| CODE | CVL3036 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Cultural Diversity, Gender and Human Rights | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Civil Law | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit tries to unpack the meaning of 'cultural diversity', gender' and 'human rights', by exploring a host of issues which become visible when the three are juxtaposed and placed in relation to one another. In relation to human rights, gender and cultural diversity represent a simultaneously ontological and practical challenge; inasmuch as the debate on the universality of Human Rights has given rise to feminist and critical legal theoretical attempts to unmask the Western and gendered features of the traditional subject of Human Rights and attempts by scholars and activists to adopt intersectionalist perspectives. On the strength of various case studies, the implications of thinking about human rights as embedded in and modulated by gender and cultural diversity will be explored by contextualizing formal descriptions of both the enforcement /and/ the violation of rights. At the same time the unit will critically reflect on how cultural diversity and gender are themselves constructed by human rights discourses and practices, particularly in regard to attempts by states to codify cultural rights and protect cultural heritage and the impacts of these attempts on the rights of women and of ethnic minorities. Study-Unit Aims: This study-unit contributes towards enabling students to attain an understanding of the subject at a practical level, and equip them to view related concerns from an informed position. The study unit aims to familiarise students with: - United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and other relevant international instruments. - the debates surrounding the universality of Human Rights and their global enforcement; - various case studies and anthropological research as a prism to investigate the social aspect of human rights and contextualizing the enforcement as well as the violation of rights; - the political aspect of human rights and their implications in processes of neo-colonialism and globalization; - the discourse of and surrounding human rights and the conditions in which rights are invoked. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Describe the specific importance of cultural and gender issues within the more general terms of Human Rights Law; - Participate effectively and expertly in on-going debates surrounding the universality of Human Rights and their global enforcement; - Analyse culture and 'cultural rights' in contemporary global and local settings; - Describe gender and relevant codifications in contemporary global and local settings; - Critically reflect and debate on human rights and the interplay between human rights and culture; - Identify and critically discuss the various ways in which human rights are invoked in binary debates on such matters as FGM, early/temporary marriages, headscarf wearing. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - use course concepts in thinking and problem solving; - contribute with critical reflections to major human rights debates and controversies that have developed within anthropology and other social sciences; - develop and evaluate various policy responses to apparent conflicts between cultural practices/values and human rights norms; - identify qualitative research methods and tools for investigating the contexts of enforcement and violation of rights, discourse and conditions in which rights are invoked; - critically analyse related legal practice and court judgments; - apply comparative and contemporary legal analytical frameworks to case studies set for their consideration. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts: - Beresford S., Get Over Your (Legal) ‘Self’: A Brief History of Lesbians, Motherhood and the Law, Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 2008, 95–106. - Brems, Eva. Diversity and European Human Rights: Rewriting Judgments of the ECHR. Cambridge University Press. 2013. - Cowan, Jane K., Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, and Richard A. Wilson, eds.. Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, 2001. - Fagan, Andrew. Human rights and cultural diversity: core issues and cases. Edinburgh university press, 2017. Supplementary Readings: - Alston, Philip, and Ryan Goodman. International human rights. Oxford University Press. 2013. - Burton M., Failing to Protect: Victims’Rights and Police Liability, 2009, The Modern Law Review, (2009) 72(2) 272-295. - Campbell Clark S., Work/family border theory: A new theory of work/family balance, Human Relations, Volume 53(6): 747-770. - Shannon Speed. States of violence: Indigenous women migrants in the era of neoliberal multicriminalism. Critique of anthropology, 2016-09, Vol.36 (3), p.280-301. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Edward Mario Camilleri Jeanise Dalli Ruth Farrugia Ibtisam Sadegh David E. Zammit |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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