues, the book offers the possibility of regaining awareness of the close link between religious freedom and the quality of democracy. Readership: Students attending courses of Sociology, Law, Psychology, Political Science, International Relations, Theology; scholars of the above mentioned fields; religion education’s teachers; people from cultural, charity, or faith-based organizations and NGOs; practitioners involved in the field of reception and integration of migrants and asylum seekers; policy-makers and public administration officers.
Precarious Lives Presents the first evidence of forced labour among displaced migrants who seek refuge in the UK. Through a critical engagement with contemporary debates about precarity, unfreedom and socio-legal status, the book explores how asylum and forced labour are linked, and enmeshed in a broader picture of modern slavery produced through globalised working conditions.
Pride Parades and LGBT Movements oday, Pride parades are staged in countries and localities across the globe, providing the most visible manifestations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex movements and politics. Pride Parades and LGBT Movements contributes to a better understanding of LGBT protest dynamics through a comparative study of eleven Pride parades in seven European countries　– Czech Republic, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK　– and Mexico. Peterson, Wahlström and Wennerhag uncover the dynamics producing similarities and differences between Pride parades, using unique data from surveys of Pride participants and qualitative interviews with parade organizers and key LGBT activists.
Queer In Africa African sexualities are dynamic, multi-faceted and resilient. However, people with non-heterosexual sexualities and gender variant identities are often involved in struggles for survival, self-definition, and erotic rights. Queer in Africa forms an entry point for understanding the vulnerabilities of queer Africans as shaped by social, cultural and political processes, aiming to provide innovative insights about contentious disagreements over their lives. The volume mediates Southern and Northern scholarship, directing attention toward African-centred beliefs made accessible to a wide audience. Key concerns such as identity construction and the intersections between different social forces (such as nationalist traditionalism and sexualities) are addressed via engaging chapters; some empirically based and others providing critical cultural analysis. Highly interdisciplinary in nature, Queer in Africa provides a key resource for students, academics, and activists concerned with the international support of sex and gender diversity. It will appeal to those interested in fields such as anthropology, film studies, literary studies, political science, public health, sociology, and socio-legal studies.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination In Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination Holning Lau offers an incisive review of the conceptual questions that arise as legal systems around the world grapple with whether and how to protect people against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. Readership: All interested in LGBT rights (i.e., SOGI rights). This audience ranges from students to seasoned LGBT rights experts who specialize in a particular country/region and are seeking to learn about other parts of the world.
Transcontinental Dialogues Transcontinental Dialogues brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous anthropologists from Mexico, Canada, and Australia who work at the intersections of Indigenous rights, advocacy, and action research. These engaged anthropologists explore how obligations manifest in differently situated alliances, how they respond to such obligations, and the consequences for anthropological practice and action. This volume presents a set of pieces that do not take the usual political or geographic paradigms as their starting point; instead, the particular dialogues from the margins presented in this book arise from a rejection of the geographic hierarchization of knowledge in which the Global South continues to be the space for fieldwork while the Global North is the place for its systematization and theorization. Instead, contributors in Transcontinental Dialogues delve into the interactions between anthropologists and the people they work with in Canada, Australia, and Mexico. This framework allows the contributors to explore the often unintended but sometimes devastating impacts of government policies (such as land rights legislation or justice initiatives for women) on Indigenous people’s lives.
Twitter And Tear Gas Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest is a 2017 non-fiction book written by Zeynep Tufekci about protest in the age of the internet, social networks, and social media
Violence Against Women's Health in International Law Violence against women is characterised by its universality, the multiplicity of its forms, and the intersectionality of diverse kinds of discrimination against women. Great emphasis in legal analysis has been placed on sex-based discrimination; however, in investigations of violence, one aspect has been overlooked: violence may severely affect women's health and access to reproductive health, and State health policies might be a cause of violence against women. Exploring the relationship between violence against women and women's rights to health and reproductive health, Sara De Vido theorises the new concept of violence against women's health in international law using the Hippocratic paradigm, enriching human rights-based approaches to women's autonomy and reflecting on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination. At the core of the book are two dimensions of violence: horizontal 'inter-personal', and vertical 'state policies'. Investigating these dimensions through decisions made by domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies, De Vido reconceptualises States' obligations and eventually asks whether international law itself is the ultimate cause of violence against women's health.
We Are All Here to Stay In 2007, 144 UN member states voted to adopt a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US were the only members to vote against it. Each eventually changed its position. This book explains why and examines what the Declaration could mean for sovereignty, citizenship and democracy in liberal societies such as these. It takes Canadian Chief Justice Lamer's remark that 'we are all here to stay’ to mean that indigenous peoples are ‘here to stay’ as indigenous. The book examines indigenous and state critiques of the Declaration but argues that, ultimately, it is an instrument of significant transformative potential showing how state sovereignty need not be a power that is exercised over and above indigenous peoples. Nor is it reasonably a power that displaces indigenous nations’ authority over their own affairs. The Declaration shows how and why, and this book argues that in doing so, it supports more inclusive ways of thinking about how citizenship and democracy may work better. The book draws on the Declaration to imagine what non-colonial political relationships could look like in liberal societies.

Courseware

Conversations with History: Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement, with Thelton Henderson, Jr. Lecture- "Overview: Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Judge Thelton Henderson for a discussion of the U.S. civil rights movement and its implications for international law. (43 min)" -description
Primary Source Exemplar: Human Rights, Conflict and Social Change Lesson Unit; "The lessons in this unit are designed for an ELA class. They are intended to be used, if possible, in a collaborative unit with a history teacher using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Note: This lesson is intended to be taught in collaboration with a history teacher. Although it can stand alone as an ELA unit, if it is taught without the aid of a history teacher, the ELA teacher may need to supplement with additional texts to provide historical background and context for both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and apartheid. Students' understanding of the history and context surrounding the texts will allow them to more deeply understand the significance of author’s craft in an analysis of related speeches."- description
“We Shall Overcome” Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Lesson- "The Civil Rights Movement for African American equality is one of the defining social movements of the 1950s and 60s. Ordinary people took to the streets to demand equality. This lesson will explore the various forms of protest that defined the movement. Two of the most notable leaders of the movement were Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. While both men shared the common goal of equality, their approaches were very different. Martin Luther King preached nonviolent civil disobedience, while Malcolm X demanded equality “by any means necessary.” You will examine famous speeches and articles written by both men to form your own opinion of which approach is more effective to have your demands met." -Description

Misc. Materials

Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi description- "Overview: This collection uses primary sources to explore Fannie Lou Hamer and the civil rights movement in rural Mississippi. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee."
Introduction to Open Education: Towards a Human Rights Theory- The International Journal of Open Educational Resources Abstract- "Education is recognized as a fundamental human right. Yet, many people throughout the world do not have access to important educational opportunities. Open education, which began in earnest in the late 1960s with the establishment of open universities and gained momentum in the first part of this century through open educational resources and open technologies, is part of a wider effort to democratize education. Designed for access, agency, ownership, participation, and experience, open education has the potential to become a great global equalizer, providing the opportunity for people throughout the world to exercise this basic human right."

Library Services

Research assistance - help finding sources, evaluating sources
Online workshops for citing and plagiarism are held throughout the semester. To request a citing workshop, please email library@rcbc.edu