Ideas & Action Building a Human Rights Agenda

In many parts of the world, particularly in the Global South, utilizing human rights discourse is intertwined with collective efforts for progressive social justice. In the United States, however, the utilization of human rights language by organizations and individuals seems to be largely disconnected from leftist politics and/or social justice work. In conjunction with the outreach for the conference entitled Boston Human Rights: Ideas and Action, which took place on Thursday July 31, 2008, a research study was conducted that aims to understand why the utilization of human rights language is largely disconnected from leftist politics in the US context and how progressive activists and organizers in the Boston area interact with human rights discourse. For more information or to get a copy of the paper, which was carried out by three graduate students in sociology at Boston College, please contact Shelley White at mlwhite@bc.edu..