Resumo

Women activists have increasingly embraced human rights in order to advance their agendas. This process started in the 1990s as part of larger phenomena of globalisation and transnationalisation of human rights. The study of the theoretical and practical connections and tensions between human rights and women has taken place within different disciplines and raised a number of issues. This workshop will start by revising parts of these debates, moving from a social science perspective. In particular, the use of human rights to advance women’s rights will be contrasted with criticism concerning the androcentric and individual character of rights as well as the more general problematisation of essentialist/constructivist approaches to gender and difference. It will then consider one case of mobilization of human rights at the city level, more precisely in New York.

The case study will put women’s rights in the context of a wider mobilization for human rights. It will show how women participate in the mobilisation but also maintain a distinct focus and perspective in continuing to mobilise human rights, especially in relation to battered women. The case invites more general reflections on the connection between human rights and women and related issues, including intersectionality.

Nota biográfica

Michele Grigolo é pós-doutorando no CES, com bolsa de pós-doutoramento atribuída pela FCT. Possui o Doutoramento em Ciências Sociais e Políticas, obtido no Instituto Universitário Europeu (IUE), de Florença, e o Mestrado Europeu em Direitos Humanos e Democratização. Os seus interesses de investigação e ensino incluem: política, sociologia e direito de igualdade, não discriminação e dos direitos humanos, assim como políticas sociais e urbanas. No CES, Michele Grigolo está, actualmente, a produzir artigos científicos e a sua primeira monografia baseada na sua investigação de doutoramento sobre direitos humanos e cidades. Conta com artigos publicados no European Journal of International Law, no International Journal of Human Rights e no Ethnic and Racial Studies, para o qual co-editou o número especial de outubro 2011. E 'co-editor de um livro sobre raça e discriminação (Routledge, 2012) e está a preparar uma monografia sobre direitos humanos e cidades.

Artigos em discussão

•  Elson, Diane (2006) ‘‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’’, in Lydia Morris (ed.) Rights: Sociological Perspectives, London, New York: Routledge, 94-110.

•  Merry, S. E. et al. (2010) ‘Law From Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City’, in Law & Society Review 44(1): 101-128.
 

Organização: Júlia Garraio (NHUMEP), Catarina Martins (NHUMEP), Teresa Cunha (NHUMEP), Mihaela Mihai (DECIDe).