Human Rights Literacies

Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2

Cornelia Roux Anne Becker Editors

Human Rights Literacies Future Directions

Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights

Volume 2 Editor-in-chief Markus Krajewski Faculty of Law, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg,  Erlangen, Germany Series editors Petra Bendel Center for Area Studies, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg,  Erlangen, Germany Heiner Bielefeldt Institute of Political Science, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany Andreas Frewer Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany Manfred L. Pirner Religious Education, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg,  Nürnberg, Germany

Human rights are one of the normative cornerstones of contemporary international law and global governance. Due to the complexities of actual or potential violations of human rights and in light of current crises, new and interdisciplinary research is urgently needed. The series Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights recognizes the growing importance and necessity of interdisciplinary research in human rights. The series consists of monographs and collected volumes addressing human rights research from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including but not limited to philosophy, law, political science, education, and medical ethics. Its goal is to explore new and contested questions such as the extraterritorial application of human rights and their relevance for non-state actors, as well as the philosophical and theoretical foundations of human rights. The series also addresses policy questions of current interest including the human rights of migrants and refugees, LGBTI rights, and bioethics, as well as business and human rights. The series editors are Members of the Centre for Human Rights ErlangenNürnberg (CHREN), an interdisciplinary research center at Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity Erlangen-Nürnberg. The Advisory Board brings together human rights scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines and regional backgrounds. The series welcomes suggestions for publications of academic research falling into the series subject matter. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15339

Cornelia Roux  •  Anne Becker Editors

Human Rights Literacies Future Directions

Editors Cornelia Roux Curriculum Studies Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch, South Africa

Anne Becker Curriculum Studies Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch, South Africa

The research data used in this book is partially based on a project funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant Number 81795). The grant holder Prof Cornelia Roux acknowledges that opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in any publication generated by the NRF-supported research are those of the author(s), as members or collaborators of the project, and that the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard. ISSN 2509-2960     ISSN 2509-2979 (electronic) Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights ISBN 978-3-319-99566-3    ISBN 978-3-319-99567-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962244 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword: Why (Re)search? And, Human Rights Literacies?

What do researchers do? Well, we search for knowledge, new knowledge, mostly with the intention to change the daily realities for the better of human beings, animals, nature and the environment. Most often, this also means that human thinking needs to change, to be widened or enlarged. In this book, the South Africa-based editors and other researchers share their research findings on human rights literacies with us in the wider international research community. The editors have invited as well South African, as colleagues from Europe, the Middle East and Asia to join them in their knowledge seeking. The research interest behind this collection of contributions could be summarised in a few questions: How can the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 become a reality for human beings globally? What role could human rights education play to make these rights more of a reality worldwide as well as in local situations? How are they to be re-formed to be efficient? And what new thinking could guide the way forward in the further development of human rights education, not least given the post-colonial critique of universalism and other renewing contemporary philosophical trends? Given such important concerns as these, a question out of curiosity arises: how come the researchers who have initiated these discussions from out of their research are located in South Africa? What could possibly explain this? Another and related question is how come we also have these questions in our joint international research discussions now? Having been asked to write the foreword to this book, I will share my perspectives and responses to these questions but will also bring into the discussion the matters of epistemological communities and democratic iterations, and I will thereafter add a few concluding comments. I address these questions as an ethicist, located in Sweden, who has pondered and studied issues of education for almost two decades now.

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Why from South Africa? In 2001, I visited South Africa for the first time. My purpose was to start an academic exchange programme for students and staff from Sweden and South Africa. My dear and most esteemed colleague in this was the now late Professor H. Russel Botman, then Professor in Theology, but later Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University. Our exchange also involved the University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa, and in Falun, Sweden, Högskolan Dalarna. The theme of our exchange was “How to build a human rights culture” and was funded by the Swedish Linnaeus-Palme Programme. Our exchange, lasting 7 years, came to involve more than a hundred students, half of them South African and half of them Swedish, who spent one semester studying in Sweden or South Africa (cf. Sporre & Botman, 2003). This exchange and others that followed gave me an opportunity to continuously visit, as a guest in South Africa, over a period of now more than 15 years—a most valuable vantage point. The first time I visited, I almost immediately felt that there was something of me that “had come home” in South Africa, and later I jokingly, but also seriously, have called myself an “African in exile”. It has been fascinating to follow South Africa during more than 15 years. It has meant following the development of this vibrant society, not least the efforts of dismantling the brutal and unjust societal order of apartheid and replacing it with something new. I have listened to friends and colleagues, to students and researchers and a number of other persons whose paths and mine occasionally crossed. I have tried to catch the heartbeats of this beautiful country, challenged with the enormous task of righting a wrong done to so many because of skin colour and prejudices—in a few decades. I have met wonderful, passionate persons, striving for justice and for new solutions, and I have also encountered disappointed South Africans reacting strongly when the leadership of their country went corrupt—corrupt beyond measure. So, it comes as no surprise that now in the international research community we can experience the fruits of research in this research-led discussion on human rights and human rights education, its literacies and future, emanating out of the work of South African colleagues. I see this work as a combination of passion, dreams and hard work, coming out of South Africa from a context where these matters need to be researched, as part of the struggle to leave apartheid behind, and raised as crucial questions for future education. Not least is the discussion on decolonisation an important one for the international research society to take up and reflect upon to better understand its consequences for our thinking, theorising and practices.

Why Now? To produce knowledge as researchers takes time. So when thinking about why, at a particular point in time, researchers present their knowledge and raise their discussions, you have to look back five, ten or sometimes even more years. That is when

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the research was initiated. So, also in this case. And, let me guess that a concern for how the dignity and the human rights of all citizens in a new South Africa could be guaranteed plus the role of education in such an endeavour, was the soil for the research interest from which we now share results and gain stimulus. At that point in time, the later, fast-escalating corruption of the political leadership, with vast economic consequences, had not yet began, nor were the protests among university students (starting in 2015) with the slogan “#Rhodes must fall” foreseeable. The students then called for a decolonisation of education, an education freed from its legacy of racism. Later on the slogan has been turned into a call for “#Fees must fall” and students have since, in massive protests, asked for access to higher education with reduced fees. These matters, an economic political corruption beyond imagination and students’ protests for the right to an economically available education freed from racist roots, can serve as examples for the context in which contemporary struggles in South African society, with its past, seek new ways forward towards an equality, freed from sexism, racism, economic and cultural dominance. This is where the ethical questions of whose rights to what become sharp and divisive. This is where ethics matter—and is the context that colours the discussion in this book.

Epistemological Communities In research itself, comparison is one of the most central aspects of the very activity of research. This book exemplifies comparison through reflection over Human Rights Education from South Africa, but also from contexts other than the South African. In education, when you compare, you can, for example, study various kinds of interventions, differences between groups, influences of steering structures to practices, possible gaps between curricula and their realisation, etc. You can also compare between countries. However, when you do that, and not least when your comparison is qualitative, the thought patterns of the researching community can also become included in the comparison, as it influences the empirical research processes. Lynn Hankinson Nelson (1993; cf. Sporre, 2004) critically used the concept “epistemological communities” to denote how the theorising within research takes place within communities where we depend on one another to understand and explain, not least basically to communicate. Certain epistemological communities can also dominate a specific academic discourse, and there is a need for them to be critiqued and for thinking to be developed for new, rising phenomena to be adequately conceptualised in research. Coming out of a critical ­feminist discussion, Hankinson Nelson (1993) and others argue for the need for opening up new discussions—this to provide a “rhetorical space” (Code, 1995; Sporre, 1999, pp. 17–54). When reading the different contributions of this book coming out of Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Israel and India, in addition to South Africa, I see a need to understand that the respective researchers come from their own ­epistemological

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communities. The researchers are bound by their contexts, in terms of the material conditions to study empirically, but also in terms of the theoretical perspectives, they bring along, and later communicate as contributions to the dialogue between researchers. And, the more familiar one as a fellow researcher is with their respective contexts, the easier it is to understand, or at least have a sense of understanding, of what their concerns are, what the contributions can be and how to interpret them. But when this familiarity is missing, more careful listening is needed. As one dimension of the comparisons between the countries of this book functions a survey developed by South African researchers. Different parts of the survey have been used and reported on in the studies from Germany, the Netherlands, Israel and India, and it is reported on more fully within the South African context. To more positivist-leaning researchers it may be a bit disturbing that the survey is not applied equally and reported on in the same way. However, when thinking along the lines of a concept like ‘epistemological communities’ and applying that in the reflection over separate studies in a book like the present one, it becomes obvious that varying contextual stories are told from the researchers in the different studies—and purposefully so. What kind of questions from the survey that were relevant to use and pose in the different contexts, but also the theoretical framing of the respective studies, tells the reader about the respective contexts. And, as education systems do vary considerably between nations due to historic, economic and political conditions, we as education researchers need to be reminded of this and take into account contextual stories and variations. It is also worth our appreciation when efforts are made to bridge country and continental borders in a common search for knowledge, given varying conditions both through the local practices and in terms of theoretical paradigms. Efforts taken to share varying paradigms are really to be commended.

Democratic Iterations and Human Rights Literacies Seyla Benhabib is one of the contemporary moral philosophers in the field of political science. She has used the expression “democratic iterations” as a concept to denote democratic popular agency, when such agency is renewed, not least by groups denied their full human rights, such as women and migrants. When they put new demands into the public arena by expressing their own concerns, they perform “democratic iterations” and contribute towards change. Thereby they, as part of movements of civil society, exert their democratic rights and influence and move the understanding of their concerns (Benhabib, 1992, 2006, 2008). In this book, the concept human rights literacies plays a crucial role. In the chapter by de Wet and Simmonds they express the need to bridge the gap between the ideals of human rights and the lack of human rights in reality. Human rights literacies are described in the following way: [to be] … concerned with the processes and actions within the interplay between what human rights are (on paper) and could be. Human rights literacies open up spaces to engage with the gap between written human rights on the one hand and lived human rights on the

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other hand. Such engagement recognizes that personal and social contexts and issues in day-to-day existence elicit multiple lived experiences by diverse individuals in different times, places and spaces. Human rights literacies could therefore hold possibilities for challenging and re-imagining human rights in and through education within different contexts. These processes involve the actions, reactions and interactions of humans when they, individually or collectively, use, (re)formulate, verify, claim, defend, amend, recognize, critique, reject, resist, deconstruct, engage with, fight for or apply (their own) human rights (De Wet and Simmonds, this volume).

This definition of human rights literacies is a wide one, emphasising dimensions of agency, praxis, but at the same time critical reflection characteristic of struggles. In certain ways it reminds of and resonates with Benhabib’s concept mentioned above, pointing to the need for agency, for change. However, where the authors and editors of this book take additional steps and move on is when it also comes to arguing for the need of new epistemologies and ontologies as a part of their looking to the future directions of human rights literacies, not least the challenges of decolonisation. This I find very interesting. In my own book In Search of Human Dignity: Essays in Theology, Ethics and Education (Sporre, 2015), I touch on the need for theories that can capture the realities of the power patterns that deny human rights for those who need them. I critique what can be called a move from an ought to an is, meaning when people conclude from normative reasoning implying that equal rights are what ought to be at stake, that this is also the case, but neglecting the realities that all human beings are not living realities where their equal rights are recognised (Sporre, 2015, pp. 28–37). Then we need new and better theoretical thinking—as in the direction in which this book intends us to move.

To Hear One Another Out Our South African colleagues have invited us, together with their invited international colleagues, as educationalists, with this piece of academic work, to a conversation that will continue. It may be complex and complicated as we come from differing epistemological communities. To deal with research and education on human rights demands in the first place interdisciplinary moves over fields of philosophy, ethics and law, and where it can also be an advantage to be familiar with the fields of religion studies, gender studies and recent theoretical developments such as post-colonial and post-human theory. In addition to this, we come from different, what I have called above, epistemological communities. Given this, my suggestion is that we try to hear one another out, to listen to one another carefully, to the point where we think we do understand what our dialogue partner is saying. This may not mean that we agree, but that we do understand what our partners in the conversation say and become clear about where our opinions differ—and maybe even why.

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To Conclude … As an ethicist concerned not only with human rights but also with issues regarding a sustainable future, I cannot but only point to a need for not forgetting these issues when we embark on the necessary discussions on human rights. This, as the human rights also come with human responsibilities, to care for animals, nature and the environment. But also to see how these latter responsibilities are tightly connected to economic justice and sustainable social relationships, that is to human rights. This foreword started with an appreciation for the time I have had the privilege to spend in South Africa, the country I over and over again long to come back to. I now want to end by commending my colleagues, the editors and the authors for this fascinating book with challenging and thought-provoking questions and thinking and also interesting empirical findings. I do look forward to stimulating and engaging discussions to follow in the wake of this book. The word research can literally mean re-search, to search anew—and this is what the work presented in this book represents—a search for new ways and means in human rights education, where new literacies are expected to be developed. Department of Applied Educational Science Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 6 June 2018

Karin Sporre

References Benhabib, S. (1992). Situating the self. Gender, community, and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge. Benhabib, S. (2006). Another cosmopolitanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benhabib, S. (2008). The legitimacy of human rights. Daedalus, 137(3), 451–471. Code, L. (1995). Rhetorical spaces. Essays on gendered locations. New York: Routledge. Hankinson Nelson, L. (1993). Epistemological communities. In L.  Alcoff & E. Potter (Eds.), Feminist epistemologies (pp. 121–159). New York: Routledge. Sporre, K. (1999). Först när vi får ansikten. Ett flerkulturellt samtal om feminism, etik och teologi (First when we have faces. A crosscultural conversation on feminism, ethics and theology). Lund, Sweden: Lund University. Sporre, K. (2004). Teologiska metodfrågor och polyfont tal om Gud. Om empiri, erfarnehet och epistemologiska gemenskaper (Theological methodological issues and polyphonous talk about God. On empirics, experience and epistemological communities). Tidsskrift for Teologi og Kirke(02-03), 129–143. Sporre, K. (2015). In search of human dignity. Essays in theology, ethics and education. Stellenbosch, South Africa/Münster, Germany: SUN PRESS/Waxmann. Sporre, K., & Botman, H. R. (Eds.). (2003). Building a human rights culture. South African and Swedish perspectives. Report 2003:11, Arts & Education. Falun, Sweden: Högskolan Dalarna.

Preface

Why this book? This scholarly book aims to start difficult and possibly risky conversations on human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies. In doing so, this book explores the inherent paradoxes and possibilities of the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies and their (possible) new languages. As editors of this volume in the series, and being scholars in human rights education and literacies, we could not walk away from these difficult conversations. In this book, the authors do not propose the abandonment of human rights and human rights education. They interrogate the gaps between human rights and human rights education, on the one hand, and material realities, on the other hand. The binaries resulting from this are embedded in ongoing human rights and human rights education discourses. The multilayered complexity of the growing dissonance between human rights and the (non)realisation of rights in place-space-time is of great concern for human rights educators in different social and educational contexts. Human rights literacies, with its bottom-up approach, attempt to bridge these gaps. Human rights literacies enable critique and the structuring of dissensus on both human rights and human rights education. Only when humans are human rights literate do they continuously contest the given in an attempt to (re)frame human rights and human rights education in diverse place-space-time. The authors (scholars in human rights, human rights education and peace education) question pre-existing ontologies and epistemologies of human rights and human rights education. They argue that dissonance, disruption and the structuring of dissensus can open new discourses and structure new languages of human rights. This will, however, demand that human rights and human rights education scholars need to (re)think methodologies, ontologies and epistemologies in order to unpack meanings and understandings of human rights’ complex (non)applications in social, political and educational realms. In recent times, a variety of books on human rights education and/or human rights, religion in educational contexts and various education models for human xi

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rights education have been published. This book does not attempt to provide (final) models or programmes for human rights education but aims to start a process of furthering critique on persistent in(ex)clusion, colonisation, oppression and marginalisation, despite legal remedies and processes related to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and numerous related constitutional and human rights provisions in countries across the world. It is a plea for the acknowledgement of the humanity of the alienated and failed “other” who remains in(ex)cluded from “all members of the human family” (UDHR, 1948, pp. 1). The various authors who contributed to the book attempt to unpack and give meaning to processes of marginalisation within human rights frameworks and its consequences. In doing so, they engage with the conceptualisation of human rights literacies in place-space-time, aiming to bridge the gaps between human rights, human rights education and material reality. Meaning-making through place-space-­ time is supported by data from a linear survey (Survey2015) in different contextual and material realities. The five international sites (in developed and developing countries on four continents) were not invited to collaborate to provide comparative analysis but, instead, to give a holistic view on human rights’ and human rights education’s position(s) in terms of the processes and movements between human rights, human rights education and material reality. The movement of the social processes and consequences of human rights in and through place-space-time repeated itself differently in every context and illustrated the gaps between human rights, human rights education and material reality. The possibilities for renewal remain with the subjects of rights in becoming those who live human rights in their unique place-space-time. The book consists of three parts to illustrate the developing ontologies, epistemologies, literacies and crucial debates on human rights as a continuous process in human rights education. • Setting the scene: The first three chapters in the first part of the book unpack the in(ex)clusion of the alienated and failed other through exclusions of cultures of remembrance, the divisive ontological and epistemological premise embedded in pre-existing notions of the subject of rights and the colonised other, whose humanity is constantly under suspicion. In chapter “Human Rights Literacies Research: (Re)think Approaches and Methodologies”, possibilities for the renewal of (re) search approaches and methodologies in human rights literacies are presented. • Possibilities and probabilities: Although the chapters in the middle part use data  from an international research project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for ­meaning (Roux, 2012–2016), this is not a project book. Authors in this part argue for making meaning of the processes in and through place-space-time in their diverse contexts. The research project used a rhizomatic and grounded theory approach, and similarly the book does not work with preexisting theories of human rights literacies or fixed knowledge. • Critique and re-imaging human rights literacies: Part III of the book presents two chapters recapturing the content of the previous parts and mirrors the ontological and epistemological premises of human rights literacies. The last ­chapters

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address the necessity of critiquing human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies. It is a thoughtful engagement with and on human rights literacies and its inherent irony, paradoxes and possibilities. The authors reflect on whether human rights literacies could be a path to peace (or further divisions) and on what the possibilities for liberation might be. These chapters rightly question whose enablement and whose empowerment are at stake here. The reflections on human rights literacies and the questions posed in the last chapters, we argue, are a very useful introduction to these difficult conversations. We want to dedicate the difficult conversations, dissonance and multiple disruptions captured in this book to new scholars in human rights education and literacies. As editors of this book we would sincerely like to thank every member of our respective families for their support. We will always treasure their love and devotion during this academic journey. Stellenbosch, South Africa Stellenbosch, South Africa 

Cornelia Roux Anne Becker

Reference United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights (The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Education/Training/Pages/Decade.aspx; United Nations Commission on Human Rights on a World Program for Human Rights Education (2004/71).

Contents

Part I Setting the Scene  he ‘Literacy Turn’ in Human Rights and Human Rights Education ��������   3 T Cornelia Roux ( Re)Framing the Subject(s) of Rights��������������������������������������������������������������  31 Anne Becker  nconditionally Human? Decolonising Human Rights���������������������������������  53 U Crain Soudien  uman Rights Literacies Research: (Re)think Approaches H and Methodologies ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  73 Anne Becker and Cornelia Roux Part II Possibilities and Probabilities  ubjects and Failed Subjects in Place-Space-­Time: The Quest S for Meaning�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 101 Cornelia Roux and Anne Becker  tudent Teachers Coping with Changing Times: The Intersection S of Student-­Teachers’ Understanding of Human Rights Issues and Their Cultural Identity������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 123 Janina Jasper and Hermann J. Abs  ore Than Education: Reflections on Student Teachers’ Understanding M of Human Rights������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 153 Ina ter Avest and Erica Stedenburg  uman Rights Education in the South African Higher Education H Context: (Im)possibilities for Human Rights Literacies�������������������������������� 181 Annamagriet de Wet and Shan Simmonds

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I sraeli Students’ Understandings of and Attitudes to Human Rights and Literacies������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 211 Zehavit Gross and Rotem Maor  ectarian Violence and Ethnic Conflict in India: Issues and Challenges������235 S Ashwani Kumar and Souradeep Banerjee Part III Unpacking Future Directions: Critiques and Conversations  uman Rights RIP: Human Rights Literacies—Critique H and Possibilities�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 259 Liam Gearon ( Re)Capturing Human Rights Literacies: Starting Conversations �������������� 277 Anne Becker and Cornelia Roux

About the Authors

Hermann J. Abs  is a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, specialising in educational research and schooling in human rights and international civic and cultural education. He was project leader of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS, 2016) and published extensively on schooling, education and human rights. Souradeep Banerjee  is a Research Associate in the research project on “The role of Money Power in Electoral Politics” at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. Anne Becker  is a Research Fellow in Human Rights Education and Philosophy in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and a former Senior Researcher in the Research Unit: Education and Human Rights in Diversity (Edu-HRight) in the Faculty of Education, North West University, South Africa. She publishes extensively on human rights, philosophy and human rights education. Annamagriet de Wet  is a Senior Lecturer in Education Law and Human Rights Education at the Faculty of Education, North West University, South Africa, as well as a Senior Researcher in the Research Unit: Education and Human Rights in Diversity (Edu-HRight) in the Faculty of Education, at the same university. She publishes extensively on human rights, education law and gender. Liam  Gearon  is an Associate Professor in Religious, Human Rights and Citizenship Education in the Department of Education at the Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, England, with expertise in curriculum theory, educational theory and international education. He publishes extensively on human rights, philosophy and religious and citizenship education.

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About the Authors

Zehavit Gross  is a Professor and UNESCO Chair for Values Education, Human Rights, Tolerance and Peace and is the head of the Van Gelder Center for Holocaust Research and Instruction, School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel. She publishes extensively on education, religious education, holocaust and peace education. Janina Jaspers  is a Consultant for human rights organisations such as Save the Children and teamer of the United Nations Association of Germany, Berlin, Germany, and a former Research Fellow in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS, 2016) working in the Department Educational Research and Schooling at the Faculty of Education, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany. Ashwani Kumar  is a Professor in the Centre for Public Policy, Habitat and Human Development in the School of Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, and a Senior Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. He publishes extensively on human and social developments and politics. Rotem Maor  is a Researcher in the UNESCO Chair for Values Education, Human Rights, Tolerance and Peace and the Van Gelder Center for Holocaust Research and Instruction, School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Cornelia  Roux  is an Extraordinary Professor in Human Rights Education and Curriculum Studies in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and former Professor and Research Director of the Research Unit: Education and Human Rights in Diversity (Edu-HRight) in the Faculty of Education, North West University, South Africa. She publishes extensively on human rights education, religion education and curriculum studies. Shan  Simmonds  is an Associate Professor in Curriculum Studies and Human Rights Education at the Faculty of Education, North West University, South Africa, as well as a Senior Researcher in the Research Unit: Education and Human Rights in Diversity (Edu-HRight) in the Faculty of Education, at the same university. She publishes extensively on human rights, gender and curriculum studies. Crain  Soudien  is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa and Professor in Education and African Studies and former Director of the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the same university. He publishes extensively on social difference, culture, education policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture.

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Erica Stedenburg  is a Lecturer at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences in Dordrecht, the Nehterlands, and specialises in teacher training. Ina  ter Avest  is an Emeritus Professor in Philosophy of Life of the Inholland University of Applied Sciences and a former Senior Research lecturer in Religious Education at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has a private practice in coaching and consulting (individual and groups) in the field of intercultural/interreligious education. She publishes extensively on religious education.

Part I

Setting the Scene

The ‘Literacy Turn’ in Human Rights and Human Rights Education Cornelia Roux

No power on this earth can destroy the thirst for human dignity Nelson Mandela (cf. Wright, 2014) [Nelson Mandela during a speech at King William’s Town, Bisho, South Africa, 8 September 1992.]

Contents 1  I ntroduction 2  H  uman Rights and Cultures of Remembrances 2.1  A Culture of Remembrance for the Raced and Colonial Other 2.2  A Culture of Remembrance of the Religious Other 3  Human Rights Education: Reimagining Transformation or Performing in Circles 3.1  Reimagining Epistemological Transformation 3.2  More Than Reimagining Transformation 3.3  Working in Circles or Searching for New Beginnings 4  The Literacy ‘Turn’ in Human Rights 4.1  Human Rights Literacies as Nexus 4.2  Human Rights Literacies as Cognitive Skill and/or Social Practice 5  Conclusion References

  4   5   9  12  15  15  17  19  21  23  24  26  26

Abstract  The position and the validity of the Declarations on Human Rights (1948) accepted by the United Nations (UN), and the subsequent declarations on Human Rights Education and Training (2010) are questioned by many scholars in their respective fields. These discourses manifest around the universality of human rights and its applications in human rights education suitable for global, contextual, diverse and particular societies. The proclamation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004) (Resolution, 49/184), the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2004/71), the reassessments of UN Declarations on C. Roux (*) Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_1

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Human Rights Education (March, 2011) and UNESCO publications on human rights education (2011), illustrate the need to infuse shared values into every sphere of society. However, scholars are questioning the ontology and epistemology of human rights as a universal declaration and as the only means for legitimising human rights education for its transformative competencies and to offer its shared values for a sustainably just society. The legitimacy of this ideal of a universality of human rights as a binding factor drawn from a Western liberal philosophy, is arbitrary and limited. These limitations of human rights expose the ideal of an interconnectedness between human rights and human rights education in multilayered and multicomplex social environments. Human rights literacies and its new languages on human rights is a progressing nexus between human rights and human rights education and offers an epistemology in understanding human rights in human rights education.

1  Introduction Since the new millennium the accountability of nation states and their responsibility to uphold the legality of human rights linked to the moral stance of the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights (1948), has been in question. In the light of globalisation and the intricacy of the movement, with people either as refugees from war-torn regions, or economic refugees from deprived countries, this gives new meaning to being human. Critiquing the “limitations of human rights and material realities” in a challenging, socially conscious world (Roux & Becker, 2017), compels scholars to explore and question the recognised status of human rights and human rights education.1 Du Preez and Becker (2016, p. 1) argue that: … dissensus within political, social and educational spaces is crucial to the continual formulation, claims, rejection, amendments and recognition of human rights.

The ongoing injustices and grand narrative of human rights reflect the ‘dark side of human rights’ in many developed democracies, developing democracies and non-­ democratic countries (Baxi, 2007; Becker, 2017). Scholars familiar with debates on, and working in violent and post-colonial conflict societies, are also revisiting the declarationist approach and the interconnectedness of human rights and human rights education (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2015; Roux & Becker, 2016; Zembylas, 2015). The ontologies and epistemologies of human rights and human rights education are recently, within the broader global response and post-colonial debate, questioning and pressing for answers on the universality of human rights and the validity of  These scholars have worked extensively on human rights education (epistemic othering; decolonisation) [Baxi, Keet, & Zembylas], and on the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies [Becker, De Wet, Du Preez, Roux & Simmonds] and will be referred to and quoted where relevant. 1

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current UNESCO human rights education projects (Becker, 2017; Donnelly, 2007; Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014). These discourses compel one to deliberate arguments on the “epistemic othering” and the complexities in defining knowledges, and why, how and who should constitute these knowledges (Keet, 2014; Osler, 2015). In confronting content and knowledges linked to support transformative competencies, grand narratives and histories of societies, communities and individuals need to be linked to the continuous historically driven inequalities. It is not only the ontology and epistemology of human rights and its applicability to and in human rights education that should be reviewed, but also the argument about the so-called transformative competencies of human rights and human rights education (Becker, 2017; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2015, 2017; Osler, 2015; Zembylas, 2015, 2017; Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014). The notion that human rights education can curb human rights violations (UNESCO, 2012) reiterates the question whether human rights education can meet the goals set out in the aims of the millennium documents. Keet’s (2015, p. 48) statement underlines the emphasis on this declarationist approach in human rights education as follows: … it organizes itself around the dogma belief that all human rights truths are generated and consummated within human rights instruments such as declarations, conventions and covenants.

When questioning the ontological and epistemological stances of human rights and human rights education three critical suppositions are identified: Firstly, the critique on human rights and the interconnectedness of human rights and human rights education, secondly, revisiting the goals and aims of human rights education in democracies, societies and education environments, and exploring reasons for these stances to revisit human rights education, and thirdly, responding to the above-­ mentioned two issues by explaining and motivating the need for a nexus to emancipate both human rights and human rights education. It is in this nexus that human rights literacies give meaning, providing new understandings, new languages and evolutionary processes that are determined by the subjects of human rights. (Becker, 2017; Donnelly, 2007; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2015; Zembylas, 2015; Zembylas, Charalambous, Charalambous & Lestos, 2016).

2  Human Rights and Cultures of Remembrances Boschki (2016) provocatively sketches in his chapter “Human Rights education in the context of Culture of Remembrance” the development of the twentieth century’s human rights’ context as a “legend”2 and a “nice story” to tell students (Boschki,

 I have interpreted Boschki’s use of the word legend as folklore. The history of Germany’s human rights violations and atrocities carried out during WW2 is vital and the younger generation in postWW2 could be defined as ‘outsiders’ and ‘spectators’. The young generation does not have necessarily an emotional experience of these historical events and one questions their understandings of the victims’ lived experiences of the violence and atrocities of that war. 2

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2016, p. 209). He argues that this “legend” can be idealised and does not relate to experiences of human suffering and the “ethical catastrophe” that was the prelude for introducing this legend. The founding of the United Nations and the signing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) (hereafter UDHR, see United Nations), adopted after the two international wars of the twentieth century, i.e. World War I (hereafter WW1) and World War II (hereafter WW2), compelled a commitment of the signatory members’ governments and their citizens to uphold human dignity and individual human rights. Actions against human rights violations, curbing political violence and safeguarding individual human dignity remains fundamental. These ideals of a universal declaration that upheld universal values and individual rights are outlined in the preamble of the UDHR (1948). It reads as follows: Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world; Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people (UDHR, 1948).

Taking the preamble of the UDHR (1948) into consideration, one tends to ask the question why did the catastrophe of WW2’s atrocities lead to the imposing of this new moral high ground? The grand narrative of human rights has developed from histories of early civilizations, religions and documents relevant to communal and individual rights. Human rights ideas developed through histories and are morally linked to civilizations in different parts of the globe. The lived experiences of peoples are reflected in their shared narratives created in place-space-time. These extended histories from the early civilizations in Europe and the West’s developed individual rights and fostered rights protests that resisted authoritarian rule (Baxi, 2007; Nussbaum, 2012). Western values, and the development of the rights of a western individual, are seen as the core to “being human” (Brown, 1999). Civilizations, philosophies and contributions other than Western thought played, and are still playing, a significant role in constructing and developing the notion of humanity (Baxi, 2007; Singh, 1998; Subedi, 1999). Questioning the universality of Western thought and its documents, extended now to the global world, highlights the current dilemmas within the UDHR’s (1948) universal values (Baxi, 2007; Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014). The exclusion of diverse histories on what it means to be human gradually undermine the position of the UDHR’s (1948) aim to be universal. Scholars are questioning the impact of the UDHR (1948) on its universality, upholding globally human dignity and striving for equality (Brown, 1997, 1999; Zembylas, 2015). Baxi (2007) also questions the global strengths of societies’ moral voice and the global community’s ability to act humanely and uphold these universal human rights. Baxi (2007, p. 1) states that: When grassroots post-modernists summon us to struggle against the ‘mono-culture’ of universal human rights and liberation of the re-colonizing ‘Global Project’ of human rights, by ‘brining human rights down from its pedestal’ and the summons for resituating human

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rights ‘amidst other significant cultural concepts which define “a good life” in a pluriverse’, they embark on a different theory project than those rights-weary thinkers who insist that the very idea of human rights is based on a moral mistake.

The complexity of human diversities (global diversities) and understandings of human rights do not only question the notion of universal human rights, but also the grand narrative and whose narratives are included in the UDHR (1948). Deliberations on the complexity of lived experiences and histories, other than the WW2’s inhumane experiences, are excluded from these legends and cultures of remembrances. It does not mean that the narrative of the WW2 atrocities and inhuman behaviour are not vital and important and need to be remembered (Boschki, 2016).3 The exclusion of narratives and remembrances other than those connected to the WW2 experiences, put a hindrance on the notion of the universality of the UDHR (1948). In this regard one can relate to Brown’s (1997, p. 41) notion that “everything encompassed by the notion of human rights is the subject of controversy”. The UDHR (1948) reflects also the “contractual language of rights (that) was combined with Western ideology (and) of the moral standards necessary for human realization” (Magnarella, 2003, p.17). The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976)4 became the treaty to uphold the contractual language of these rights. The acclaimed universality of the UDHR (1948) is particularly questioned for promoting the very essence of the proposed document (Patman, 2000). Brown (in Magnarella, 2003, p. 15) argues that the UDHR (1948) as human rights law can be regarded as “cultural imperialism” by promoting mainly the values and ideas of Western European individualism and rights (i.e. specifically Western Europe and the USA). Brown (1999) argues that human rights policies and discourses are the “product” of a twentieth century occurrence that shocked the world. This grand narrative of the UDHR (1948) is still part of Western thought and is often in conflict with many cultural and societal customs (Baxi, 2007; Becker, 2017; Du Preez & Roux, 2010; Keet, 2015; Zembylas, 2015, 2017). Boschki’s (2016) arguments on a “culture of remembrance” is imbedded in Western thought. He focusses his reasoning in arguing that human rights originated within the Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries in Europe and the philosophical ideas of humanity imbedded in the Christian-Judean traditions (Priner, Lähnemann, & Bielefeldt, 2016; Ziebertz & Črpić, 2015). These traditions argue for humanity to be seen in “the image of God” (Boschki, 2016, p. 209), and claims that religious traditions’ values bear human rights as principle. This notion and position towards humane actions is still relevant for most Judean-Christian followers, but also relevant in many other religious traditions (Patman, 2000; Singh, 1998; Subedi, 1999). Boschki (2016) further reiterates that this philosophy, due to historical reasons, culminated in France and the United States of America adopting  See Boschki (2016) for his clear and comprehensive arguments on a culture of remembrance and his critique thereof. 4  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with resolution 2200A (XXI) on 19 December 1966. This resolution came into effect in 1976 as outlined in Article 49 of the covenant. 3

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the political and judiciary realities of human dignity and human rights. He deepens his arguments based on Menke’s and Pollman’s (2008) philosophies and that the formulation of the UDHR (1948) could only be possible after “it is interpreted from a political and ethical catastrophe” (Boschki, 2016, p.  210). This statement of Boschki (2016) is in line with Brown’s (1999) argument, namely: “(T)he existing human rights regime privileges a particular, liberal, Euro-American sense of what it means to be human” (Magnarella, 2003, p.  17). Donnelly (2013, p.  17) also acclaimed the UDHR (1948) and its declarations as: …(a) minimum set of goods, services, opportunities, and protections that are widely recognised today as essential prerequisites for a life of human dignity and a particular set of practices to realise those goods, services, opportunities and protections.

The human catastrophes in the first half of the twentieth century changed Europe, the Western-North (America, Britain, Canada and Western Europe), their colonies, the Middle- and Far-East’s historical narratives and political landscapes. The extent of violations and atrocities executed during the Holocaust in Germany, and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, place not only human dignity in the midst of political discourses, but link such violations and atrocities to the moral conscience of participants in the war. These events, according to modern Western histories and thought, are critical for the impact on understandings of “being human”. For stateless people during WW2 their greatest danger was their “nakedness of being nothing but human” (Arendt, 2017, p. 392). The effect of the war on the Western moral conscience, violations and massacres for ‘just being the other’ on such a cataclysmic scale, put the focus on the capability of human beings to act barbarically. Boschki (2016, p.  210) calls this a “major break in modern human history” (cf. Nussbaum, 2012). Upholding human dignity and equality were to become the most important rights of individuals in the post-war period. Boschki (2016) therefore argues that the prevention of such atrocities and war-crimes forms part the notion of a “culture of remembrance”. Arendt (2017, p. xi) cautions us, reminding us: We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion.

Since the enforcement of the UDHR (1948), many declarations thereafter and contributions on human rights have been put forward as preventions for crimes and atrocities against humanity committed by nations and/or individuals. These crimes and violations were and are being punished by international human rights law (cf. The Foundation of International Human Rights Law, 1958) with their commitment to “uphold dignity and justice for all”. However, history shows that genocides have occurred before and after 1948. Boschki’s (2016) argument on the narrative of a “culture of remembrance” of human rights and human rights education, links to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953), adopted by the Council of Europe. This brings his arguments into line with Western and European dominance in thought and the promotion of liberal individualism (Cistelecan, 2011). Violations happen despite human rights declara-

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tions, the implementation goals of the UDHR (1948) and international human rights laws (cf. Magnarella, 2005). Violations of human rights are seemingly increasing as Zembylas and Bozalek (2014, p. 30) argue that violations “cast doubts as to whether the rhetoric of human rights remains simply an empty and abstract moral ideology”. The legitimacy and ideals of human rights, as moral fibre and binding factor, mainly drawn from Western liberal philosophies, is becoming more and more arbitrary. In the next part of this section, I would like to present two examples, that in my opinion, argue for an introduction and recognition of more remembrances into discourses on human rights. The human rights dichotomy between original signatories of the UDHR (1948) and recipients or victims of human rights violations indicates a selective morality of a “culture of remembrance”. In the following two sections I would first like to explore the notion of Boschki’s (2016) “culture of remembrance” without reflecting on his critique thereof. Boschki (2016, p.  211) argues for the remembering of suffering of the others, not only those of “one’s own ethnic group or nation”, and this notion will be explored in other contexts in the following sections.

2.1  A  Culture of Remembrance for the Raced and Colonial Other5 The histories of post-colonial countries and regions—for example Africa, Asia and Latin America—reflect the re-affirming of the power relations between developed and developing countries, the colonisers and the colonised, the slaves (servants) and the owners of slaves. The histories of colonialism and imperialism since the fifteenth century orchestrated over centuries by Western, European and Asian empires, record the brutal enslavement of many first nations and peoples on most of the continents (Young, 2001). It is also a history of sending, willingly or unwillingly, citizens (merchants; convicts; refugees of religious prosecutions and wars; poor farmers or prisoners of war) of Western countries to reside in these colonies. These power relations and histories did not disappear after WW2, or since colonial independence of colonies during the second half of the twentieth century, or the dismantling of the apartheid regime. The enslaved enclave of colonialism and South Africa’s apartheid culminated in the social and economic injustices and extreme poverty of these colonies and regimes. It goes beyond violations of human rights and the core of human dignity. These histories are imbedded in a culture of remembrance that question the moral high ground of Western thought in the UDHR (1948) (Baxi, 2007). The  Race and the colonial other are global issues and not only linked to specific geographical regions. Migrations of humans, be it as refugees of war-torn countries or economic migrants from poor geographical spaces, appeal for a decolonisation of knowledges and histories. This issue is further argued in our chapter in part I of this volume where we concentrate on the “interruption and disruption of these assumptions and the processes through which inclusion and exclusion are masked (legal, normative and discursive…”) (Becker & Roux, in part I of this volume). 5

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narratives of these inhumane political and imperial powers are still deep memories, where the ongoing historical suffering is visible in people’s lived experiences. ­Post-­colonialism questions “compare[s] the objective theory in human rights with the subjective experiences of people in the post-colony” (Anon, n.d.). This complexity of post-colonial discourse on human rights and human rights education challenges the very foundation of human rights’ universality and moral code. Mignolo (2011, p. 2) states that “while Western modernity achieves its successes, the dark side of coloniality was silenced”. This silencing of the historical facts, people’s lived experiences and narratives, constitute their culture of remembrance and culminates in social injustices in post-colonial countries. Narratives and histories of post-­ colonial and apartheid past still link these remembrances to everyday life (Du Preez, 2014). Magnarella (2005) further elaborates on the notion stating that the “problems of Western powers’ so-called colonies and Third World [sic] was labelled with poverty, inequality and receivers of humanitarian aid” (Mignolo, 2011, p.  2). The silencing of real and moral issues suppressed the notion of human rights values being universal. Social injustices linked to the histories of colonialism and apartheid are still the witnesses of today’s deprived economic positions of the colonised and apartheid’s victims and their experiences of social injustices and poverties (Becker & Du Preez, 2016). This is well described by Mutua (2002, p. 10) as: (T)he grand narrative of human rights contains a subtext which depicts an epoch contest pitting savages on the one hand, against victims and saviour on the other.

Growing challenges of the social (in)justices and moral issues of the past and present are being exposed in cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious and sectarian violent societies. Applications of legislations, bills of rights and universal declarations on human rights are becoming more complicated in these multiplex diverse social environments and societies (Roux & Becker, 2016). The deconstruction of Western and colonial and apartheid histories, and its dissonance with related social discourses, struggle to regain and retain human dignity on various levels. Keet (2015, p. 48) states that the distrust in human rights is directed at the “very understanding of human rights” and where the “subtle form of neo-colonialist crusade” (Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014, p. 33) teach “the primitive world the proper way of living and behaving” (ibid.). Post-colonial discourses should expose the political and multilayered social and economic compositions and power relations, as being inherently part of the distrust and the dehumanising actions in the name of human rights (Bhabha, 1999; Chakrabarty, 2000; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Spivak, 2004; Zembylas, 2017). This rising distrust concludes that human rights is an exclusive force not accessible to all and/or defendable by all (Baxi, 2007; Chakrabarty, 2000; Cistelecan, 2011; Keet, 2015; Zembylas, 2015). Distrust in human rights and related conceptions of human dignity cannot support the narrative of human rights only as WW2’s culture of remembrance (Boschki, 2016). The cultures of remembrances for human dignity and equality must be inclusive. Knowledge and the marginalising of “others through othering” in human rights frameworks needs to move beyond the

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c­ onsequences of Western universalities. One can live a “good life” as Baxi (2007) argues according to diverse ideas outside Western individualism and Western thought. The African Charter of Human and People’s Rights (1981, 1986) (hereafter African Charter) is not often mentioned as a contributor to human rights education. The African Charter (1981) for example, constitutes a different and comparable approach towards the virtues and values of the UDHR (1948). The African Charter (1981) has its emphasis on the “historical tradition and the values of African civilization which should inspire and characterise their reflection on the concept of human and people’s rights” (African Charter, 1981, preamble). The emphasis in the charter reflects on both: individual and people’s rights (Viljoen, 2001). Viljoen (2001) further states that the difference regarding the position of the individual as outlined in the African Charter (1981, art. 20.24) differs from the Western concept of individualism as outlined in the UDHR (1948, art. 4): Western-dominated discourse privileges the individual. Human rights instruments postulate an autonomous, independent individual (complainant), who is prepared, ultimately, to dissociate from others and enter into legal battle with the collectivity (the state). The African Charter treats the human being both as an individual and as a member of the collective (the ‘people’). Generally, ‘every individual’ is a bearer of rights under the African Charter. The communal aspect is emphasised in the rights guaranteed to ‘peoples’ and in the recognition of the family as the ‘natural unit and basis of society’ (Viljoen, 2001, p. 20).

African countries signed the African Charter (1981) at different stages, starting with the first signatories in 1981, and continuously with new independent and democratic elective governments till 2016 (South Sudan). In the African Charter’s Banjul document (1986), the African Charter reaffirmed the pledge to “eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa”, but also to coordinate and intensify their cooperation with international bodies and the UDHR (1948). The aim was/is to better the lives of all inhabitants of the African Continent (OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3 rev. 5, 21 I.L.M. 58 [1982]), and became effective on 21st October 1986  in Banjul (http:// www.achpr.org/files/instruments/achpr/banjul_charter.pdf). Odinkalu (2001) states that the African Charter (1981) was primarily a “product of the ideological cleavages of the Cold War and post-independence, and ‘nation-­ building’ projects in post-independence Africa” (Odinkalu, 2001, p. 230). However, the contribution of the African Charter is hardly mentioned in human rights and human rights education discourses irrespective of its contributions to many new initiatives on human rights. Viljoen (2001) points to the important contributions of the African Charter (1981) to many human rights issues of the UDHR (1948). The negativity on the continent’s human rights initiatives are opaqued by the many ills and poverty of citizens in post-colonial African countries. Viljoen (2001, p.  21) states that this “exclusive negativity is misplaced”: Africans and African issues have also given rise to solutions and have played an active role in the development of international human rights and humanitarian law, sometimes even initiating new paradigms.

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The culture of remembrance that lead to the force of the African Charter has a long history of imperialism, slavery, colonialism and apartheid. The younger generations (within the South African context) growing up as the Born Free6 generation (post 1994), are now questioning the force of colonialism, apartheid and racism imbedded in their lived experiences (Booysen, 2016; Jansen, 2009; Pillay, 2015; Roux & Becker, 2016, 2017). Post-colonial discourses are reopening the brutality and inhumanness of colonial and apartheid histories, contexts and dehumanisation of a continent’s peoples. These are important issues in Africa’s cultures of remembrances and as important as those stories of the Holocaust and its survivors. Roux and Becker (2017, p. 7) state that: … within post-colonial contexts the potential decolonising of human rights, but also the decolonising possibilities of human rights in a search for multiple peoples and indigenous histories, need to be explored.

2.2  A Culture of Remembrance of the Religious Other Issues that constitute the challenges for recognition and issues of post-colonial conflict societies is remarkable similar to religious groups and belief systems other than Christianity. The histories and lived experiences of different religious groups narrating their specific culture of remembrance, unrelated and in many cases excluding the traditional thought of the Christian-Judean narrative in human rights (Boschki, 2016; Priner et al., 2016). My reasoning is that human rights are not necessarily the solution to curb religious and sectarian violence (Priner et  al., 2016). Bielefeldt (1995) states that the universality of human rights is linked to all religions and cultures and that the UDHR (1948) is not a: …. global position of a particular set of Western or Christian values, but instead aims at the universal recognition of pluralism and different religions, cultures, political convictions and ways of life insofar as such differences expressed (Bielefeldt, 1995, p. 616).

This statement of Bielefeldt (1995) is certainly the aim and ideals of the UDHR (1948). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century the changing composition of Western societies and increasing conflict in the Middle East and adjacent regions question Bielefeldt’s (1995, p. 616) statement. There is a growing incompatibility of religious customs and politics and Western liberal thought linked to the ideal of universal human rights values (Du Preez & Roux, 2010; Nussbaum, 2012; Osler, 2015). Legislations and actions by Western governments concentrating and legislating conformity are imposing laws that infringe upon individual religious rights. This will become an on-growing contentious issue (Nussbaum, 2012). Conformity

 The ‘Born Free’ generation are children born after the 1994 democratic elections in South Africa and can be regarded as the first generation that is free from oppression of colonialism and apartheid (cf. United Nations General Assembly’s declaration (1989) on the declaration on Apartheid and the exclusion of black citizens from the democratic processes of government). 6

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to Western values and acceptable religious symbols, perceptions and thought on what universal human rights are, contribute to the tension in many multilayered7 (multireligious) societies. Baderin (2003) feels that the concept of human rights could positively have been established from within the themes of Islamic law, rather than by imposing Islamic law “as an alien concept”. One should strive to reach common ground, refrain from causing social incoherence and accepting diverse political and world views. The religious differences in post-WW2 societies undoubtedly affected many citizens in different parts of the globe. Leaders of Muslim states were participants and contributed to the UDHR (1948) with key human rights standards for human rights law (cf. Mir-Hosseini, 2016, p. 35; Waltz, 2004). There were differences of opinions and tensions but also the “… room for dialogue and consensus building” was created (MirHosseini, 2016, p.  35). The notion of individual liberal foundations of the UDHR (1948) seems not to be the main obstacle because, as Mir-Hosseini states, “secular and liberal tendencies were dominant” in the Arab states that diplomates represented, with the exclusion of conservative Islam (ibid.). The change in the histories and politics in the Middle East in the late sixties8 and seventies of the previous century radicalised a section of Muslim politics. The radicalisation of Muslim politics since 1967 developed into two different powers with a political and spiritual force advocating for Islamic legal tradition or international human rights laws (Mir-­Hosseini, 2016, p. 35). The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (1981) (hereafter UIDHR) was prepared by the Islamic Council, affiliated with the Muslim World League. This document was presented to UNESCO on social issues based on traditional Islamic law (Moosa, 1998; Singh, 1998). The 9/11 attacks in 2001 in New York changed and strengthened perceptions about the “other”, in this case Islam (Nussbaum, 2012). These perceptions are inevitably still influencing discourses on religious and human rights in the Western democracies and post-colonial societies. Edalatnejad (2016) argues that “some Muslim scholars claim that Islam is a pioneer religion presenting those ethics that are embodied in the Declaration of Human Rights and international covenants” (Edalatnejad, 2016, p. 115). However conservative scholars in Islam still claim that human rights as a Western cultural phenomenon are mainly used to dominate the Muslim contexts (ibid.). Teaching a younger generation in predominantly Muslim countries, Western human rights becomes contentious with specific references to their social contexts and customs (Edalatnejad, 2016). See also Adami (2014, pp. 293–294) on issues on Asian values and the clash

 Multilayered societies include more than simply different religions, as social and material realities have an impact on all dimensions of multireligious societies which have the propensity to culminate in violence, be it material or sectarian. 8  Two important events radicalised the politics in the Middle East: The Six-day war (5th–10th June 1967) or also known as the Arab-Israeli war, and the Iranian revolution (1979) where the US-backed monarchy of the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) was overthrown on 11th February 1979. The Shah from the Pahlavi dynasty was replaced by a theocracy with the first president Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 7

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of Islamic values and human rights and as “examples of the estrangement of groups of people”. Annual reports of Human Rights Watch (2017) reviewed many governments’ lack in countering human rights and sectarian violations. The human rights violations committed by governments towards its citizens is still prevalent (Annual report around the globe https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017). Movements that might introduce human rights violations, e.g. populism (ibid.) are indicators of trends that might erupt into more violence. History has taught us that uprisings associated with human rights violations have the possibility of erupting into extreme conflict. Irrespective of the discourses on the historical problem on the universality of the UDHR (1948), this document still maintains a schizophrenic solidarity with human rights. We need to explore the epistemologies and complexities of different and inclusive understandings of the core of human rights other than Western thought because the delicate balance of signatories and defenders of human rights declarations and charters can undoubtedly become offenders of these very declarations. New narratives are inaugurating new human rights languages and link dissensus to structured political and social spaces which are not necessarily linked to Western Christian thought (Roux & Becker, 2017, p. 3). Peoples and individuals foster their cultures of remembrance on experiences and memories of actions for and against them. Actions and lived experiences are what constitute these “cultures of remembrance”. Post-colonial scholars in human rights education can relate to Boschki’s (2016) provocative reference to the “nice story” and his concerns about the legend of human rights and the UDHR (1948). His critique on a culture of remembrance open spaces for inclusion. Boschki’s remark that “(T)the empirical justification of human rights is to be found in the ability of humankind to remember not only as an individual but also as a collective in a community” (Boschki, 2016, p. 211), puts the culture of remembrance in the midst of acknowledging the importance of othering and their collective narratives. Boschki (2016, p. 213) refers in his critical discourse to the danger that a culture of remembrance can be fixated in the past and become “the victim of political correctness and gradual habituation and boredom” (ibid.). He poses remembrance as opposite and the “realization of the past” within an ethical framework that can act when “ present-day life (is) … confronted with inhumanity …” (ibid.). If the potential of transformation of remembrance stays exclusive as now, and only linked to remembering violations put in a specific space-place-time (WW2) that confronted the founders of the UDHR (1948), the legend of human rights will continue to become the West’s nice story and post-colonial histories’ cultures of remembrance.

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3  H  uman Rights Education: Reimagining Transformation or Performing in Circles 3.1  Reimagining Epistemological Transformation Boschki’s (2016, p. 211) notion on remembrance is guiding the idea of supporting human rights education. Remembrance of previous inhumane activities should develop an awareness in order to acquire a responsiveness to the insensibility (lack of awareness and concern) of “the wrong”. The premise of human rights education, to teach on and about human rights, is thus questionable. The aim of human rights education clearly states: to explore the empowerment of individuals, to counter human rights violations and acts against individuals and to instil and foster human dignity (Tibbitts, 2002, 2017). In this regard should one question the premise of tolerance and respect for human dignity, based on individual rights, prevalent in current human sufferings? The world conference on Human Rights Education (1993) brought much-needed human rights issues into the realm of formal education. Because human rights education started as part of the UNESCO Associated Schools programmes (1953), it’s aim remains to teach and learn about human rights and the importance of human rights (Suárez, Ramirez, & Koo, 2009). Since the commencement of implementing human rights education programmes (1995), establishing a curriculum for formal schooling was vital (Osler & Starkey, 2010; Tibbitts, 2002, 2017). The curriculum for human rights education, as approved by the United Nations (1998), can be defined as a cognitive exercise with emphasis on formal learning about individual human rights and upholding human dignity. The curriculum further aims to focus on knowledge, skills and values and, as agreed upon as a code of conduct supported by educations models9 (cf. Tibbitts, 2002, 2017). The United Nations and UNESCO are continuously introducing new projects and millennium goals to monitor and educate nations, societies, communities and individuals on human rights values and actions to counter violations (http://www. ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Education/Training/Pages/Decade.aspx; United Nations Commission on Human Rights on a World Program for Human Rights Education [2004/71]). In the foreword written by Qian Tang, the Assistant Director-General

 I would like to question the concept education “model” for human rights education reasoning for the concept “conceptual curriculum frameworks” (curriculum theory and curriculum making). The reason is that curriculum theory and conceptual curriculum frameworks (e.g. for human rights education) are imbedded and linked into the political, social and ideological discourses and developments. “Human rights education models” are presupposed to be fixed and stagnant (Becker, 2013; Becker & Du Preez, 2015; Du Preez & Reddy, 2015). Curriculum theory and curriculum making are far more complex and interlinked with the social contexts and hermeneutical implications (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Roux, 2017; Zembylas et al., 2016). Human rights education as “subject” and/or “discipline” (Tibbitts, 2002, 2017) is linked and can only function if the political, social and ideological trends are infused in curriculum approaches and curriculum making. These aspects link human rights education directly to the lived experiences of the recipients of the curriculum. 9

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for Education of UNESCO in a 2011 publication “Contemporary issues on human rights educations” it states that: Human rights education has been at the heart of UNESCO’s work since the Organization was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War. Then, as now, a quality education was considered one that, among other outcomes, addresses the ignorance and mistrust that lead to human conflict. This can only be achieved through learning that is relevant, pedagogically sound and based on meaningful participation (2011, p. 5).

Human rights education imbedded in the principles and values of the UDHR (1948) is linked to the educational approach of UNESCO to “bring coherence to a fragmented and globalized world” (Dolan, Gundara, & King, 2011, p. 12), working with different sectors of society including formal and non-formal structures available in societies. The objectives have a range of activities from training, information sharing, skills development and “moulding attitudes” (ibid.). The aims are to strengthen respect, develop a sense of dignity, promote tolerance (understanding and inclusion on all levels of society), enable effective participation in free democratic societies building and maintain peace and promote social justice and the “promotion of people-­centred sustainable development” (ibid.). Since 2003, UNESCO adopted a few strategies to promote human rights with its emphasis to integrate human rights education in policy-making content for curricula (UNESCO, 2003, Strategy on human rights). The adoption of United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education (March, 2011) as well as the proclamation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004) (Resolution, 49/184) outlined parameters for human rights education (cf. Dolan et al., 2011, p. 13). The implementation of the strategies was in phases—primary and secondary education (2005–2009) and higher education and training programmes (2010–2014) (cf. United Nations, 2012). According to Dolan et al. (2011), one of the outcomes of these strategies was awareness and recognition of the importance of human rights education. Many countries adopted the strategies and the development of learning material indicating a commitment by member states to implement human rights education. The conceptual ideal of human rights education is to make the United Nation’s documents, legislations and declarations palatable to educators and consultants (Al Daraweesh & Snauwaert, 2013; Coysh, 2014). Support for the implementation of universal human rights policies into contextual curricula is vital and since 2002, this ideal started sharing human rights programmes and models (Suárez, 2007). Scholars argue that the influences on dissemination, for example, the World Programme initiatives on Human Rights Education’s (2005–2009) basic education programmes (2010–2014), and its focus on higher education (UNESCO, 2012, p. iii) have become disconnected from material reality (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Osler, 2015; Zembylas, 2015; Zembylas et al., 2016). Human rights education can thus no longer claim to be a footprint for understanding human rights in its articulation of universal and particular values in and for a just society. Discourses are questioning the interconnectedness of human rights and human rights education (Coysh, 2014; Keet, 2015) and its meaning to realities and changing forces. Human rights education

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programmes are also not improving human rights actions, instilling shared knowledges or supporting its own aims. These approaches seem not to have produced the necessary outcomes and is failing in many social contexts, multicomplex societies and post-conflict societies (Becker, 2017; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2012, 2015; Roux & Becker, 2016, 2017; Simmonds, 2013; Zembylas, 2015; Zembylas et al., 2016). The above-mentioned scholars highlighted these complexities between human rights and the internalisation of rights. Most arguments name the following aspects: firstly, the ontological presuppositions of human rights education in the education realm and secondly, the epistemological stance of human rights education. The epistemological stance of human rights education indicates the need to introduce dialogical spaces. In dialogical spaces, Keet (2015, 2017) and Becker (2013,  2017) argue for an acknowledgement of the growing dissonance between interpretations of human rights and the aims of human rights education and how success can be accomplished. Elements of dissonance in human rights education has been previously recognized by Suárez (2007, p. 59) referred to a Zimbabwean consultant stating that: HRE is not just about talking about human rights values, concepts and skills or human rights instruments. More importantly it is about living these. Yes, teacher training and quality curriculum materials are essential but are in themselves not enough to produce the desire outcomes.

This statement of the Zimbabwean consultant is more laden than meets the eye. Although human rights educators support the UDHR (1948) and the declarationalist approach to human rights education is introduced in curriculum materials, dissensus is structured in political space and lived experiences of individuals. Content and contexts are irretrievably linked to one another and to the histories and understandings of the very subjects of human rights. Zembylas (2015) questions pedagogical approaches in human rights education and labelled it as inadequate and its contextual knowledges as not necessarily solutions. Zembylas (2015, p. 2) further states that: (E)nriching human rights critique has important pedagogical implications for HRE, precisely because these critiques prevent the dominance of unreflexive and unproductive forms of HRE.

3.2  More Than Reimagining Transformation In this part of this section, I would like to concentrate mainly on selected dialectic processes in human rights education relevant to the proposed nexus on what human rights literacies is and can offer. In order to link the first section of remembrance and a culture of remembrance from diverse histories and contexts, I would like to draw on two articles of Zembylas (2015) and Zembylas et al. (2016), to show how deeply rooted the notion of epistemic othering is imbedded and the complexities that exist when defining knowledges from human rights education.

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Zembylas critiques the rigid link of human rights education to human rights and identifies three orthodoxies that indicate the “gradual construction of the conceptualization of human rights as ‘dogmatic rules’” (Zembylas, 2015, pp. 3–4). He links these orthodoxies as outlined in Okafor and Shedrack (2001) as “constitutive of the broader human rights discourse” and puts them directly to human rights education practice, which I interpreted as curriculum content. These orthodoxies are summarised as firstly, a “heaven-to-hell” binary, splitting the world into different spheres: those who violate and those who upheld human rights; secondly, a “one-­ way traffic” paradigm arguing the normative fixed Western conceptualisations and transmission of human rights and thirdly, an “abolitionist paradigm”, which includes the abolition of all local cultural practices and the assumption that these traditions are considered obstacles to human rights education (Zembylas, 2015, p. 3). Zembylas (2015, p.  10) proposes further renewal to human rights education based on Foucault’s notion of “power and knowledge” and “power relations that embody those rules” (ibid.). This approach on human rights relates to the notion that the “foundationalist human rights need to be constantly contested and not taken for granted” (ibid.). In summary these approaches consist of firstly, an interpretative inquiry to understand the diverse conceptualisations of human rights, secondly, a critical and strategic engagement with human rights, i.e. not limited to celebration and embracing, but including “ethic or self-critique and awareness” as there is a constant struggle for human rights between “new and confronting power”, and thirdly, an emphasis on “relational rights”. He proposes an approach that is reflective, relational to the understanding of the narratives and that moves away from “essentialist perspectives of the human subject towards how peoples and cultures construct and enact unique relations through narratives” (Zembylas, 2015, pp. 10–11). The binary between human rights education with its inflexible links to the UDHR (1948), Western thought, histories and remembrance on why human rights exist will remain inevitably an example of power. It is in this realm that different histories (narratives) and remembrances should be linked to give multiple perspectives on what human rights experiences are and how it is and how it should be perceived in global reality. Adami (2014) argues that the effectiveness for overcoming the binary and gap between human rights and human rights education lies deeper than theory and notions for the renewal of human rights education. She further reiterates the importance of narratives at the centre of human rights education. She argues that a “narrative approach provides a move away from questions of what we are, as posed in relation to non-discrimination in human rights education to focus on questions who we are and how human rights can be articulated though our lived experiences” (Adami, 2014, p. 295). Secondly, Zembylas et al. (2016), in their article Towards a critical hermeneutical approach of human rights education: universal ideals, contextual realities and teachers’ difficulties argue for the interpretation of human rights as a “dialectical process” where one can relate to discussion of ideas and opinions discovering ­different truths. Zembylas et al. (2016, p. 498) position this dialectical process as a “critical hermeneutical approach” (hereafter CHA) on the hermeneutical

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e­ pistemology of Gadamer (1975). The interpretation of a CHA to human rights education is encouraged by Al Daraweesh and Snauwaert (2013,  2015). This approach supports the notion that “there is no absolute universal understanding of human rights” (ibid.) and opens up the debate on cultural and universal relativeness. The key concepts of CHA to providing a holistic framework are situated knowledge, dialogue, interpretation, multiperspectivity, and “polyphony and isomorphic equivalents”. The limitations of one’s positionality and not passing absolute value judgments is key for engagement across different narratives and histories (Zembylas et al., 2016). The research identifies two main elements to curriculum making and CHA, firstly, the interpretation of human rights “rather than merely accepting them as universal and absolute truths” and secondly, a critical understanding of “diverse manifestations of human rights.. questioning certainties and establishing ideas, recognising the power relations of certain prejudices …” (Zembylas et  al., 2016, p. 498). This interpretation of rights and narratives/histories brings a more sensitive and inclusive approach to the knowledge construct of human rights and its applications in human rights education. Such an approach to human rights education is relevant in especially diverse societies with multicomplex and multilayered histories and narratives, with a social justice orientated human rights education that speaks to epistemic othering (Becker, 2017; Becker, De Wet, & Van Vollenhoven, 2015; Becker & Du Preez, 2016; Keet, 2014; Roux, 2017).

3.3  Working in Circles or Searching for New Beginnings We need to recognise the existence of a continuous dissonance between interpreter (human rights) and recipient (human rights education). Critical theory as one of the proposed ontological stances for human rights education is applied in many human rights education projects (Becker & Du Preez, 2016; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2015, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2016). Keet (2015) proposes critical human rights education (CHRE) to counter the hegemonic distrust in the human rights discourse. He argues that the critical in CHRE is “aimed at perpetual transformation” in human rights education. Arguing that power relations are central to human rights and human rights subjects, Keet (2015, p. 59) presented CHRE firstly as a political activity and a “first step towards an alternative construction”, secondly, as “anti-declarationist” that opposes the universality as “conceptual directives” of human rights education’s dominant directives, and thirdly, it “requires an alternative pedagogical language” that is “rooted in the notion of human rights wrongs” and fourthly, CHRE is constitutive of “human agency that may, within communities of right bearers, illuminate the possibilities of political action in relation to human rights” (Keet, 2015, pp. 59–60). Tibbitts’s (2002, p. 165) developing of three models for human rights education links to the declarationalist approach of human rights education and curriculum aims linked to power relations and “othering”. These models consist of the Values and awareness model, that concentrate on information and content of human rights

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documents: the Accountability model focussing on the political and legality, and the Transformation model, concentrating on a psychological-social approach to human rights education, focussing still on a top-down approach, widening the gap between the lived experiences and lived realities. In her 2017 article Evaluation of human rights education models, Tibbitts (2017) defines human rights education as a “newly established education theory and practice discipline” that is gaining increased attention and significance across the globe. She revisited the education models and includes a “critical stance”, an “application of human rights norms”, including voluntary or involuntary participation, learner10 outcomes in relation to agency and transformation for teaching-learning didactics (strategies) (Tibbitts, 2017).11 The question however remains whether human rights education can be revitalising if education models are linked to the declarationalist attitude of the sub-text in human rights. In reply to the revisited education models, it is important to note that curriculum does not promote a culture of human rights, but acts as a vehicle linked to the political, social and historical processes and events that defined what should be included and how knowledge should be translated and disseminated. Human rights education at present is submerged, with numerous discourses on re-assessing or critiquing the notion of human rights education. This discipline rather needs discourses to comply with the growing multicomplexities of global societies where dissensus is structured within political spaces. The newly proposed education models and didactics (pedagogical approaches) (Tibbitts, 2002, 2017) to human rights education is neither the answer to ease the distrust in human rights nor to counteract its failures. Will a critical human rights education approach as proposed by Keet (2015) change the declarationalist approach imbedded in human rights education models? Scholarly inputs show that there are at present many limitations in the ontology of human rights education. The question is: What new or different stances can be linked to the requirements and responsibilities of human rights education and its discourses? The legitimacy of human rights education being questioned, the distrust in human rights as a declarationalist approach, the knowledges and curriculum making, and exclusion of the epistemic other can be overcome. We need to focus less on

 See chapter Becker and Roux in part III of this volume footnote 6 on the concept learner. The concept is critiqued as part of the “learnification discourse of education and human rights education”. This discourse has devastating ontological and epistemological consequences relevant to cultures of remembrance, histories, indigenous knowledges, identity and lived experiences. See also chapter Becker and Roux in part III of this volume for an exploration of the consequences of this discourse in education and human rights education. 11  See footnote 9 on the question of learning strategies (didactics). Furthermore, transformational teaching-learning strategies cannot support a top-down approach where subjects are categorised in the subsequent power relations as outlined in the aims of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on a World Program for Human Rights Education (2004/71). The ideals are commendable but the ontological stance and epistemology realities are not compatible. Dissonance in political and social spaces and lived experiences needs a decolonising of knowledge that “needs a collective process by which disciplinary practices are successful in working against the inscribed epistemic injustices of all knowledge formations” (Keet, 2015, p. 28; Keet, 2017). 10

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discourses regarding the reimagining of human rights education and more on the individual, being a subject of othering and marginalisation. Many contributions to research in human rights education focus on epistemologies of human rights education frameworks and knowledge constructs, still excluding the ontological and epistemological othering. The marginalised histories and remembrance is at the core of the ontological distrust of a new socialised and technologically informed generation of teaching-learning professionals and learners. Teaching and learning about and from human rights are not in the reality game. The type of proposed models is deeply-rooted in divergence when talking/discussing/teaching/learning about human rights and its values. Discourses are linked to lived experiences of the teachers/consultants/lecturers who teach students of education (the learners) about universal values but still experience othering when trying to counter abuses of individual rights and foster human dignity. Can human rights literacies offer innovative links to new epistemologies of human rights education? Acknowledging disruption and structuring of dissensus between the interpreter (the rights) and the recipient (the pedagogy) require an understanding of contextual spaces in which human rights and human rights education need to function (Al Daraweesh & Snauwaert, 2013, 2015; Becker et al., 2015; Du Preez & Becker, 2016). The structuring of dissensus contesting human rights (rights, laws and documents) and human rights education (programmes and/or pedagogy) need to create and expand discursive spaces to explore new avenues and to develop a nexus for unencumbered understandings of new languages linked to human rights literacies. Boschki’s (2016) arguments on remembrance to guide human rights and human rights education still link complexities of human rights education to core documents and declarations. We need to bridge the gap between human rights (documents and legality) and human rights education, to acknowledge othering and explore the ontologies of human rights literacies in curriculum frameworks, curriculum making, developing approaches with the contextualisation of new languages.

4  The Literacy ‘Turn’ in Human Rights The literacy ‘turn’ in human rights and human rights education has first developed as a prerequisite for curriculum making in human rights education (Du Preez, Simmonds, & Roux, 2012; Simmonds, 2013). The notion emerged from initial research projects (2005–2010) concentrating on human rights education and an inclusive curriculum linked to the complexity of a post-colonial and post-apartheid conflict society (Du Preez et al., 2012; Roux & Becker, 2017; Roux & Du Preez, 2013). The material realities, marginalisation, exclusion and disillusionment with political and social realities, questioned the truths about human rights. Social ills and constant disillusionment with injustices create an ongoing disruption and dissonance with reality (Becker, 2013). In researching the influence of difference and diversity in meaning making of human rights education simplistic and deterministic

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frameworks are not adequate. The intersections of global and local place-­space-­time in meaning making are extremely complex and multilayered. Roux explains it as follows: … the ontology of human rights literacy and developing an understanding of the I and the other merge these two notions as processes in human rights education. There are human rights issues which are universal and can be, as such, morally bound to international declarations and constitutions and applicable to all humans. On the other hand, there are also particularistic understandings to human rights issues and people respond differently in their cultural and/or religious communities and environments to these issues (Roux, 2010, pp. 999–1000).

Human rights literacies are continuous and evolving processes linked to the natural development of post-colonial and posthumanism (Baxi, 2007). Posthumanist thought is linked to the disillusionment of human rights (in material reality) and the idealistic view of what it could be. Du Preez and Becker (2016, p. 1) explore this phenomenon and argue that: human action and the structuring of dissensus within political, social and educational spaces as (is) crucial to the continual formulation, claims, rejection, amendments and recognition of human rights.

The effectiveness for overcoming the binary and gap between human rights and human rights education lies on a different level than the ontologies and epistemologies proposed for the renewal of human rights education. Human rights literacies do not aim to support human rights education to deliver fixed and set goals and outcomes of the programmes. The epistemologies of human rights literacies develop from dissensus structured between the declarations and the applications in education. Suárez (2007, p. 58) concurs that: (M)ost human rights educators believe that teaching about human rights has the potential to socialize12 students and produce responsible, active citizens.

Human rights literacies propose to close the gap and work towards the contextual realities and lived experiences linked to critical posthumanism (Baxi, 2007) and the universal values of human rights. Lived experiences are giving space to develop human rights literacies and to reactivating knowledge, actions and values. Human rights literacies function towards transformation with the difference of a bottom-up approach with the subjects of rights of the human rights as starting point. The transformative possibilities lie in the understanding of multiple complexities of emotions, political, social and physical aspects of political interventions and tensions (Du Preez & Becker, 2016). Roux and Becker (2017, p.  1) state that “(C)ritique and dissensus in the gap between abstract human rights and the material realities of exploitation, ­domination, exclusion and marginalisation are crucial to human rights literacies”. They further argue that “(T)eaching and learning towards human rights literacies should there-

 See chapter Becker and Roux in part III of this volume on the notion of “socialise students” and human rights education. 12

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fore be a continually dissonant process, enabling moments of dissensus within intersecting spaces of (non)existing rights” (Roux & Becker, 2017, p. 4).

4.1  Human Rights Literacies as Nexus As argued in the first and second part of this chapter, distrust and dissensus between human rights, human rights education and individuals open up the possibilities to develop the nexus between these two opposites. Human rights literacies, as nexus, functions as a continuous process in discursive spaces where dissonance with human rights occurs. The aims and goals of the declarations and the outcomes of human rights education programmes should have been in a harmony with and coherent in the “conceptual ideal of human rights” (Al Daraweesh & Snauwaert, 2013, p. 389). Because of distrust, dissonance, disruption and resulting dissensus, human rights literacies become the nexus between legislations and politics and “crystallised” content for human rights education and outcomes. Distrust leads to dissonance between truth and what ought to be, and influences the discourses and curriculum making in human rights education. Human action, reaction and interaction all play into the cultural contexts and lived experiences. In order to explore the reasons for distrust, human rights literacies open discursive spaces for contextual human rights discourse, not necessarily universal, but structured within place-space-time. It is in this realm that contextual histories and narratives give meaning to discourses on othering. The intention of human rights literacies is to bridge this gap within the legal rights and de facto rights that Roux and Becker (2017, p. 4) call “the non(realisation) of rights”. Teaching and learning towards human rights literacies should therefore be a continually dissonant process, enabling moments of dissensus within intersecting spaces of (non)existing rights. During this process, the multiple subjects of human rights speak to, and act on, the contradictory narratives of exclusions, marginalisation and othering in the gap between abstract rights and their (non)realisation (Roux & Becker, 2017, p. 4).

Human rights literacies are non-hierarchical, non-dualistic, multilayered, complex and evolving. The question to be asked is: What influences the social reality of distrust on human rights’ material realities? Jansen (2009) reflects on the significance of dissonance and explains that it “occurs when experiences relating to the world and others dis-orders prior meanings and understandings” (Jansen, 2009, p. 266). This dissonance of the interpretation between the interpreter (of the human rights) and the cultural and historical realities, ideals and understandings (of the recipients) could and typically become part of new languages. The development of a new language or languages do not progress outside of contextual place-spacetime. Languages develop when engaging with the realities of human rights, not because human rights are opaque, but when human rights distort, exclude and marginalise (Pillay, 2015; Roux, 2017). This notion is primarily linked to the multiple

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lived experiences of individuals in contextual place-space-time. Adami (2014, p. 296) argues that: … relations in HRE may actually increase feelings of exclusion and marginalisation in the making of otherness (even though the intensions are to reach inclusion and feelings of dignity).

Therefore, one should not reflect on narratives as particular, but as narration linked to lived experiences and histories or remembrance. Narratives should also not be viewed as a fixed point in the discourse, but as influencing spheres of discursive spaces. Linked histories and remembrance are multiple lived experiences and realities (past, present and future) and give life to the development of new languages. It does not relate to the top-down binary of declarations, mostly present in discursive spaces but are “contexts and contextual languages and voices on human rights” (Roux, 2017, p. 72) framed and developed within spaces of dissensus with material realities.

4.2  H  uman Rights Literacies as Cognitive Skill and/or Social Practice Simmonds (2013, p. 143) points to the contentious use of the concept “literacy” as either a cognitive skill or a social practice in human rights. Literacy as a cognitive skill includes declarationalist knowledge of human rights, the remedies available and values inherent to human rights. Literacy as a social practice indicates “how humans act, re-act and inter-act on abstract human rights documents within specific socio-cultural contexts” (Roux & Becker, 2015; Simmonds, 2013). The question to be asked is what are crucial and critical and what constitutes an alternative or comprehensive meaning making to human rights in human rights education. Roux and Becker (2015) citing Roux and Du Preez (2013) state that: … human rights literacy is a competence that constitutes the understanding of ‘legal processes’ and ‘processes of othering’ and implications of human rights in social contexts (cf. Roux & Becker, 2015, p. 2).

Roux and Becker further argue that: … (T)he implications of the ontological stances of both the natural and deliberative schools (Dembour, 2010) for human rights literacy in human rights education are in the focus on knowledge, skills and values (agreed upon ‘code of conduct’) (Roux & Becker, 2015, p. 3).

Individuals might have “political literacy’ (knowledge of the vertical law legalistic and declarations), whereas human rights literacy opens up the discursive spaces for the application of knowledge on legislation and social justice issues in context (horizontal applications). Discursive spaces are required to support knowledge and social skills in human rights. The essential matter is to link various contexts and groups together in human rights education. It is further described as:

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The processes by which rights are declared based on natural law (natural school) and on deliberation and consensus (deliberative school) thus differ, but both schools acknowledge the possession paradox and present the law and/or consensus as answer (Dembour, 2010; Donnelly, 2013). The possession paradox of human rights regards the paradoxical nature of statements in abstract human rights documents that, for example, all members of the human race are free and equal (Dembour, 2010, p. 7; Donnelly, 2013, p. 9). The paradox is that one can ‘have’; and ‘not have’ (enjoy) a right at the same time (Du Preez & Becker, 2016).

It has already been argued that human rights literacies and its new languages are linked and interconnected to understandings and meanings of human rights in social contexts, as it identifies and acknowledge spaces of dissensus in the growing complex social environments world-wide. There is a risk that disruption and dissonance can become violent and not lead to discursive spaces. A process of disrupting previous knowledge, which can be aided by other voices but does not represent violence, is needed (Roux, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2016). Self-concepts are vital to mature in human rights literacies’ understanding of social practices and skills are part of a continuous evolving of what is crucial and where it is crucial. Social skills lie deep in the self-concept of an individual. I would like to describe social skills and social practices for human rights literacies with the metaphor of Through the Looking Glass linked to the novel by Lewis Carroll written in 1871. The story of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) describes the adventures of a little girl in a strange and mysterious world where she climbs through a mirror into this fantasy world. She is an outsider in the strange world and reflects continuously on the new pathways and strange characters in the story. She becomes part of the world through the interactions with the mysterious social world—so far, the story. Charles Cooley, an American psychologist, developed the Looking-glass self theory in 1902 and has been quoted often (Shaffer, 2005), stating that an individual’s self grows from a person’s social interactions with others, being family, community and/or society. One strives to become part of this interaction without fear of rejection when presenting oneself to others. The interaction and relationship with one another impact on one’s social skills, supporting self-­ worthiness and self-empowerment. These social practices and skills are further linked to one’s understanding of values, beliefs and attitudes. As the universal and abstract nature of human rights (UDHR, 1948) respects the fact that all humans have human rights, are equal and unalterably human (Donnelly, 2007, p. 283), human rights literacies challenge and resist othering and marginalisation. It is therefore not possible to define human rights literacies as a single concept. We first defined human rights literacy as competence that “constitutes the understanding of the processes and implications of human rights in social contexts” (Roux & Becker, 2015; Roux & Du Preez, 2013), reiterating both cognitive skills and social practices. We accept also the notion that “constituted legal knowledge has to deal more with the social fibre and values of the society in which the law is applied” (Roux & Becker, 2015). However, the main concept remains that human rights literacies are continuous and evolving processes, that constitute the ­understanding of the processes of marginalisation and its consequences in social contexts.

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5  Conclusion The literacy ‘turn’ in human rights education does not relate to the knowledge of legalistic and declarationalist documents and proposals only. It cannot function in a top-down education model implying the educational stance—even if this is transformative and critical. Human rights literacies consist of a holistic and open approach on what is; what ought to be and what is evolving in human rights ontologies and epistemologies. Distrust and the structuring of dissensus in human rights will always be a contentious issue linking its histories to its selective culture of remembrance, remembrances and universal declarations. Human rights literacies explore and create discursive spaces where the dissonance between the universal truth and what people (the other) believe and need to cope with in everyday, lived experiences. Human rights education does not provide possibilities for dissonant and disruptive epistemological spaces as the epistemic othering is part of its curriculum making. The interrelated evolutionary and continuous processes of human rights literacies, moving in and out of gaps, opening discursive spaces and influencing each other will eventually create inclusive consensus and understanding. Human rights education’s inability to make a lasting impact in a changing, volatile world needs to become part of epistemic lived experiences. Human rights literacies make sense for those living in volatile environments, being the epistemic other, being linked to different histories, having different narratives of being and a culture of pre-1948 and pre-1994 remembrance.

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(Re)Framing the Subject(s) of Rights Anne Becker

… recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world Preamble Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.)

Contents 1  I ntroduction 2  T  he Crisis for and of the Subject 3  Ontological and Epistemological In(ex)clusions: The Struggle to be Recognised as Subjects of Rights 4  The Ethical Shift and the Humanitarian Paradigm: The Political Struggle to Become Subjects of Rights 5  Constructing Human Rights Literacies Within In(ex)clusionary Human Rights Discourses 6  Risking Political and Pedagogical Subjectification to Become Subjects 7  (Re)Framing Subjects of Rights in Education, Human Rights Education and Human Rights Literacies References

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Abstract  This chapter explores the shifting content of the concept subject (of rights). Although by common assumption the subjects of rights are “all members of the human family”, the divisive ontological and epistemological in(ex)clusionary premise of human rights points to the contrary. The critique of the subject of rights concerns questions regarding what the content of the concept subject is, and how the subject comes into existence. It also questions the privileging of the enlightenment humanist human as pre-existing subject and the privileging of the historic western

A. Becker (*) Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_2

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epistemological framework. The chapter traces the subject of rights as premised particularly on the identity of the enlightenment western male, its metamorphoses into citizen, into human (rights) during the 1940s, and, in recent years, into victim. I argue that becoming subjects of rights is enacted through human rights literacies and processes of political and pedagogical subjectification. I conclude that the ongoing critique and the suspicion of the content of the concept subject (of rights), might open possibilities for the continual (re)framing of the subjects of rights in becoming.

1  Introduction In searching for the philosophical grounding of human rights, Shestack (1998, p.  203) asks: “What is meant by human rights?” [original emphasis]. Although scholars such as Derrida (1991) and Descombes (1991) have expressed suspicion regarding the content of the concept subject, the subjects of rights are, by common assumption, regarded as “all members of the human family” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; hereafter UDHR, see United Nations). The most common grounding of rights therefore remains in the pre-existing subject (human) of rights (Golder, 2015). The ongoing critique, questioning and suspicions regarding the subject, is not a critique on persons who believe themselves as subjects, it is a critique of the content of the concepts subject and subjectivity (Descombes, 1991). The critique of the subject concerns two aspects. In the first place it concerns the questions: what is the content of the concept subject and how does the subject come into existence? In the second place it concerns questions regarding the privileging of the enlightenment humanist human as pre-existing subject, categorised and controlled, but simultaneously controlling the other and otherness of the not-human and the non-human.1 The content of the concept subject not only privileges Western knowledge, but it also privileges an epistemological framework specifying ways in which knowledge is made and who is allowed to make that knowledge (Tascón & Ife, 2008). For scholars such as Kapur (2006) the pre-existing Enlightenment humanist subject and it’s in(ex)cluded other, are embedded in human rights and grounds the historic epistemological in(ex)clusionary nature of human rights. The struggle to be and become subject is a struggle, which as Derrida (2001, p. 354) puts it, “has always already begun”. Humanism has since its inception produced its own dogma with its own rational universalisms saturating understandings and contestations of human, not-human, non-human, transhuman and posthuman  In this chapter I distinguish between the not-human (as the categorised sub-human related to race, ethnicity, gender, class and other classifications) and the non-human. The non-human turn does not make claims to teleology or progress but focuses on the inseparability of human and non-human. It critiques the dualisms constructed between humans, animals, organisms, plants, climate systems, affectivity, materiality and technological systems (Grusin, 2015, p. 3). 1

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(Wolfe, 2010).2 The Enlightenment humanist human is a culture-specific, gender-­ specific, race-specific and class-specific entity (Braidotti, 2013). Braidotti (2013) therefore argues that none of us can be sure that we have always been human or that we are only human. We cannot be certain that we are fully included in the human rights framework as subjects. Some of us are not and will never be viewed as fully human (ibid.). Attempting to bridge the gap between in(ex)clusionary discursive human rights structuring the pre-existing subject and material realities, feminist, post-colonial and posthumanist scholars have interrupted and disrupted various humanist discourses regarding the subject in recent years. Within posthumanism there has also been a shift away from representation towards the continual (re)construction of subjects-in-becoming through entanglements and intra-actions embedded in an epistemological-ontological-ethical framework (Barad, 2007). The implications of the posthuman for human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies are immense. Premised on a historic divisive epistemology, the Enlightenment humanist subject morphed into the citizen during the age of the revolutions with the promulgation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789; hereafter the DRMC). For Balibar (1991) this declaration marks a rapture in the history of the subject(s) of rights. The political exclusion of not-citizens became cemented into the divisive epistemological framework of the humanist subject. As Baxi (2007, p. 199) argues, “not all born humans ‘enjoy the blessing’ of citizenship-being”. The DRMC (1789) introduced the notion of the sovereign citizen as the subject of rights, the paradoxes inherent to equality, and the conflicts between the individual and the collective inherent in notions of citizenship (Balibar, 1991). The interrelated and regulatory nature of the link between state sovereignty, citizenship and rights divides humans ‘in one side or the other’ and the not-citizen and not-human remain in a continual battle for recognition and ontological and epistemological survival (Golder, 2015, p. 94). During the 1940s the Rights of Man evolved into human rights and in recent years shifted to humanitarian rights. Ranciére (2015, p. 198), in light of the recent explosions of ethnic conflicts and wars of religion asks: “What lies behind this shift from Man to Humanity and from Humanity to the Humanitarian?” He poses that this shift is made possible by the disappearance of political spaces and its replacement by ethical spaces since the 1960s (Ranciére, 2015). In ethical spaces norm is collapsed into fact and this illusion disables the core of the political. Ranciére (2015) posits that this shift marks both the disappearance of rights and the subjects of rights. Human rights, Ranciére (2015) argues, are now the absolute right of victims

 As illustration, Wolfe (2010), referencing Bostrom, argues that transhumanism has its roots in rational humanism. Wolfe (2010) regards transhumanism as an intensification of humanism. Transhumanism, Garreau (in Wolfe, 2010) poses, aims to enhance human intellectual, physical and emotional capabilities within an engineered evolution of ‘post-humans’. Posthumanism, Wolfe (2010) however advocates, is not an ‘after’ humanism but an opposition to the fantasies of disembodiment and autonomy. 2

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and is managed by normative sameness. Inclusion is managed and governed through consensus while spaces of dissensus (the core of the political) are disabled. In the last section of this chapter, I explore human rights literacies and its connection to political and pedagogical subjectification as presenting possibilities for becoming subjects of rights. Human rights literacies are constructed in-between having and not having rights. It opens the gap between norm and fact and enacts processes of meaning-making regarding the dissonance between human rights ideals and material realities. It regards dissonance, disruption, action and the subjectification of subjects in becoming. Literacies enable humans to act as subjects of rights by inserting themselves into the sphere of in(ex)clusion and challenging the historic divisive ontologies and epistemologies within which the subjects of rights are framed. The subjects of rights, Ranciére (2015) argues, is constructed through processes of political subjectification. Political subjectification does not depend on the existence of political spaces or belonging to existing political communities. It is premised on the universality of humans as political agents (Cistelecan, 2011; Du Preez & Becker, 2016). Subjects of rights insert themselves in the sphere of in(ex)clusion and use their rights. Simons and Masschelein (2010) pose that political subjectification assumes pedagogical subjectification. During pedagogical subjectification the visible and invisible, the audible and inaudible, the sayable and the unsayable within the given are challenged (cf. Ranciére, 2012). Pedagogical subjectification is about verifying different ways of being and is not determined by pre-existing orders, traditions and categories (cf. Biesta, 2013). Golder (2015, p. 90), referencing Foucault and Ranciére, argues that in exploring the subjects of rights, asking the question: “Who is the (pre-existing, hence ascertainable) subject of the Rights of Man?” is the wrong question. The question should rather be: “Who can emerge within rights discourse as a subject?” In this question the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion are flexible and possibilities of becoming subject open up (Golder, 2015, p.  90). For the purpose of this chapter Golder’s proposed question is used to explore the possibilities for becoming subjects of rights through human rights literacies and processes of subjectification. Before exploring the processes of becoming subjects of rights, the crisis for and of the subject and the critique of the content of the concept subject, relevant to this chapter, are explored.

2  The Crisis for and of the Subject Regarding the subject of rights, Montefiore (2001, p.  177), in an interview asks Derrida: “So, does this subject, the subject whose freedom Amnesty International, for example, seeks everywhere to defend, in the name of human rights or so-called ‘rights of man,’ does this subject still exist?” The answer(s) to this question, Derrida (Montefiore, 2001) poses, lies in the deconstruction of the language and history of both subject and of human rights. In analysing the subject, all hidden assumptions

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implied in the philosophical, ethical, juridical and political use of the concept ‘subject’ must be laid bare. The history and language of human rights and its many declarations must be deconstructed. The philosophies of the subject and subjectivity have always been contentious. Despite this the foundations of ethics, justice, politics, democracy, human rights and every related discourse are essentially sealed within the philosophies of the subject (Derrida, 1991). The crisis for and of the subject does not refer to a disappearance or dissolution of the subject. It refers to a displacement, a critique and a “discourse of suspicion” of the subject (Derrida, 1991). Derrida (in Montefiore, 2001, p. 177) regards the history of the content of the concept subject as “a very, very long, heavy and complex history”. He does not argue for the disappearance of the subject but a deconstruction of the sovereignty and history of the subject (Peters, 2001). Descartes is regarded as the founder of the philosophy of the subject (Henry, 1991). Platonic idealism, resurrected during the Enlightenment, reached its full realisation in Descartes with the mind/body dichotomy and the radical separation of inside/outside (Tascón & Ife, 2008). Descartes distinguishes between the mind or the idea (as pure and attentive; the signified) and the word that is only necessary for communication (the signifier) (Kofman, 1991). For Descartes, language is a trap into which common people fall and the philosopher, therefore, should situate herself above language and words and trust only in reason (Kofman, 1991). In sum: things, ideas and reason are to be separated from words (Tascón & Ife, 2008). There are two assumptions stemming from Descartes’s theory that adds to the problematic nature of the concept of the subject. First is the notion that thinking can happen without words, language or a connection to the material world. The second is that thinking, or reasoning, implies a specific thinking subject (Kofman, 1991). Thinking, as an activity, assumes an agent/subject which then leads to the assumption of the thinking subject: ‘I think therefore I am.’ Through the activity of thinking the subject comes into existence and becomes known to itself (Kofman, 1991). The subject within this equation is therefore an object of representation (Henry, 1991). The notion “I think” is equated to “I represent to myself that I think” (Henry, 1991, p. 159). The essence of the subject is thus a representation of a specific thinking subject (ibid.). Knowledge is disengaged from ontology as pure representation. From within this view, order is constructed around the properties of the activity of thinking. Epistemological privilege becomes necessary to control the world to which the subject no longer has any attachment (Tascón & Ife, 2008). From the position of control and the achievement of universality through the power of reason, the definition of ‘human’ is settled. The concept ‘human’ constitutes a specific definition in terms of its epistemology. Control over the not-human and non-human is settled through, amongst other things, identity. There are no one and no thing which cannot be named, categorised and controlled. Tascón and Ife (2008), pose that in modernity, meaning-making is driven by distinctions between us/them, and self/other. The ‘human’ therefore holds a distinct form of power—he has control over life but is not connected to life (Tascón & Ife, 2008). The ‘human’ subject is the super-Being with everything and everyone at his disposal. Everything (the shared and physical world) is in principle s­ ubjugated

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to him by way of his privileged and unsurmountable epistemological condition (Henry, 1991). Interpreting subjectivity and the subject by means of concepts such as ‘inner’ and ‘outer,’ ‘representation’ and ‘object’ dominated modern philosophy, from Descartes through Kant to Husserl (Blattner, 2006, p. 9). Heidegger breaks with this tradition by substituting epistemological questions concerning the relation of the knower and the known with ontological questions, concerning what Being is and how this is bound up with the intelligibility of the world (Dreyfuss, 1995). Heidegger’s (1962) inquiry into Being includes what being is and how being is possible. He distinguishes between pre- ontology and ontology when inquiring about the what and how of Being (ibid.). A pre-ontological inquiry points to that which is already known or familiar. It concerns what is presupposed about Being (the Being-­ ontological of Dasein), before the ontological inquiry into the concept Being starts (Heidegger, 1962). Ontology, Heidegger (1962, p. 32) poses, should be reserved for a “theoretical inquiry which is explicitly devoted to the meaning of entities”. Understanding Being itself, is a characteristic of Dasein’s Being, and therefore demands the ontological priority of any inquiry into Being as such (Heidegger, 1962). Heidegger (1962) objects to the language of subject, object and inner and outer. He argues that it offers a distorted description of our experiences in the world. This divide is an unusual way of being, he argues, as our experiences in the world are one of familiarity (disclosedness and being-in-the-world) (Heidegger, 1962). We cannot be disentangled from the world (ibid.). We are implicated in the world. (Blattner, 2006). Following Kierkegaard, he holds that Descartes’s statement, ‘I think therefore I am’, should be reversed to ‘I am therefore I think’ (Dreyfuss, 1995, p. 3). Recent discourses of suspicion regarding the content of the concepts subject and subjectivity started during the 1950s and 1960s (Derrida, 1991). The critique of the subject is not a critique on persons who believe themselves as subjects, it is a critique of the content of the concepts subject and subjectivity (Descombes, 1991). Descombes (1991) describes the critique of the subject as an interrogation of the illusions of subject and subjectivity. The suspicion of the subject, Derrida (in Montefiore, 2001) explains, did not start as, or during, a specific event or time. The suspicion “has always already begun”, he poses (Derrida in Montefiore, 2001, p. 354). For Derrida (2001, p. 354) the suspicion of the subject was/is inspired: by the Nietzchean critique of methaphysics, the critique of the concepts of Being and truth, for which were substituted the concepts of play, interpretation and sign (sign without present truth), the Freudian critique of self-presence, that is, the critique of consciousness, of the subject, of self-identity and of self-proximity, and, more radically the Heideggerean destruction of metaphysics, of the onto-theology, of the determination of Being as presence.

Derrida therefore promotes the continual decentring of structure, the transcendental signified and the sovereign subject towards that which could “pass beyond man and humanism” (Derrida, 2001, p. 354, 370; Peters, 2001). The crisis for and of the subject of rights and education mirrors the critique regarding the content of the concept subject and the privileging of the e­ nlightenment

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humanist human. Since the first human rights declarations, the concept ‘human’ has been defined and re-defined within shifting epistemological and ontological frameworks privileging the Enlightenment ‘man’. In the beginning the subject was the owner of property, and the right to work, for example, was not inscribed. Some of the questions asked of human rights concerning its subject(s) over the last decades, are: “Is the child a subject? Is a woman a subject? Is a non-European individual a subject?” (Montefiore, 2001, p. 179). Although privileging the humanist subject, the subject of rights has never been a constant formal identity (Montefiore, 2001). Concerning the subject of education and human rights education, since the Renaissance definitions of the humanist human have influenced Western conceptions of education and pedagogy. Much of the humanist historical writings were used for didactic purposes and humanism as the ‘new’ vision of ‘man’ emphasised the values of dignity, freedom, tolerance and above all, rationality (Peters, 2001, p. 212). Humanism in education (and as a result in human rights education) came to represent a set of beliefs circling around individual humanist beings as the fundamental source of all value and the ability to understand and control the natural world through exercising their rational capabilities (Peters, 2001). If there is to be “a return to the subject and a return of the subject” (Peters, 2001, p. 220) of rights and of education, there are two points which need to be explored. There should be a “de-homogenising” and a “de-simplifying” in reference to the content of the concept subject (Derrida, 1991, p. 102) and this needs to move beyond ‘man’ presented as the full presence of consciousness in being (Peters, 2001). There are numerous possibilities regarding a shift beyond ‘man’ as subject. Is it possible, for example, as Derrida (1991, p. 104) posits, that a shattering of the concept of subject might imply a turn towards an ethics, a politics of the other, an “other” democracy? Is it further possible that the implosion of liberal humanism and the emerging posthuman, transhuman or the non-human turn during recent decades, present new possibilities to rethink the ethical, ontological and epistemological constitution of the subjects of rights? In what follows, I explore the ontological and epistemological divisive premise on which the subject of rights has been and is (re)constructed and the consequences thereof for becoming subjects of rights. I then turn to the recent ethical and humanitarian shift in human rights in which norm is collapsed into fact and everyone is assumed subject and included. This illusion has dire consequence for processes and possibilities of becoming subject of rights.

3  O  ntological and Epistemological In(ex)clusions: The Struggle to be Recognised as Subjects of Rights The struggle to become subjects of rights has always been and will always be a struggle. It is a struggle which “has always already begun” (Derrida, 2001, p. 354). The content of the concepts (human) subject and subjectivity have, since Descartes,

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sourced their meaning from within a divisive epistemological framework. This has resulted in the categorisation and control of human, not-human and non-human as the central text of modernity. The humanist subject remains privileged within the epistemology, ontology and ethics of human rights. The western humanist ‘man’ is continuously posited as an ideal of bodily perfection, the model for mental, discursive and spiritual ideals and the norm that everyone else is supposed to imitate and aspire to (Braidotti, 2013). The particular identity of the western male has always been fully inscribed in the essentialist traits of the subject of rights and this epistemological universality denies and precludes the different other, such as not-male, not-European, not-white and not-heterosexual (cf. Cistelecan, 2011). Premised on a divisive humanist epistemology, the Enlightenment ‘man’ morphed into the ‘citizen’ during the age of the revolutions and the promulgation of the DRMC (1789). The DRMC (1789) marks a rupture in the history of the subjects of rights (Balibar, 1991). Subjects of obedience before the revolutions, became citizen subjects of rights after the revolutions. Balibar (1991, p. 45) refers to this development as the “citizen’s becoming-a-subject”. The paradoxes implied in this declaration concerns the concepts man, citizen, equality and freedom (Balibar, 1991). In the first place, the citizen is free and sovereign because she is equal. The concept of the free subject distinguishes between the free rights of citizen as man which is not new (both humanity and its equivalence with freedom have been stipulated before) and man as citizen which constitutes the citizen-subject and equality as a prerequisite for freedom (Balibar, 1991). The second part of the paradox points to the conflict inherent in equality as the founding idea of the DRMC (1789). Equality is either symbolic or real. Symbolic equality refers to the ideal of equality: all humans are reputed to be equal. The second form of equality points to the conditions needed for all humans to be equal (Balibar, 1991). The notion of equal conditions refers to a classless society which leads to an all-or-nothing notion of equality. The all-or-nothing notion of equality also equates to citizenship: “If anyone is not a citizen then no one is a citizen” (Balibar, 1991, p. 45, 46). Cemented in this proposal is the notion that all are citizens and equal—and those who are not, are excluded from both citizenship and equality (Balibar, 1991). Notions of the “equality of all” [own emphasis] (Ranciére, 2015, p.  196) has re-emerged strongly in the humanitarian paradigm of human rights since the 1960s. Within ethical communities, driving the humanitarian paradigm, the ideal of symbolic equality is collapsed into material reality and holds that the excluded are those who ‘accidentally’ fall outside the symbolic “equality of all” (Ranciére, 2015, p. 196). The political exclusion of not-citizens became cemented into the divisive epistemological framework of the humanist subject. Baxi (2007) argues that citizenship is an artificial personhood and cannot be inclusive of all humans simply by virtue of being born. He posits that not “all born humans ‘enjoy the blessing’ of citizenship-­ being” (Baxi, 2007, p. 199). The DRMC (1789) introduced the notions of the sovereign citizen as the subject of rights, the paradoxes inherent to equality, and the conflicts between the individual and the collective inherent in notions of citizenship (Balibar, 1991).

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Arendt (1966, p. 149), a fierce critic of both the DRMC (1789) and the UDHR (1948) states that: man [sic] had hardly appeared as a completely emancipated, completely isolated being who carried his dignity within himself without reference to some larger encompassing order, when he [sic] disappeared again into a member of a people.

In reference to the Second World War’s concentration camps and the inability of the DRMC (1789) to protect humans from atrocity, Arendt (1966, p. 299) argues: The conception of human rights, based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such, broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships – except that they were still human.

After WW2, the survivors of the concentration camps and the many other stateless people realised that when it comes to rights, the “abstract nakedness of being human was their greatest danger” (Arendt, 1966, p. 300). The link between citizenship and human rights remains interrelated to humanist exclusionary discourses and epistemologies. The interrelated and regulatory nature of this link divides humans in one side or the other and the not-citizen and not-human remain in a continual battle for recognition and ontological and epistemological survival (Golder, 2015). Humanism historically also fuelled the imperialism of Europe and the resulting devastating consequences for colonial countries. Post-colonial scholars such as Baxi (2007) and Kapur (2006) argue that modern conceptions of human rights are based on discursive practices of the Enlightenment which were devices of exclusion since its inception. Notions of the universality of human rights have always comfortably existed alongside exclusion and subordination (Kapur, 2006; cf. Cistelecan, 2011). Those who differ from the Eurocentric, masculinist, white, intellectual norm were/are classified as ‘different’ from it. Being ‘different from’ means ‘to be worth less than’. To become part of the western Enlightenment civilised human rights family, colonised communities had/have to strive to resemble the European (Kapur, 2006). The assertions that human rights are inclusive and universal, continually deny colonial encounters and the marginalisation in material realities of those whom it claims to speak for (Kapur, 2006). The inalienable rights which humans are assumed to have, presume and produce their own subjects within humanist rights, citizenship and colonial discourses. The human and not-human subjects of rights within and outside the sphere of human rights are controlled, regulated and positioned by the same rights they claim (or cannot claim). The continual violent exclusions of the not-citizen and the colonial, racialised, sexualised not-human and non-human in material reality, in favour of the ‘human’ subject of the Enlightenment, require a restructuring of the ethical and onto-epistemological premise through which subjects of rights are framed. The premises on which subjects of rights are framed are multi-layered and interrelated. The structural others of the humanist subject of rights have recently re-­ emerged with several emancipatory movements challenging ontologies and epistemologies of who and what is human and subject of rights. These movements emphasise both the crisis in, and the symptoms of the centring of the Enlightenment

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human subject in human rights (Braidotti in Veroneze, 2016). The hierarchical organisation of difference as negative has become a politicised issue for feminists, (post-)colonial and anti-racist thinkers in recent years (Braidotti in Veroneze, 2016). Braidotti (in Veroneze, 2016) argues that sexualized, racialised and colonial others have evolved into fully-fledged alternative models reframing ontologies and epistemologies of the human subject within a posthuman perspective. These challenges to conceptions of who and what is human, resulted in a qualitative shift in thinking about the basic unit of common reference for the human species and for human rights (Braidotti, 2013). It also presents possibilities for continually becoming subject and the becoming of subjects of rights.

4  T  he Ethical Shift and the Humanitarian Paradigm: The Political Struggle to Become Subjects of Rights During the period between 1960 to 1970, there was a shift towards reframing human rights and the subjects of rights within ethical and humanitarian frames (Moyn, 2014). For Ranciére (2015) this shift marks both the disappearance of rights and the subjects of rights. Human rights, Ranciére (2015) argues, are now the absolute right of victims. Moyn (2014) poses that during the 1970s, human rights came to the world as a gestalt switch and shifted towards an atrocity-prevention concept, partly due to the growing outrage against the war in Vietnam and the Biafra and Cambodian genocides during the 1960s. The subjects of rights are now structured through ontologies and epistemologies premised on victimhood. Victims of genocide are dehumanised as helpless and passive in need of others to claim their rights for them, victims of state persecution are ‘super-humanised as righteously agentic’, and perpetrators of genocide are ‘dehumanised as out-of-control beasts’ (Meyer, 2016, p. 474). The shift from man to humanity and to the humanitarian since the 1970s and 1980s, Ranciére (2015) poses, coincided with the global shrinking of political spaces and their replacement with ethical spaces and consensus. He submits that the ethical turn in politics and human rights does not signify the reign of moral judgements, but the dissolution of norm into fact (Ranciére, 2015). In terms of human rights, the ethical shift dissolves the ideals of human rights into material reality, as if it is a fact. The ethical shift can therefore not present humanity with a general normative frame through which practices and discourses of human rights are judged. It only prescribes a pre-determined normative sameness in being and becoming. The ethical shift in human rights, dissolves all forms of discourse and practice into one point of view and one specific prescribed way of being (Ranciére, 2015). The distinctions between political communities and ethical communities crystallise in the ways they provide possibilities for becoming subject and in the ways they present and position the included and excluded. There are two main distinctions in this regard.

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Firstly, political communities are structurally divided in nature which implies the in(ex)clusions of peoples. This structural divide provides the possibilities for structuring dissensus. In ethical communities this divide is suppressed by consensus (Ranciére, 2015). In(ex)clusions are framed within consensus and the illusionary normative frame of “equality of all,” as if it is a fact (Ranciére, 2015, p. 196). Secondly, it regards notions of consensus which disable possibilities for dissensus. Consensus is a symbolic mode, structuring communities by evacuating the core which constitutes political spaces: dissensus (ibid.). While a political community by nature exists of several peoples in one, consensus reduces several peoples to one (Ranciére, 2015). It fills the gap between the ideals of rights and material reality. In a political community, the in(ex)cluded are those who do not have the rights that they have and have the rights that they do not have (ibid.). In ethical communities however, everyone is included and has rights. There is no gap between norm or fact and no gap between existing and (non)existing rights. There is no place, space or status for the excluded (Ranciére, 2015). The excluded are those who ‘accidentally’ fall outside the “equality of all” and who are the recipients of the responsibility to protect, of aid and on whose behalf to intervene (Ranciére, 2015, p. 196). For Ranciére (2015, p. 51) there can be no “equality for all” as equality is not an ontological principle but a condition which is enacted when it is practiced. Equality is an assumption, which can only be verified when subjects of rights, act upon it through dissensus. Within consensus societies, with no provision for spaces of dissensus, enacting equality therefore remains impossible. Claiming rights for the ‘accidentally’ excluded is contracted out within ethical and consensus societies. Rights are now, as everything else humans have no use for, donated to the poor in the guise of charity and aid (Ranciére, 2015, p. 80). Through humanitarian aid and the principles of responsibility to protect, the excluded are managed and governed within geopolitical, capitalist and neo-liberal frameworks. If, as Ranciére (2015) argues, humans become subjects of rights when they act, when they put power to the test, when they reject the given and when they open spaces for dissensus, there are no possibilities to become subjects of rights within ethical and consensus communities. The ethical shift and the shift towards humanitarian intervention do include processes of recuperating the traumatised and alienated not-human(s) into ethical communities. Human rights provide the space within which these processes take place and within which ‘failed’ states and subjects are brought in synch with pre-existing liberal, neo-liberal and capitalist values. These norms and values are however never interrogated (Kapur, 2006). Inherent in the humanitarian paradigm, for example, are the selective causes activists and states act on. While there is global consensus on, for example, the suffering of practices of torture, the suffering of global inequality causing extreme poverty are largely ignored (Moyn, 2014). Baxi (2007) argues that growing human rightlessness is linked to global corporate governance, business interests and power. The suffering it causes has become a simple fact of non-­survival and goes largely unnoticed by states and activists. The systematic re-colonialisation of developing countries and peoples by global capitalist powers are continually normalised through neo- liberal and capitalist values.

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These continual and violent exclusions are presented as ‘accidental’. Consensus societies agree on the inclusive ideals of human rights and equality for all and manage in(ex)clusions through global solidarity, consensus and the absolute right of the victim (cf. Ranciére, 2015).

5  C  onstructing Human Rights Literacies Within In(ex) clusionary Human Rights Discourses The shift towards the ethical does not signify the reign of moral judgements or present humanity with a general normative framework by which practices, processes and discourses of human rights could be judged (Ranciére, 2015). It merely dissolves the ideals of inclusion into the fact of in(ex)clusion and disables possibilities for dissensus and of subjectification. The ethical shift normalises exclusion within the ideals of full inclusion through continual attempts of interventions, management and control. Adding to the illusion of full inclusion is the presentation of human rights as part of humanity’s moral progress (Becker, 2017; Kapur, 2006). Moral issues are increasingly framed within the ideals of human rights (Bauman, 1994) The discourse of normative progress holds that ‘before’, or ‘pre-’ means lower, outdated or inferior, while ‘post-’ refers to a superior future through the ethical ideals of human rights (Bauman, 1994). The irony, that no victory over inhumanity seems to have made the world a moral place, does not seem to shatter this illusion (cf. Bauman, 1994; Becker, 2017). Although, as Ranciére (2015) poses, the shift towards the ethical and humanitarian paradigm could indicate the disappearance of political spaces, human rights and the subjects of rights, possibilities for becoming subjects remain through human rights literacies and subjectification. To be regarded as human rights literate in consensus societies, only knowledge of human rights documents, declarations and treaties are necessary. The ideals encapsulated by these documents are regarded as both norm and fact. To structure moments of dissensus however, knowledge of the processes by which not-humans are structured and its dissonant consequences are necessary. Thapliyal, Vally, and Spreen (2013) reflect on the possibilities for becoming subjects of rights by means of democratic and direct participation. They found that township communities in South Africa involved in the Education Rights Project constructed “citizenship from below” by feeling and claiming their rights to basic education through different processes (cognitive, emotional, as well as mobilization- related) and by re-presenting themselves as subjects of rights. These actions are in direct contrast to dominant discourses presenting rights as abstract and idealistic within a top-down approach. (Thapliyal et al., 2013). While there is an argument to be made that human rights are mainly understood through discursive notions of human rights, specifically by student teachers in South Africa, it seems that

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human rights literacies are continually being constructed through the dissonance between the ideals of rights and material realities (Becker, 2017; Du Preez & Becker, 2016). Research indicates that experiences of dissonance and dissonant actions are often intuitive and pre-theoretical (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, Nel, & Sattarzadeh, 2017; Roux, 2017). South African student teachers instinctively understand the gap between existing and non-existing rights and have an intuitive normative expectation of human rights which is centred, not in the ideals of rights but, in their material realities (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet et al., 2017). Research done by Keet et al. (2017) indicate that although legal and politically codified constructions of human rights (the ideals of human rights) are discursively used by students, students rely on complex pre-theoretical understandings of human rights, from which they derive justice-oriented normative standpoints as the basis for their understandings and applications of activism. Roux (2017) argues that students in South African, during the recent 2015–2016 #mustfall protests, developed a new language of human rights, reflective of their contextual and material understandings of human rights in their lived realities. This language is framed within contextualised social issues and hermeneutical discourses and is deeply rooted in post-colonial political and social histories and local content. This indicates that they construct and act on human rights through pre-theoretical processes, intuitively understand that norms are not necessarily facts, and that they reject the normalisation of in(ex)clusions and of notions of pre-existing subjects of rights. It also presents possibilities for becoming subjects through human rights literacies when not-humans act as subjects of rights. In doing so the subjects of rights continuously construct and re-construct human rights literacies from the bottom up. They construct human rights literacies by acting on the dissonance between the pre-­ existing ideals of rights as described in documents and the material and the contextual realities they experience. Being and becoming human rights literate happens through a continually dissonant process, enabling the construction of moments of dissensus within intersecting spaces of (non)existing rights on which subjects-in-­ becoming act (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Roux & Becker, 2017). Arendt (1966) and Ranciére (2015) argue that humans become subjects of rights by inserting themselves into the world and acting as subjects of rights. Speech and action (Arendt, 1966), or structuring dissensus (Ranciére, 2015), they argue, provide possibilities for subjectification and for changing the world. For Ranciére (2015, p. 77) humans become subjects of rights when “They act[ed] as subjects that did not have the rights that they had and had the rights that they had not”. Arendt (1966) argues that acting as political subjects and subjects of the right to have rights is only possible in political spaces. Although she poses that the right to have rights should be guaranteed by the whole of humanity, the question remains: how, when not-humans (and not-citizens) are expelled from a political community, do they act as subjects of rights within political spaces? (Schaap, 2011). Concerning Ranciére’s (2015) insistence that humans only become subjects if they act as subjects, how do humans act as subjects when, as Ranciére (2015) states, political

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spaces have disappeared? In answer to this ontological trap, Ranciére (2015) distinguishes between political spaces, and acting as political agents, by structuring dissensus. Humans become subjects of rights when they act on the assumption of equality and the premise of their own universality as political agents and not on the premise of the ideals of universal abstract written rights or the (im)possibilities of belonging to political spaces (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; cf. Žižek, 2005). Ranciére (2015) identifies two forms of rights. Firstly, written rights describing the ideals of all humans as free and equal in, for example, documents such as the UDHR (1948). Written rights express the ideal that “all members of the human family” have the inalienable right to freedom, dignity, equality, justice and peace. While written rights describe the ideals of rights, they assume the possibilities of the non-­ existence of rights (Ranciére, 2015; Du Preez & Becker, 2016). The second form of rights concerns the assumption of non-existence and non-realisation of the ideals of rights. It concerns the actions of subjects of rights who act as equal and universal political agents within the intersection of existing and not-existing rights by structuring dissensus. Dissensus does not refer to conflicts of interest, values or opinions; it challenges the given (Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Ranciére, 2015). In challenging the given, the gap between existing and non-existing rights, opens up. Human rights literacies are constructed within this dissonant space. It is constructed when humans act on the second form of rights, and on the premise of their universal political capacity, by using their rights. In spaces of dissensus, literate subjects of rights speak and act, and continually become subjects of rights through political and pedagogical subjectification.

6  R  isking Political and Pedagogical Subjectification to Become Subjects Political and pedagogical subjectification should not be confused with identity construction or identification (Biesta, 2013; Ranciére, 2015). Political subjectification concerns the “anonymous multitude that has no title in the police order”3 (Ranciére, 2012, p, 92). It concerns those who remain in a continual battle for recognition and

 This term should not be confused with a police force, as the word commonly refers to in English and French. The police or police order refers to the overall distribution of the sensible which precludes the emergence of politics. Police or the police order is therefore not in essence used to indicate oppression but indicates a totalising account of the population by assigning a title, role or position to each member of the population. It also determines in(ex)clusion (Ranciére, 2012, p. 89). In Greek society, for example, women, slaves and barbarians had determined roles and positions and were therefore included in society but were not allowed participation and therefore were simultaneously excluded from political spaces (Ranciére, 2015, p.  86). Better or worse police orders are indicated by the extent to which the order is open to breaches, dissensus and contestations (Ranciére, 2012, p. 89). 3

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ontological and epistemological survival outside of categories made available by human rights discourses, practices and processes. Identity construction and identification relate to matters within a third-party perspective (Biesta, 2013). Identifications points to the adherence to divisive epistemological, ontological and ethical discourses. It points to identification with the consensual categories presented in the symbolic police order. (Ranciére, 2015; Simons & Masschelein, 2010). Identification is thus not a breach of the police order or a challenge to the given, but a normalisation of the categories presented in the police order. It points to the continual normalisation of the collapse of the ideals of human rights into facts. It furthermore leads to notions that, in order to be included in the human rights sphere, the not-human needs to become the pre-existing human of rights and conform to the ontological, epistemological and normative sameness it prescribes. Becoming a subject, Ranciére (2015) submits, happens through processes of political subjectification. Subjectification bridges the gap between the two forms of rights and the gap between norm and fact. During subjectification the excluded act as a subject of rights, presents herself as the surplus (as those who have no category in the symbolic order of the given) and inserts herself within the ‘logic of the police’. The insertion represents a part that does not belong to the consensus community, is not qualified to speak in the community and does not share the common consensus of the community (Simons & Masschelein, 2010). The equal potential of the excluded to speak and act within the given is verified through processes of subjectification. Simons and Masschelein (2010) pose that political subjectification assumes pedagogical subjectification. During pedagogical subjectification the visible and invisible, the audible and inaudible, the sayable and the unsayable are challenged (cf. Ranciére, 2012). Pedagogical subjectification’s main focus is the verification of equality and the potentiality of being and becoming subject (ibid.; Simons & Masschelein, 2010). The insertion of the in(ex)cluded in the police order during pedagogical subjectification, Biesta (2013, p.  142) describes as “coming into presence”. Pedagogical subjectification is a situated and unique event when a who (and not a what) comes into presence (Biesta, 2013). Nancy (1991) refers to the who (who comes into presence) as a before/after subject existing in her history and future simultaneously. The subject furthermore exists in a unique place-space-time and is therefore a unique subject coming into presence. Coming into presence is an action, it “takes place, that is to say it comes into presence” (Nancy, 1991, p. 7). This is a continual process; the subject never stops coming into presence (ibid.). Coming into presence is as much a plural as a singular event (Nancy, 1991). It is the coming into presence of a unique singular who in the presence of the community. Subjectivity does not stand on its own. It is constituted by, and tied to, multiple others (Postma, 2016). Subjectification is therefore always relational (Biesta, 2013). Biesta (2013) explores pedagogical subjectification in weak existential terms. He argues that human subjectivity is not part of human nature but an indication of “the quality of our relationships with what and who is other” (Biesta, 2013, p. 11). While

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modern education relies on fixed ‘truths’ about human nature and destiny, education, when it concerns subjectification, is essentially existentially weak and risky (Biesta, 2013). It cannot be controlled, predicted or managed. It cannot be produced as a learning outcome (ibid.). Herein lies the (im)possibilities inherent to the event of pedagogical subjectification (Biesta, 2013). It points to the potential of anyone and everyone to come into presence but also the potential that no one comes into presence. While coming into presence concerns the event of subjectification, the why of pedagogical subjectification is explained by the uniqueness of every subject. Uniqueness-as-irreplaceability explains why uniqueness and coming into presence matter in educational contexts (Biesta, 2013). Uniqueness-as-irreplaceability concerns the irreplaceable responsibility the self has to answer to the call of the other. In coming into presence, the who (who comes into presence), is unique and irreplaceable and answers in her unique and irreplaceable responsibility to the other (Biesta, 2013). For Biesta (2013) subjectivity-as-uniqueness, -irreplaceability and -responsibility are important when uniqueness matters. Responsibility is always there, but in the process of subjectification we have the potential to act on and in responsibility, because the unique irreplaceable self is the only one who could respond (Biesta, 2013). For Biesta (2013), pedagogical subjectification is an ethical event and he therefore argues that subjectification needs an ethical rather than an ontological or epistemological approach. Subjectification, only framed as an ethical event, can however not challenge the divisive premise on which the subjects of rights and education are framed without ontological and epistemological shifts. If pedagogical subjectification is to challenge categorisations and in(ex)clusions in material reality, it needs to be able to give voice to the ontological and epistemological struggle of different not-humans to become subjects of rights. In this regard, a posthumanist view might provide possibilities. Posthumanist scholars, such as Barad (2007), argue that subjectification should be premised on the integral nature of ethics, ontology and epistemology. Barad (2007) proposes a conceptual framework of agential realism: an ethico-onto-epistemological framework towards subjectification. For Barad (2007), the objects of knowledge (humans, not-humans and non-­ humans) are also agents in producing knowledge. Onto-epistemologies assume that knowing and being are material and entangled practices through which onto-­ epistemologies and ethics are simultaneously produced by humans, not-humans and non-humans (Barad, 2007). Practices and processes of being, knowing and making known, cannot be separated; they are mutually implicated and constitutive (Mazzei, 2014). In continually constructing and reconstructing the subjects in becoming, the entangled nature of material and discursive implies that the material is already discursively produced, and the discursive is already materially produced (ibid.). This suggests the possibilities of the continual (re)construction of multiple different subjects in becoming through continual, unfinished, ethico-onto-epistemological intra-­ active processes. In terms of responsibility, Barad (2007) poses that the other and otherness is a given in responsibility. Intra-action assumes responsibility and the integral nature of

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ethics, ontology and epistemology. For Barad (2007, p. 394) this means that “[O]ur (intra)actions matter – each one reconfigures the world in its becoming – and yet they never leave us; they are sedimented into our becoming; they become us”. We are responsible and accountable for specific patterns on bodies and patterns of mattering in the world but also, for the exclusions that we enact (ibid.). In conclusion, I pose some thoughts concerning the (re)framing of subjects (in becoming) of rights through human rights literacies and processes of subjectification.

7  ( Re)Framing Subjects of Rights in Education, Human Rights Education and Human Rights Literacies In terms of the common assumption that the human in human rights refers to “all members of the human family” (UDHR, 1948), the divisive ontological and epistemological in(ex)clusionary premise of human rights points to the converse. The critique of the content of the concept subject concerns the processes through which the subject is structured and re-structured and the privileging of the enlightenment humanist human. The continuing crisis for and of the subject of rights remains a matter of concern for human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies. If there is to be “a return to the subject and a return of the subject” (Peters, 2001, p. 220) of rights, human rights education and human rights literacies have a role to play. This is paramount, as human rights education constitutes one of the pillars of the international human rights movement (Celermajer, 2017). The legitimacy of human rights education has however recently come under attack for its focus on content knowledge and lack of acknowledgement of the disparity between the conceptual ideals of human rights and the realities of the human condition (Al-Daraweesh & Snauwaert, 2013). Scholars also question the ways in which human rights education ignores the power relations shaping the formations of human rights and human rights educational discourses (Coysh, 2014), the difficulties teachers and lecturers face in implementing universal human rights education approaches within diverse contexts (Zembylas, Charalambous, Charalambous, & Lestos, 2016), the capitalist and neoliberal saturation of human rights and human rights education (Becker & Du Preez, 2016) and a perceived consensus on the moral universalism of human rights and human rights education (Zembylas, 2016). In different contexts and in different educational and training settings, human rights education has taken on a ritualistic quality (Celermajer, 2017). Keet (2015, p. 47) argues that human rights education accepts that “things are what they are” and through this acceptance normalises ontological and epistemological separation resulting in violent exclusions. The ethical shift in human rights has also not aided the impotence of which human rights education has been accused (cf. Keet, 2015). Emphasis on content knowledge in human rights education focuses on what Ranciére (2015) refers to as

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‘written rights’. It focuses on the delivery of content to learners within “the ‘traditional’ culture of education in which there is distance between the educator and the learners, where memorization and rote learning is routine, and where learners are not given opportunities to influence their own learning, for example, through open discussion” (Tibbitts, 2017, p.76). Critical reflection and critique of (non) application of human rights, processes of marginalisation and the consequences thereof in social realities are not encouraged. (ibid.). The ideals of written rights are presented, in this approach to human rights education, as if they are facts. Human rights education structured within the humanitarian and ethical framework of human rights present exclusions and atrocities as accidental and managed through the absolute rights of victims and humanitarian aid. Victims however remain subjugated while others claim their rights for them and advocate on their behalf. In(ex)clusions within education institutions are furthermore managed through consensus. Educational institutions function on the borders of consensus societies in which dissonance between the ideals and material realities of rights is framed as either policy or teaching and learning problems which call for intervention, control and management (Simons & Masschelein, 2010). Human rights literacies, dissensus and subjectification cannot be structured through management, control or intervention. They are structured in the gap between having and not having rights, between norm and fact. It is within this gap that the conditions for the possible subjects of rights to come into presence opens up. Subjectification and becoming subjects of rights in education are risky endeavours. This is so because when education is about the quality of our relations, it cannot be measured, managed and controlled. Biesta (2013) argues that educators cannot, in any metaphysical sense, bring the event of subjectification about, but they can, by risking openness and dialogue, be of assistance in enabling the processes of subjectification. Risking openness and dialogue might however shatter the illusion of equality of all when the narratives of thousands of marginalised, racialised, gendered and colonialised not-humans within teaching and learning, are presented as in(ex)clusive material reality. It is a risk, because the historic norm, presenting the Eurocentric, masculinist, white, intellectual ideal, might be shattered by different not-humans when the consequences of this divisive discourse are narrated in teaching-learning. Being human rights literate means to continually risk political and pedagogical subjectification towards becoming a subject of rights. This is a risk for the subject-­ in-­becoming who has to insert herself, as the not-human, as the one who is not allowed to speak, who is not seen or heard, in the sphere of in(ex)clusion and verify her equal capacity to speak, to see and to be seen, to listen and to be heard. For Keet (2014, p. 26) othered and othering epistemologies always have an ontological flavour: “an othering prior to acknowledgement” (cf. Roux & Becker, 2017). If human rights education wishes to enable the subjects of rights to become subjects, it needs to focus on literacies regarding the divisive and marginalising nature and processes of human rights and how it is presented in human rights education. It needs to teach and learn, through human rights literacies, the boundaries which humanist, citizen and humanitarian ontologies and epistemologies present for

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s­ ubjectification and it needs to re-think possibilities for subjectification transcending the divisive nature of human rights. In the critique and the suspicion of the content of the concept of the subject of rights, we might find different ways to (re)frame the possible subjects of rights in becoming. We might (re)frame the possible subjects of rights towards an ethics, a politics of the other, an ‘other’ democracy, an ‘other’ rights (cf. Derrida, 1991) or towards intra-actions, which matters, and through which we assume responsibility and the integral nature of ethics, ontology and epistemology towards an inclusive premise of rights (cf. Barad, 2007).

References Al-Daraweesh, F., & Snauwaert, D. T. (2013). Towards a hermeneutical theory of international human rights education. Educational Theory, 63(4), 389–411. Arendt, H. (1966). The origins of totalitarianism. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company. Balibar, E. (1991). Citizen subject. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 33–57). London/New York: Routledge. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. London: Duke University Press. Bauman, Z. (1994). Postmodern ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Baxi, U. (2007). Human rights in a posthuman world. Critical essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Becker, A. (2017). Moral responsibility and human rights: speaking to the ‘dark side of human rights. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(1), 45–60. Becker, A., & Du Preez, P. (2016). Ideological illusions, human rights and the right to education: The in(ex)clusion of the poor in post-apartheid education. Journal of Education, 64, 55–76. Biesta, G. J. J. (2013). The beautiful risk of education. London: Routledge. Blattner, W. (2006). Heidegger’s being and time. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Celermajer, D. (2017). The ritualization of human rights education and training: The fallacy of the potency of knowing. Journal of Human Rights, 16(2), 160–177. Cistelecan, A. (2011). Which critique of human rights? Evaluating the post-colonialist and the post-Althusserian alternatives. International Journal of Žižek studies, 5(1), 1–13. Coysh, J. (2014). The dominant discourse of human rights education: A critique. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 6(1), 89–114. Derrida, J.  (1991). “Eating well,” or the calculation of the subject: An interview with Jacques Derrida. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 96–119). London/New York: Routledge. Derrida, J. (2001). Writing and difference. London: Routledge. Descombes, V. (1991). Apropos of the “critique of the subject” and the critique of this critique. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 120–134). London/ New York: Routledge. Dreyfuss, H.  L. (1995). Being-in-the-World. A commentary on Heidegger’s being and time. Division Cambridge: The MIT Press. Du Preez, P., & Becker, A. (2016). Ontologies and possibilities of human rights: Exploring dissensus to facilitate reconciliation in post-conflict education contexts. Perspectives in Education, 34(3), 1–14. Golder, B. (2015). Foucault and the politics of rights. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Grusin, R. (2015). Introduction. In R. Grusin (Ed.), The nonhuman turn (pp. 1–10). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. New York: Harper& Row, Publishers Inc. Henry, M. (1991). The critique of the subject. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 157–166). London/New York: Routledge. Kapur, R. (2006). Human rights in the 21st century: Take a walk on the dark side. Sydney Law Review, 28, 665–687. Keet, A. (2014). Epistemic ‘othering’ and the decolonising of knowledge. Africa Insight, 44(1), 23–37. Keet, A. (2015). It is time: Critical human rights education in an age of counter-hegemonic distrust. Education as Change, 19(3), 46–64. Keet, A., Nel, W., & Sattarzadeh, S. D. (2017). Retreating rights: Human rights, pre-theoretical praxes and student activism in South African universities. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(6), 79–95. Kofman, S. (1991). Descartes entrapped. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 120–134). London/New York: Routledge. Mazzei, L. A. (2014). Beyond an easy sense: A diffractive analysis. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 742–746. Meyer, D.  T. (2016). Recovering the human in human rights. Law, culture and the humanities, 12(3), 474–484. Montefiore, A. (2001). “Talking liberties”. Jacques Derrida’s interview with Alan Montefiore. In G. J. J. Biesta & D. Egéa-Kuehne (Eds.), Derrida and education (pp. 176–185). New York: Routledge. Moyn, S. (2014). Human rights and the uses of history. London: Verso. Nancy, J. (1991). Introduction. In E. Cadava, P. Connor, & J. Nancy (Eds.), Who comes after the subject? (pp. 1–8). London/New York: Routledge. Peters, M. (2001). Humanism, Derrida, and the new humanities. In G.  J. J.  Biesta & D.  Egéa-­ Kuehne (Eds.), Derrida and education (pp. 209–231). New York: Routledge. Postma, D. (2016). The ethics of becoming in a pedagogy for social justice. A posthumanist perspective. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(3), 310–328. Ranciére, J. (2012). The politics of aesthetics. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Ranciére, J. (2015). Dissensus. On politics and aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Roux, C. (2017). Human rights literacies and students’ paradoxical understandings of tolerance and respect. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(6), 61–78. Roux, C., & Becker, A. (2017). On critique, dissensus and human rights literacies. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(6), 1–8. Schaap, A. (2011). Enacting the right to have rights: Jacques Ranciére’s critique of Hannah Arendt. European Journal of Political Theory, 10(1), 22–45. Shestack, J. J. (1998). The philosophic foundations of human rights. Human Rights Quarterly, 20, 201–234. Simons, M., & Masschelein, J.  (2010). Governmental, political and pedagogic subjectification: Foucault with Ranciére. Educational philosophy and theory, 42(5–6), 588–605. Tascón, S., & Ife, J.  (2008). Human rights and critical whiteness: Whose humanity? The International Journal of Human Rights, 12(3), 307–327. Thapliyal, N., Vally, S., & Spreen, C. A. (2013). “Until We Get Up Again to Fight”: Education rights and participation in South Africa. Comparative Educational Review, 57(2), 212–213. Tibbitts, F. (2017). Evolution of human rights education models. In M. Bajaj (Ed.), Human rights education: Theory, research, praxis (pp.  69–95). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights (The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ Issues/Education/Training/Pages/Decade.aspx; United Nations Commission on Human Rights on a World Program for Human Rights Education (2004/71).

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Veroneze, C. (2016). Can the humanities become post-human? Interview with Rosi Braidotti. Relations, 4(1), 97–101. Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism? Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press. Zembylas, M. (2016). Foucault and human rights: Seeking the renewal of human rights education. Journal of the Philosophy of Education, 50(3), 384–397. Zembylas, M., Charalambous, P., Charalambous, C., & Lestos, S. (2016). Toward a critical hermeneutical approach of human rights education: Universal ideals, contextual realities and teachers’ difficulties. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49(4), 497–517. Žižek, S. (2005). Against human rights. New Left Review, 34, 115–131. Anne Becker  is a Research Fellow in Human Rights Education and Philosophy of Education in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Unconditionally Human? Decolonising Human Rights Crain Soudien

Contents 1  2  3  4 

Introduction Where Are We in the World with Respect to Human Rights? Unconditionality’s Conditions: Conditionally Human? Breaking Dominance 4.1  In Making Sense of Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality: The Body Politic 5  Conclusion References

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Abstract  Taylor [Modern social imaginaries (p.  12). Durham: Duke University Press, 2003], in a powerful discussion of the nature of social differentiation in modernity came to the conclusion that the “modern order gives no ontological status to hierarchy or any particular structure of differentiation”. The point Taylor sought to make is that where “whole segments of our supposedly modern society remained outside of this social imaginary” (ibid.), like the French peasantry late in the nineteenth century, or women in the family, today these ideas of hierarchy are being comprehensively challenged. Taylor’s summing up of where the world is today in relation to where it had been just 50 years before is not uncritical. Large problems remain both in our social imaginaries and in our political practices. Challenges to both the conceptualisation and realisation of the expanding normative order continue to present themselves. Race, gender and disability are key examples. In this essay, using Jacques Derrida’s ideas of hospitality, I engage critically with Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality to argue that they open up important new insights into the politics of human rights and the dominant universalisms which characterise this politics. There remain, however, blind spots in the ways they conceptualise what it means to be human.

C. Soudien (*) Human Science Research Council, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_3

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1  Introduction You learn, and you keep learning. Just when you thought that nothing more could be said, a point of view is brought into your line of sight that you had not properly considered, intuited or had the faintest idea about. You learn. You learn that there are questions about the subject you are considering which cannot be ignored. In this brief essay I hold up Jacques Derrida’s major framing proposition for thinking about human equality in the context of human difference—unconditionality—and ask what questions might arise in thinking critically about unconditionality.1 I take two contemporary theories, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and decoloniality and in a critical engagement with them begin a discussion about rights. The theoretical approach underpinning this critical engagement is based on the conversation that Derrida (2000) has with Anne Dufourmantelle in a key text entitled Of Hospitality. The conversation raises the question of the ethical obligation of a host to a complete stranger. At the heart of the challenge, as Derrida (2000) says, is an aporia: It is as though hospitality were the impossible: …as though the law of absolute, unconditional, hyperbolic hospitality, as though the categorical imperative of hospitality commanded that we transgress all the laws (in the plural) of hospitality, namely, the conditions, the norms, the rights and duties that are imposed on hosts and hostesses, on the men or women who receive it. And vice versa, it is as though the laws (plural) of hospitality, in marking limits, powers, rights and duties, consisted in challenging and transgressing the law of hospitality, the one that would command that the ‘new arrival’ be offered an unconditional welcome (Derrida, 2000, pp. 75–77).

In an unusual exegesis of the almost ineffable largeness of spirit which one human being is called upon to demonstrate, as a human being, to another who he or she does not know in that first moment of encounter, Derrida recalls the moment in Sophocles’ play Oedipus at Colonus when Oedipus comes to Colonus to die. In choosing a place for his tomb Oedipus enjoins his host, Theseus, to secrecy. Never tell anyone, especially my daughter Antigone, where it is that I lie. Through this Derrida explains how the host becomes the guest, how the roles of acceptance and rejection are reversed as the stranger crosses the threshold of the host’s home. In this he, the stranger, lays down the law for his host: “it’s as if, then, the stranger could save the master and liberate the power of his host; it’s as if the master, qua master, were prisoner of his place and his power, of his ipseity, of his subjectivity…” (Derrida, 2000, p. 123). In this Derrida comes to explain how conditionality, the

 Drawing on Derrida here I am aware of the symbolic implications, in an essay on decoloniality, of using what much of the polemic in the discussion would describe as scholarship’s ‘default’ orientation, or is it ‘occidentation’, towards ‘dead white men’. It is important to acknowledge that the argument could as easily have drawn on notions of Ubuntu or dependent origination in Buddhism, or indeed any of the great world-views of humanity, where much the same ethos of this moment in Greek axiology of unconditionality can be found. They all belong to all of us. Their appropriation for domination, as the supposed European Enlightenment has been manufactured for the project of white supremacy, is rejected here. 1

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law, if hospitality—complete openness to the other—is to prevail, has to be transgressed.­Hospitality transgresses all of the limits, powers, rights and duties embodied in the law. The law is never sufficient. It has to be transgressed. The principle Derrida seeks to establish is, of course, in Foucauldian terms, inscribed in paradox. What is powerful about it, is its commitment to working to a better human state. Implicit in it is the idea that a better state is possible, always. No ideal, by itself and in itself, is complete. Hospitality by itself, as a state to be achieved, is always in the making. How, might this transgressive posture be worked towards? It is this question that prompts the framing of this essay. It asks, critically, how far the perspectives provided by CRT and Decoloniality might take us towards a posture of the making of unconditionality. How far do they take us in their languages and arguments to enable us to stand before one another and say without reservation, ‘I see and acknowledge your humanity’? First, however, where are we with respect to human rights and their enjoyment in the world today?

2  W  here Are We in the World with Respect to Human Rights? The point of departure for this essay, using Charles Taylor, is that in its adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 the world begins a process which moves it towards making a fundamental break with the ontologies of supremacy. This break is essentially focused on the figure of race as it was instituted in the closing decades of the nineteenth century with the simultaneous and agglomerative events of the emergence of the Eugenics movement and the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885.2 It, however, in its development, encompasses other forms of difference and discrimination. The imperial moment for establishing the global terms for talking about and acting in relation to the great questions of social difference, particularly race, takes place at the Berlin Conference in 1884. At the Conference the world’s leading colonial governments, Britain, Germany, France and the United States of America, put in place the political frameworks for the management of the space of Africa by the imperial powers. They also put in place the epistemological conditions for managing the space of the social—subjectivity, positionality and relationality—and in the process facilitated Eugenics’ imposition on the world of its restrictive and inhuman conceptions of humanness: “to regulate the conditions most favourable to the development of trade and civilization in certain regions of Africa and to protect and  See Matthew Craven’s (2015, p. 32) argument that the choice between reading that General Act which came out of the Conference as “a success or a failure, or as a colonial or anti-colonial tract is a largely false one in that it fails to attend to the relationship between the apparent aspirations embodied in the text and the modalities for their realisation”. 2

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favour all religious, scientific or charitable institutions created and organized for the above ends, or which aim at instructing the natives and bringing home to them the blessings of civilization”.3 In the wake of the racial barbarism of the Second World War—a kind of climax of the conceits of Berlin 1884—the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration generated a long list of rights. As Posner (2014, para. 8) has argued, however: The weaknesses that would go on to undermine human rights law were there from the start. The universal declaration was not a treaty in the formal sense: no one at the time believed that it created legally binding obligations. It was not ratified by nations but approved by the general assembly, and the UN charter did not give the general assembly the power to make international law. Moreover, the rights were described in vague, aspirational terms. … The US did not commit itself to eliminating racial segregation, and Britain and France did not commit themselves to liberating the subject populations in their colonies. Several authoritarian states - including the Soviet Union… refused to vote in favour of the universal declaration and instead abstained … Part of the problem was that a disagreement opened up early on between the US and the Soviet Union. The Americans argued that human rights consisted of political rights – the right to vote, to speak freely, not to be arbitrarily detained, to practise a religion of one’s choice, and so on. … The Soviets argued that human rights consisted of social or economic rights – the right to work, healthcare, and to education.

The adoption of the Charter was an imperfect moment. It inaugurated, however, a new phase in the development of a human rights discourse in the world. The United Nations adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights finally took effect in 1976. By the new century, as a result, as Posner (2014, para. 16) argued: “the world is a freer place than it was 50 years ago”. Taylor (2003, p. 1), in a powerful discussion of the nature of social differentiation in modernity had earlier come to the same conclusion as Posner. He explained that the modern idealisation of order and rights constituted a radical departure from Platonic-type explanations of the natural order. His central point was that the “modern order gives no ontological status to hierarchy or any particular structure of differentiation” (ibid.). The importance of the new and modern normative world, in contrast to the older, is that it starts with individuals and their debt of mutuality to each other. Critical about this new way of understanding ourselves in relation to each other, said Taylor, is that “it infiltrates and transforms our social imaginary. In the process what is originally an idealization grows into a complex imaginary through being taken up and associated with social practices” (Taylor, 2003, pp. 28–29). He explained that these processes had developed through a range of ways including initiatives that came from educated elites, such as the Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century, the trade union movement in the nineteenth and so on. The result was a profound enlargement of what he calls “the social  General Act of the Conference at Berlin of the Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Norway, Turkey and the United States. (Retrieved 12.10.2017. http://www.waado.org/colonial_rule/general documents/berlin_act_1885.html). 3

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i­maginary”—the way people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, their expectations of each other and the normative notions underlying these. The point Taylor sought to make is that where “whole segments of our supposedly modern society remained outside of this social imaginary”, like the French peasantry late in the nineteenth century, or women in the family, today these ideas of hierarchy are being comprehensively challenged. Taylor’s purpose in using the concept of the social imaginary was to place European Enlightenment thought in a particular context and to emphasize how its individualising impetus came to constitute a major break for theories and practices of sociality. He was, however, profoundly aware of other routes to modernity and other modes of creating a sense of the ontic and its infinitely creative capacity. In this he deliberately recognised the need for “provincialising Europe”. Taylor’s summing up of where the world is today in relation to where it had been just 50 years before is immensely important. It is a critical appraisal made with clear and logical analysis. It is not uncritical, however. It is this that impels further analysis. Towards this, it is clear that large problems remain both in our social imaginaries and in our political practices. The normative order, theoretically charged to realise the demand of mutuality, remains decidedly obdurate in bringing to materiality its commitments on a number of fronts. Challenges to both the conceptualisation and realisation of the expanding normative order continue to present themselves. Race, I suggest, is one area of challenge, gender is another, and, I particularly emphasize here, so is the question of ability or, as the generally accepted approach to the discourse of ability is managed, disability.4 The expansion of the normative order, despite some of the most significant breakthroughs in modern science about the physical and cognitive nature of the human experience, and the conceptual advances made through post-structural deconstructions of universalising discourses, such as Eurocentricism or anthropocentricism, comes up against a persistent materialisation—indeed reification—of notions of normality with respect to these social factors. On these three fronts, this paper focuses on race and disability, the world’s leading multi-social difference countries, to coin a term. Brazil, the United States and South Africa are all experiencing protests of varying ranges and intensities. In all three these global laboratories of social difference there is a disconcerting fightback against the gains of the of last 30 years. Separatist, exclusivist, hierarchalist and insistently xenophobic tendencies, in racial and national terms, are on the rise. Outside of these laboratories, the flow of refugees into Europe has stimulated the rise of intensely insular forms of nationalism, and in the process, it must be noted, thrown some of what would have been seen as the world’s leading theoreticians into a state of moral confusion.5 In response to this fightback, particularly with respect to race, there is in the world at the moment a heightened sense of the persistence and indeed unacceptability of racism. The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, the recent  I will use the term ‘disability’ here but am uncomfortable with its normative implications.  See Sam Hamad (2016) in an article entitle ‘Zizek on Immigration and the Hypocrisy of the Left’.

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celebration of the African struggle in Brazil and the #RhodesMustFall Movement in South Africa are all premised on the on-going denial of the right to dignity for black people. But the same point can be made about gender and disabilities. These, less prominent than race as an issue, present themselves to the modern normative order as major challenges. A recent appraisal of the state of disabled people in the world by the Washington University in St Louis (2018, para. 1), drawing on World Bank data, observes that “… more than one billion people (in the world) have a disability, 80% of whom live in Low and Middle Income Countries and nearly 200 million experience considerable difficulties in functioning”. With respect to gender, women are certainly better off today than they were even 25 years ago, “but are still far off from being equal to men” (Van der Gaag, 2014, para. 1). Against the idea of the gains that have been made around the world with respect to inclusion, the scale and the intensity of the protests—their appropriation by Hollywood in the #MeToo campaign is, in the main, an important step forward—signal an awareness of what remains outstanding in the progress that has been made. Alongside these examples of political resistance to these new iterations of dominance, it needs to be noted that there is also an awareness of the taken-for-granted othering that continues to animate most discourses, even in their most seemingly inclusive gestures. In this respect it is helpful to recall Derrida’s anxiety about the dangers of languaging and the discourses that insidiously sit inside of the normative order in the great task of describing and explaining the raced world. His invocation of the way the idea of race is used is particularly relevant: “‘race’ – given its most egregious expression through racism, can be argued to be the “most racism of racisms …. The last as one says also of the most recent…” (Derrida, 2000, p. 78). More complex and awaiting a great deal more attention is the question of gender. The difficulty social analysis and everyday social practice has with the knowledge of our gender complexity, beyond biological dimorphism, has yet to be confronted. It is in these issues of race, gender and disability and the field of genetic engineering and its relationship with eugenics that puts these issues into clear perspective6: it is the human body and its social aestheticisation—the transmorphing of notions of beauty and ugliness into commodified and objectified forms based on stable and idealised categories—that is at stake.

3  Unconditionality’s Conditions: Conditionally Human? Important in coming to an understanding of the struggle towards unconditionality is understanding how significantly the political, social, cultural and economic conjuncture of the late nineteenth century comes to frame and determine ideas of the

 See the article, Gebelhoff (2016).

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body. The conjuncture, it is argued here, fundamentally comes to frame and determine the conditions for the valuing—the appreciation and deprecation—of the body. It puts in place the normative conditions for the determination of humanness. As indicated earlier race and ability form the focus of the essay’s interest. In the late nineteenth century, after the Berlin gathering, the idea evolved of the existence of a hierarchy of human races/nations and characteristics. The pinnacle of racial/national evolution “at the time (was embodied in) … the presumed qualities of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic groups primarily of northern and western Europe and North America” (Baker, 2002, p. 665). The ideological carrier for this idea was the Eugenics movement. The eugenicist movement arose in response to the social-­ Darwinist idea of the survival of the fittest. As Bernadette Baker (2002, p.  667) explains, race and disability became master signifiers in this discourse of fitness. The discourse privileged “certain kinds of whiteness over certain kinds of colour, certain kinds of masculinity over certain kinds of femininity, certain kinds of ability over certain kinds of corporeally anomalous body-minds and tolerating only narrow versions of heteronormativity and religious devotion”. In this process certain kinds of bodies were accorded higher values than others. The disvalued came to constitute objects of inspection, trade, amusement and ultimately service to the valued. The most relevant instance of this, especially for a South African account of how the experience unfolded, was the case of Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus. She was manacled and caged and paraded in the circuses and expositions that had developed in industrialising Europe as the physical proof, the substantiation, for the depredations of colonialism—the unfitness of the black body. Hers and the skulls and skeletons of black people began to accumulate in the laboratories of Europe awaiting cranial and physiological analysis to be explained to account for their degeneration. Even when this scientific project failed, social explanations of the black body were developed to manage that which was not known (cf. Breckinridge, 2014). These developments came to horrific conclusion with the Holocaust—right in Europe’s own backyard. The world’s disvalued were physically erased—murdered—as a way of ridding society of “useless eaters” (Rieser, n.d.). The conjuncture had come to a climax. Six million people, on the basis of their disvalued bodies, were exterminated.7 While, of course, the eugenicist movement disappeared in the world as a result of and in reaction to the Holocaust, the approaches that were developed in the discourses surrounding it lingered on. Sterilisation as an option disappeared in the rejection of the hubris of superiority but the charity dimension of the discourse left the option open of accommodating those who were perceived to be different sequestered in segregated arrangements. Eugenics effectively shifted register and became a discussion about quality control directed at the idea of hereditary deficiency. A preoccupation arose with the idea of what the minimal criteria were for normality and where and how, optimally, the best hereditary stock could be located and  Again, the point needs to be made that Western cosmology is not alone in its peculiar attitude to disability. In many other cultures it is not unknown for disfigured new-born babies, for example, to be disposed of at birth. 7

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defined, and, flowing from this assaying of good genes over bad ones, a concern about problem populations. The process of classification is important to draw attention to here. Its effective impetus was to create what Campbell (Baker, 2002, p. 673) calls the “eugenic imperative in late modernity” where eugenics was transformed into a site of positive and progressive policy and practice. It’s imperative was essentially to “eliminate the birthing of bodies marked as ‘disabled’, or, to… engage in ‘perfecting’ technologies that morph ableism and enshrine a particular understanding of ableist normativity and (real) human subjectivity” (ibid.). The outcome of these developments was an ontological discussion “about who should and should not inherit the world”. In the new eugenics, Campbell explained, was a despising of “unevenness, asymmetry, or imbalance that places bodies-mind labelled as disabled at the edge of the abyss, pushing the limits of human subjectivity, and creating an outlaw ontology. An outlaw ontology refers to a way of being or existing that is thought to be outside the normal and as such to need chasing down” (Baker, 2002, p. 674). Once the point had been reached in Western thinking that an ideal body existed, that such an ideal constituted the site upon which value rested, the next step had to be that of how one determined whether particular bodies constituted and formed a part of the ideal community. It was in this next step that the value of ontology, of imagining who the ideal was and is, moved to become what one might see as a framework. The framework was necessary to translate the valued ontology into the world of the real. And so took shape in Western science a fixation with classification that inevitably ended up with the obsessive preoccupation of who measured up and who did not, who was in and who was out? Who were part of us and who were not? Critically important about this, of course, was where the normative power rested, of who was doing the classification and in terms of which norm?8  In The Racial State, Goldberg (2002) develops an important analysis for how these discourses are instituted. He makes the argument that the state is central. Goldberg (2002, p. 7) argues that the state is neither an instrument of external social forces nor a reflection of an inner internally coherent logic but a structure that is inherently contradictory and internally fractured, “consisting not only of agencies and bureaucracies, legislatures and courts, but also of norms and principles, individuals and institutions”. He develops the argument, however, by suggesting that representatives of the state “in a loose sense” form a class, internally diverse, fractured, but in modern terms “racially patterned” (Goldberg, 2002, p.  8). Struggles take place in this class and with other contestants outside of the state over the form the state is to take. In terms of this, the state is a “more or less coherent and discrete entity in two related ways: as state projects underpinned … by a self-represented history as state memory; and as state power(s)”. With these powers, the state has the power to exclude both within itself and from itself. Having the power to exclude from itself, the state is able to determine who enjoys its protection and who is excluded from its protection. Given these powers, the state lends itself conceptually to be defined as an identity-making formation—talking about race Goldberg says that it has “the power to exclude and by extension include in racially ordered terms” (Goldberg, 2002, p. 9). The extension of Goldberg’s argument, for the purposes of revealing his Racial State thesis, is that the state stitches its social exclusions into what he calls “the seams of the social fabric” and by so doing achieves the naturalisation of exclusion. The larger effect of this is for processes of social exclusion to mark social belonging and identification in the state, either as that of enfranchisement or disenfranchisement—citizenship or subjection. This power of definition and delimitation, 8

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4  Breaking Dominance Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Decoloniality are two important theoretical frameworks that have developed as responses to and critiques of the prevailing global conventional wisdom around the idea of universal rights. In both are to be seen a rejection of the presumptive universalism inscribed into the conventional wisdom. Both addressed themselves deliberately to the questions of who was defining the normative order and how the normative order was ideologically constituted as a framework for social inclusion. In what follows, I describe and analytically work with what Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality offer, stand for and allow us to see and not see. What in the politics of these two critical philosophies of being human can we take away from them? What do they make visible and obscure? How do they contribute to a critical development of the notion of unconditionality with respect to the right to an unconditional regard of and for our humanity? Critical Race Theory arose in the legal scholarly/activist community in the United States as a result of the dissatisfaction many felt with liberal civil rights discourse. An important opening premise of the Critical Race Theory founders is their commitment and belief in “and deep faith in (the) rights discourse”. Patricia Williams explained that “‘Rights’ are a sign for and a gift of selfhood…. It is the magic wand of visibility and invisibility, of inclusion and exclusion, of power and no-power. The concept of rights, both positive and negative, is the marker of our citizenship, our participatoriness, our relation to others” (Mirza, 1999, p. 114). Support as Critical Race Theory did the idea of rights, it was deeply critical of the ways in which liberalism had come to interpret and present its case. Critical Race Theory scholars argued that the liberal approach to rights was based on “ideals of assimilation (into the white power structure), integration and ‘colour-blindness’” (Mirza, 1999, p. 112). In this liberal discourse racism was understood as aberrant and exceptional rather than systemic and ideologically stitched into conventional wisdom. While the gains of social reform for black people were acknowledged by Critical Race Theory scholars and activists, they questioned liberalism’s “legitimization of the basic myths of American meritocracy” (ibid.). Building on the foundations laid by Critical Legal Studies scholars who critiqued liberalism’s understanding of the role of law in society and particularly its inability to work with questions of power and the ways in which power in its multiple discursive registers and formations infiltrated the very foundations of norm-making and norm-taking and the role of the law in these processes, they criticised liberalism’s dependence on social categorisation and classification and its validation and reproduction of the social order. As Mirza (1999, p.  111) explains, Critical Race Theory presents itself to the world “as the production of ‘antithetical knowledge’, or the formation of alternative Goldberg (2002, p.  10) continues, offers the modern state the artifice of internal homogeneity where the status of inclusion is equated with that of membership of the nation and heterogeneity a threat that has to be placed outside of the state.

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accounts of social reality which challenge prevailing orthodoxies”. It attempts to, firstly, expose “the narrow and restricted understanding of race and power in mainstream legal thought”, and secondly, to transform the nexus between race and the law and the economy on which the nexus rests (ibid.). Richard Delgado, one of its founders, explained that it was centred around six defining elements: (i) Racism is endemic to American life. Race has a hand in all decisions by courts and legislatures because judges and legislators go about their business from a particular ‘raced’ perspective… there is a ‘black’ and a ‘white’ view on legal issues. (ii) The existing legal system (…and legal scholarship) are not colour-blind although they pretend to be…. (T)he system has always worked to the disadvantage of people of colour and it continues to do so… (iii) The law must be understood historically and contextually…. (iv) The subjective experiences of women and people of colour render them especially well-suited for analysing race relations law and discrimination law. Women and minorities see the world differently—they see sexism and racism where dominant groups cannot. (v) CRT… borrows from diverse intellectual traditions, including the political activism of the 1960s, nationalism, postmodernism, Marxism, and pragmatism. (vi) CRT works towards the elimination of oppression in all forms (race, class, gender) and issues a challenge to hierarchy itself (Litowitz, 1997, p. 503). More sophisticated versions of CRT take points such as (ii) above and emphasize the social constructedness of race, that it is not a biological reality, that racialisation is a differential experience and that groups are valued/less valued differently under different circumstances and that, flowing from these points, identities are always constructed in intersectional kinds of ways and that, therefore, it is important to sustain the post-structural argument of anti-essentialism (cf. Rocco, Bernier, & Bowman, 2014). With these postures and points of departure, and particularly its challenge to hierarchy, CRT presents itself as a powerful response to normative ideas of difference. It has the explicit strength of its recognition of and challenge to the everydayness of racism and the unproblematic assimilation of its foundational assumptions of normative whiteness into the fabric and workings of self-identity, relationships and power. It proceeds, moreover, from a deep sense of the pain involved in processes of restoration. In a powerful interview with Mirza (1999, p. 122), Patricia Williams raised the question of bringing to understanding the nature of and effects of racism: … I am not a psychoanalyst, but I am nevertheless fascinated by some of the insights of psychoanalysis and the definition of trauma, for example, as being an injury for which the victim has no words or has lost the ability to express the nature of that injury because it is so violently damaging. The expression of the injury therefore can only be acted out or reit­ erated without words. Indeed, the essence of traumatic reiteration is, as far as I understand

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it, that there’s no way to express the nature of the injury except to re-live. The resolution of traumatic injury has to do with finding the words for it – that’s the point at which the trauma can be or is resolved.

What is decoloniality? Decoloniality, as opposed to decolonisation, is a way of thinking that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America informed by discussions on hybridity, cultural studies, Chicana feminist theory, post-colonialism and critical theories of modernity and post-modernity. It began as a reflection on the politics of and socio-cultural dynamics of Latin America and particularly on the continued subjugation of exploited and oppressed social groups in the region. Arturo Escobar (2007, p. 180) describes it as follows: As Walter Mignolo puts it, MC (Modernity/Coloniality) (the term used to describe the research project which has given rise to Decoloniality) should be seen as a un paradigma otro. Rather than a new paradigm ‘from Latin America’… the MC project does not fit into a linear history of paradigms or epistemes; to do so would mean to integrate it into the history of modern thought. On the contrary, the MC program should be seen as another way of thinking that runs counter to the great modernist narratives (Christianity, liberalism, and Marxism); it locates its own enquiry in the very borders of systems of thought and reaches towards the possibility of non-eurocentric modes of thinking.

A fundamental assumption with which Decoloniality takes issue is the universalisation of modernity. In contrast to the view which sees and explains modernity through the prism of the experience of the dominant centres of global modernity, it sees the world as a space of insistent transition encompassing “many heterogeneous cultural formations – and, of course, the many shades in between”. “Recent challenges to this view from peripheral locations have questioned the unexamined assumption – found in thinkers like Habermas, Giddens, Taylor, Lyotard, Rorty, etc, as much as in Kant, Hegel and the Frankfurt School philosophers… that modernity can be fully explained by reference to factors internal to Europe” (ibid.). The objective of decoloniality, against the view expressed above, is about the politics of knowledge and the modalities through which Western ways of knowing and being have become naturalised in the everyday worlds of subjugated people everywhere in the world (cf. Mignolo, 2001). Politically it has developed into a process to resist the totalising logocentrism upon which modernity is constructed and the ancillary logics upon which “order and reason are seen as the foundation for equality and freedom, and enabled by the language of rights” (Escobar, 2007, p. 182). Escobar refers to this foundation-making as the Giddens effect where all iterations of modernity, everywhere, are read through and interpreted through and against the European experience. To this interpretation of inescapable progress, Decoloniality rejoins that modernity in its full complexity is only comprehensible through the coupling of modernity with coloniality—“in sum, there is no modernity without coloniality, with the latter being constitutive of the former (in Asia, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean). Second, the fact that ‘the colonial difference’ is a privileged epistemological and political space” (Escobar, 2007, p. 185).

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There is a South African gloss on this discussion. In it are Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013), Garuba (2015), Essop (2016), Hendricks and Liebowitz (2016), Kamanzi (2016), Rudin (2017), Prah (2017), Pityana (2016), Mbembe (2016), Nyathi (2016) and Jansen (2017). It proceeds from the moral position that the universalisation of European forms of knowing at the expense of African epistemologies and ontologies is not acceptable. Its politics is about the ways in which European logocentrism subjugated, deligitimated and erased all other forms of knowledge including knowledge of self, right and obligation. In this politics, it rejects the marginalisation of the African voice, the positioning of Africa as a ‘place to learn about and not from” (Hendricks and Liebowitz, 2016, para. 7), the objectification of Africa as a site for Western scrutiny (Garuba, 2015, para. 12, and cf. Kamanzi, 2016, para. 8) and instead, posits the need for an alternative ontogenesis, without what Ndlovu-­ Gatsheni (2013, p. 251) describes as “redemptive nationalism” parading in the form of “nativism”. “Nativism”, he says, “begins as a form of reverse discourse and an attempt to challenge Western hegemony…. (but essentially) mimick(s) Western liberal democracy” (ibid.). At issue in this attempt to not simply mimic Western hegemony, the struggle is to think about human subjectivity and its formalisation into rights differently. The struggle in this alternative is to recognise what Issa Shivji had to say about dominant approaches to human rights: Human rights discourse has succeeded in marginalising concrete analysis of our society. Human rights ideology is the ideology of the status quo, not change. Documentation of human rights abuses, although important, in its own right, by itself does not help us in understanding the social and political relations in our society…. Much of our writings on human rights, rule of law, constitution etc, uncritically reiterates or assume neo-liberal precepts (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013, p. 253).

The decolonial response is to demand “recogni(tion) and (the) according (of) value to the (knowledge of the) previously disadvantaged and… how the object of study itself is constituted” (Garuba, 2015, para. 19). As with CRT, powerful in the Decoloniality discussion is an emphasis on the nature of the subject him, herself and all the many ways in which human beings identify in gendered terms, and a desire for the investiture in these subjects of a sense of their humanity. The objectification of a degraded and dehumanised African subject—into an object—is clearly understood in the decolonial analysis. Facilitating this, argues Mbembe (cf. 2016, p. 3), are the stratagems and processes of whiteness. He places whiteness as the name of this logocentrism squarely on the table: “we are … calling for the demythologization of whiteness because democracy in South Africa will either be built on the ruins of those versions of whiteness that produced Rhodes or it will fail”. The subject in this process has to be constituted on terms different from those laid out by hegemonic whiteness. It has to find its integrity and authenticity in terms of rights, entitlements and obligations which arise from the whole of its experience and not the subset of those which take their salience from the example of Europe.

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4.1  I n Making Sense of Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality: The Body Politic Now, however, how one makes sense of the pathways for rights into the future offered by Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality is not a straightforward task. There is in both Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality a commitment to greater inclusion and greater awareness of the complexity and intersectionality of the human subject than the conventional wisdom offers. Both present themselves as alternatives. How far they take us towards Derrida’s unconditionality is what is now considered. Criticisms of Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality have emerged from both within and outside of themselves with respect to rights. An important critique of Critical Race Theory is made by Litowitz (1997) and, in somewhat different terms but in logical continuity nonetheless, by Pabst (2006) about what Litowitz (1997, p.  516) refers to as Critical Race Theory’s narcissism. From deep inside the Decolonial community Mbembe (2016) generates a view of decoloniality which opens up the discussion of unconditionality in deeply disruptive ways. The Litowitz criticism begins with an analysis of Critical Race Theory’s understanding of liberalism and makes the telling point that the fundamental tenets of liberalism are left unexamined in Critical Race Theory’s critique. There is no challenge to “liberalism as a theoretical approach, except to say that the civil rights movement advanced by liberalism has not brought about perfect equality between the races, and that the liberal legal reforms of the 1960s have been a hollow hope, a failure” (Litowitiz, 1997, p. 514). That society has not made greater gains in the last few decades, argues Litowitz “is not a fault of liberalism as a doctrine…. To fault liberalism for the oppression and inequality of blacks or for the mistreatment of Native Americans and Chinese immigrants is to lay blame with the wrong party” (ibid.). Litowitz’s argument, of course, can be faulted for the way in which it constitutes liberalism. He fails to present it in its discursive/ideological amplitude and the ways in which it makes available for legal definition ideas of subjecthood which take their content from middle-class sociologies of free-choice and individualism. But the thrust of his analysis is, however, correct. Gesturing towards the idea of subjectivity and subjecthood, as Critical Race Theory does, it struggles, theoretically, to open up a discussion of the politics of power and how power operates in and with respect to the, and much less so, the abilitied body. It struggles to demonstrate what power and how whatever power is being activated actually works. It struggles to identify what it is in the agency and decision-making capacity and power the subject has at his or her disposal, particularly in the individual subject, that is either facilitated or turned off. It does not sufficiently explore how racism, as trauma, serves to incapacitate, damage or, crudely, disadvantage the individual. Recently, in her new book, partner and associate of Steve Biko, Mamphela Ramphele (2017) made the following comment about black pain: “believe me when I tell you it is there”. Litowitz (1997, pp. 516–517) objects to this: “many critical race theorists end up writing about themselves on the grounds that their personal experience is

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unique and that there is something special that they can contribute because they are black, Latino, Asian and so on”. He makes the point that this kind of claim leads nowhere: The notion that each race has a unique view of the law is common in CRT, as we can see from the following reading of Plessy and Brown v. Board of Education by a black CRT scholar: “From a white perspective, it is unclear what is wrong with separate but equal, but when one takes a black perspective, it is easy to see why Plessy was wrong and Brown was constitutionally right”. This passage ignores that the Constitution (and other laws) are public documents that affect all of us regardless of our race – so Plessy was wrong from any decent perspective… it is not a question of black and white, but a question of right and wrong.

The problem, as Litowitz (1997, p.  519) says, is balkanisation in which each racial group becomes a unitary focus, to the neglect of the “fragile consensus which binds us” (ibid.). Two points call for elaboration in this identification of the problem of balkanisation. The first draws attention to the way balkanisation loses sight, despite the claims that are made for intersectionality in CRT, of other forms of marginalisation. While there is an awareness in Critical Race Theory of the politics of gender, there is almost, strikingly, no reference to other disvalued bodies, and particularly, as Baker (2002) helps us understand, bodies deemed to be disabled. The second point Litowitz’s argument about balkanisation helpfully turns our attention to is that of the claims made about the trauma of disadvantage. His development of this argument turns to the problem that he sees in Critical Race Theory’s dependence on “emotion instead of reason” (Litowitz, 1997, p. 522). This is correct in so far, as he says, no evidence is adduced for the claims that are made about trauma and disadvantage. A more substantial problem can be identified not in the appeal to emotion but in the line of reasoning with which Critical Race Theory tends to work. That problem lies essentially, as Royzman, Mccauley, and Rozin (2005, p. 27) explain, in how the phenomenon of hate is made sense of. Hate, they argue, is often described and explained in relation to itself. Many theorists of hate take examples of experiences which conform to what is thought of as representing hate and hold those up as explanations of what hate is. At issue, they explain, is the difference between an ostensive or a stipulative description of a phenomenon. Ostensive descriptions use what are thought to be examples of the condition to define the condition itself: … a definiens is communicated by either literally pointing to or otherwise indexing a case in which the definiendum is thought to be in evidence…. Thus, one may give an ostensive definition of ‘pain’ by pointing to a person in the throes of a toothache and saying… ‘This is what pain is like’…. (ibid.).

They contrast this with stipulative explanations which construct the content of a phenomenon and then, on the basis of this are able to identify the phenomenon (Royzman et al., 2005, p. 22). The problem with balkanisation is its essential self-­ validating mode of explanation—“believe me when I say it is there”. It is there because the person says it is there. What it is, is what the person says it is.

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Without using the terms ostensive and stipulative, the Canadian theorist Pabst (2006, p. 123) develops an analysis of CRT which demonstrates the problems of balkanisation. She shows how CRT and its concomitant political approaches have taken shape and substance around the experience of African Americans in the United States. She quotes the Haitian writer Laferrière’s impious assessment of what he sees as the Americanist presumptions of black thinking in the United States: “America is an overfed infant. And Americans live as if no one else existed on the continent. On the planet. Each of their movements seems absolutely new, as if they weren’t connected to the human chain…. They are gods. And their blacks are demi-­ gods” (Pabst, 2006, p.  126). What this produces, argues Pabst (2006, p.  127), is description which reduces “the politics of place to the level of irrelevance” (Pabst, 2006, p. 128). The point may be overstated, but it is significant. The same criticism raised by Litowitz and Pabst, by analogy, can be made of the Decoloniality argument in its attempts to deconstruct European logocentricism. It is this that has led decolonial insiders such as Prah (2017) and outsiders such as Marxist Rudin (2017, para. 28) to suggest that in African decolonial arguments a fetishisation of the black body has occurred. To black bodies is attributed only trauma. There is in this a reverse kind of objectification to that precipitated by whiteness. More searching than this critique of the implicit subversion to be seen in CRT and Decoloniality is Mbembe’s challenge to the very ontology upon which the idea of modernity rests which, he argued, had reached its limits: “knowledge can only be thought of as universal if it is by definition pluriversal” (Mbembe, 2016, p. 19). In this pluriversity Western knowledge itself had a place: “it is singularly complex. It contains within itself the resources of its own refutation” (ibid.). Pluriversity demanded, however, a great deal more: “(a perspective) which can allow us to see ourselves clearly, always in relationship to ourselves and to other selves in the universe, non-humans included” (Mbembe, 2016, p. 23). Such a possibility was entertained in Decoloniality. It needed, however, clearer articulation. The articulation ventured by Mbembe was extremely challenging. It appealed for a new understanding of being—ontology, of knowing—epistemology and of values—axiology. Being in the world, explained Mbembe, involved the recognition and affirmation, and this is the radical challenge he mounts, of deep democracy. The category of human was no longer sovereign. Humans shared the world with other forms of being: Our world is populated by a variety of non-human actors. They are unleashed in the world as autonomous actors in their own right…. At stake…. once again, are the old questions of who is whom, who can make what kinds of claims on whom and on what grounds, and who is to own whom and what…. It is about humankind ruling in common for a common which includes the non-humans, which is the proper name for democracy. To reopen the future of our planet to all who inhabit it, we will have to learn how to share it again among the humans, but also between the humans and the non-humans (Mbembe, 2016, pp.  24 & 26–27).

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In this he was confronting the boundaries of the discourse as it had been presented by the decolonial movement. He relocated decoloniality in a wider life and planetary ecology. The discussion was brought, in this gesture, into a significant dialogue with the post-human critique of Rosi Braidotti (2013) and Bruno Latour (2013, p. 234). Central to this post-human critique was a profound radical questioning of the dominant logocentrism of Europe with its anthropocentric conceits which as, Latour lays it out, culminated in a logic of denial, “(the denial of the) the pluralism of modes of existence. This is what we have done with the beings of metamorphosis, … we denied (their) objective existence” (ibid.). In this he began the mounting of an appeal to a wider sense of rights: “we have to approach the other side of the BIFURCATION (his emphasis)” (ibid). Distinctive about this version of decolonisation is its emphatic claim, as brought to a climax by Mbembe, to ownership of a larger ontic than simply the human archive, or at least the human archive as it expresses its sense of priority alongside other life forms. It begins in the logocentric politics which produce African deligitimation and it calls out the racism structured in that process of deligitimation. But it is powerfully aware of the dangers of simply inverting the power relations which characterise logocentric ways of seeing. It is in these terms not simply against the dismantling of the university as it stands and starting all over.

5  Conclusion The politics that are set in train by these critiques of Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality are important to understand. Questions of citizenship, community and belonging perforce lead in the realms of the political, social and philosophical to concerns about inclusion and exclusion and the large role in these realms played by classification and the conditionalities it generates. Inevitably, as the ideal takes shape, so do questions arise about the consequences of these idealisations. The general argument and orientation of these alternative idealisations is to work towards deeper and more radical forms of inclusion. Important for our argument here is that this general position fails to recognise the possibility that inclusive policies might produce new forms of exclusion. Little recognition is given to the possibility that the notion of inclusion operates on normative principles. Norms define how groups are defined and constituted (socially) in their ideal forms, and, in opposition, their un-­ ideal forms. Little understanding develops how these perceptions explain the characteristics of out groups and, as a consequence, what it is that such groups lack in terms of access and entitlements to certain services. The politics of inclusion and exclusion that arise in relation to these perceptions never become explicit and the subject of public discourse. Instead they settle on the public imagination as unproblematised ameliorative goods. What these approaches do is underplay the existing and complex social relations in society which give rise to and perpetuate inequities. They fail, and this is the major point here in relation to Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality, to take into account the power relations (economic, social and

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epistemological) which define what the normative order is. Implicit in their enunciation are unstated and unarticulated conditions. Conditionality is implicitly re-instated. Critically, they also elide differences between and within groups, communities and individuals in that approaches ignore who is being included or excluded and have no means of getting at the complex ways in which difference is produced, particularly in its articulated and interlocking nature. In terms of the differences within groups, identified and marked groups are always read through what are assumed to be the dominant characteristics of that group. More specifically, discourses of exclusion and inclusion fail to specify the relationships between disability, race, class, gender, and other forms of difference and inequity in society and to show how these articulate with each other. This we argue is the major problem with the new alternative approaches to dealing with the legacy of the Berlin moment. How then, in conclusion, is the road towards unconditionality charted by these new theories? It is charted, it is argued here, in ways that simultaneously open and occlude. Both Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality place race at the centre of contemporary struggles for dignity. In doing this, they point to real and existing problems of the claims made by philosophers such as Charles Taylor. Critical to be taken away is the deep structural and affective—psychosocial in the fullest sense— recalibration that has to take place in modern society for it to claim for itself the description civilisation. For as long as disvalued bodies live in the normative conditionality of race and ability there is a question mark over the claim of civilisedness. To this extent, the road opened up by Critical Race Theory and Decoloniality is promising. But it has, unfortunately, along its way many unacknowledged obstacles. In its self-centred balkanisation it fails to see the existence of other forms of disadvantage and powerlessness, many of which it may be complicit in perpetuating, and so conceptually and practically participates in the reproduction of the very logics— with new logocentricisms—which it had set out to dismantle.

References Baker, B. (2002). The hunt for disability: The new eugenics and the normalization of school children. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 663–703. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Breckinridge, K. (2014). Biometric state: The global politics of identification and surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Craven, M. (2015). Between law and history: The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 and the logic of free trade. London Review of International Law, 3(1), 31–59. Derrida, J.  (2000). Of hospitality. Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to respond. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Escobar, A. (2007). Worlds and knowledges otherwise. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 179–210. Essop, A. (2016, August 16). Decolonisation debate is a chance to rethink the role of universities. The Conversation. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/ decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840

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Garuba, H. (2015). What is an African curriculum? Retrieved March 12, 2017, from https://mg.co. za/article/what-is-an-african-curriculum/ Gebelhoff, R. (2016, February 22). What’s the difference between genetic engineering and eugenics? Washington Post. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ in-theory/wp/2016/02/22/whats-the-difference-between-geneticengineering-and-eugenics Goldberg, D. (2002). The racial state. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Hamad, S. (2016, April 20). Zizek on immigration and the hypocrisy of the left. The New Arab. Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2016/4/21/ zizek-on-immigration-and-the-hypocrisy-of-the-left Hendricks, C., & Liebowitz, B. (2016, May 23). Decolonising Universities isn’t an easy process – but it has to happen. The Conversation. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from http://theconversation. com/ decolonisng-the-universities-isnt-an-easy-process-but-it-has-to-happen-59604 Jansen, J. (2017). ‘As by Fire’ – The end of the South African University. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers. Kamanzi, B. (2016, April 28). Decolonising the Curriculum: The silent War for tomorrow. The Daily Maverick. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from https://dailymaverick.co.za/ opnionista/2016-04-28-decolonising-the-curriculum-the-silent-war-for-tomorrow/ Latour, B. (2013). An enquiry into modes of existence: An anthropology of the moderns. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Litowitz, D. (1997). Some critical thoughts on critical race theory. Notre Dame Law Review, 72(2), 502–529. Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive. Retrieved March 8, 2017, from http://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Archive.pdf Mignolo, W. (2001). Coloniality and subalternity. In I.  Rodriguez (Ed.), The Latin American Subaltern Studies Reader (pp. 224–244). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mirza, Q. (1999). Patricia Williams: Inflecting critical race theory. Feminist Legal Studies, 7, 111–132. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (2013). Coloniality of power in postcolonial Africa: Myths of decolonization. Dakar: CODESRIA Press. Nyathi, N. (2016, December 27). Decolonising the curriculum: The only way through the process is together. Moneyweb. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/ southafrica-decolonising-thecurriculum-the only-way-through-the-process-is-together/ Pabst, N. (2006). “Mama, I’m Walking to Canada”: Black geopolitics and invisible empires. In K. Clarke & D. Thomas (Eds.), Globalization and race: Transformations in the cultural production of blackness (pp. 112–132). Durham & London: Duke University Press. Pityana, B. (2016). The 2015 student revolts in South Africa: A call for dialogue. Unpublished paper. Posner, E. (2014, December 4). The Case Against Human Rights. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/sp-case-against-human-rights Prah, K. (2017). Has Rhodes Fallen? Decolonizing the Humanities in Africa and Constructing Intellectual Sovereignty. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from http://www.assaf.org.za/files/ ASSAf%20news/Has%20Rhode%20Fallen.docx%20ASSAF%20Address%202015.22017. pdf Ramphele, M. (2017). Dreams, betrayal and hope. Cape Town: Penguin Random House. Rieser, R. (n.d.). Lest We Forget: Eradicating the ‘Useless Eaters’ in the Third Reich. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from http://worldofinclusion.com/res/qca/Lest_We_Forget.pdf Rocco, T., Bernier, J., & Bowman, L. (2014). Critical race theory and HRD: Moving race front and center. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 16(4), 457–470. Royzman, B. E., McCauley, C., & Rozin, P. (2005). From Plato to Putnam: Four ways to think about hate. The Psychology of Hate, 1, 3–35. Rudin, J.  (2017, March 20). Deconstructing Decolonisation: Can Racial Assertiveness Cure Imagined Inferiority. Retrieved March 20, 2017, from http://dailymaverick.co.za/ article?id=84504#WM-Mfk1MTIU

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Taylor, C. (2003). Modern social imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Van der Gaag, N. (2014, 29 September). Women are better off today, but are still far from being equal with men. The Guardian. Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/ global.com/global-development/2014/sep/29/women-better-off-far-from-equal-men Crain Soudien  is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa.

Human Rights Literacies Research: (Re)think Approaches and Methodologies Anne Becker and Cornelia Roux

Contents 1  2  3  4 

Introduction The Shifting Positioning of Human Rights Education Human Rights Literacies: Approaches, Goals, Target Groups Categories of, Approaches to, and Possibilities for Human Rights Education and Literacies Research 5  Global Discourses, Human Rights and Human Rights Literacies Research: Globalisation, Development and Post- colonialism/decolonialisation 5.1  Globalisation: Global Citizenship Education, Holocaust and Peace Education 5.2  Development and Eradicating Poverty: Neo-liberalism and Capitalism 5.3  Colonialisation and Post-colonialism Discourses 6  Human Rights Literacies Research: (Re)thinking Approaches and Methodologies 6.1  Critical Approaches and Methodologies 6.2  The Thing About Theory: Production, Consumption, Aversion and Resistance 6.3  Posthumanism and Human Rights Literacies 7  Conclusion References

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Abstract  In this chapter we aim to put forward some proposals for human rights literacies research which focus on re-envisaged approaches to teach and learn about, through and from human rights. We argue that human rights literacies research should ask questions regarding the shift in human rights advocacy from a top-down to a bottom-up approach, collapse the binaries on which human rights and human rights education are premised and disrupt assumptions that human rights and human rights education are inherently transformative and emancipatory. To achieve this, approaches and methodologies to research need to be rethought. Human rights literacies research needs approaches and methodologies focusing on subjectification (not only socialising people towards normalised patterns of marginalisation), the relational aspects of human rights (which include the relational aspects of human rights knowledge within unique place-space-time), disrupt binaries (which is often reinforced by the use of critical theories) and on closing the gap between the A. Becker (*) · C. Roux Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_4

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d­ iscursive and lived realities. While not negating the fact that critical theory was the historic core of human rights education (cf. Tibbitts, Human rights education. Theory, research, praxis, 2017) and still has a role to play in the developing of human rights literacies, we propose a shift to resistance theories (cf. Baxi, Human rights in a posthuman world. Critical essays, 2007), such as post-colonial and posthuman approaches and methodologies in order to (re)structure human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies from the bottom-up.

1  Introduction Human rights literacies are the nexus between human rights—concentrating on its implementation of declarations, laws and policies—and human rights education with its applications in and for education for a just society. Since 1997 with the founding of the Human Rights Education Association (HREA), programmes to implement human rights education across the globe were linked to research-based agendas (http://www.hrea.org/about-us/vision-mission-values). In an opening address the then executive director Felisa Tibbitts of HREA (2002) stated that: (I)f human rights education is to become a genuine field, then we are challenged to become more coherent (even among our diversity of models), to be unique (offering value and outcomes that other educational programs cannot), and to be able to replicate ourselves (Tibbitts, 2002, cf. Tibbitts, 1999).

Research in human rights and human rights education manifests itself in different ways. In a comparative study on human rights education policies, Suárez (2007, p. 52) found that in “many empirical studies, findings suggest that linkages have an independent effect on the likelihood that a country will borrow policies or adopt global models.” Human rights education research and how it is conducted, is therefore crucial to the continual global and local development of curriculum theory, education applications and transformative methodologies to enhance the aims of human rights and human rights education. However, human rights education is globally critiqued for being declarationist and conceptually imprisoned (Keet, 2015; Simmonds & Du Preez, 2017). This view stems from the distrust in the ability of both human rights and human rights education to address global injustice and violations (ibid.). Research in human rights education needs to re-assess it aims, it’s purpose, and should respond to the dissensus and growing critique from subjects and failed subjects as they make meaning of human rights in everyday life. In this chapter we aim to put forward some proposals for human rights literacies research which focus on a re-envisaged approach to teach and learn about, through and from human rights. Human rights literacies research is a reaction against the top-down approach followed in current human rights education programmes with little regard of the complexities of implementation in diverse time-place-space. Human rights literacies research aims to focus on a holistic view in human rights education in closing the binaries between oppressor and oppressed, North/South,

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developing/developed countries and the western epistemological and ontological divisive premise of human rights reflected in the global/local controversies of inclusions and exclusions. We argue that the assumptions that human rights and human rights education discourses are inherently emancipatory, and that education is intrinsically empowering, are false. States and international powers do not necessarily employ human rights to transform societies and liberate peoples but often use human rights language and discourses to entrench power (Ahmed, 2017). Through an interruption and disruption of these assumptions and the processes through which inclusion and exclusion are masked (legal, normative and discursive), human rights literacies research focuses on the subjectification of subjects in becoming and the relational aspects of human rights. Human rights literacies research, we pose, aims to interrupt the theoretical elitism speaking for and of the subjects of rights and enable the excluded to “make their claim to speak for themselves and to change the global perspective of social space” (Žižek, 2012). Our own journey to human rights literacies research commenced in 2005 and explored social injustices in education environments. Inspired by participants’ self-­ empowerment we became more critical and emancipatory in our approaches to human rights education research (Roux, 2012, p.  35). For example, we explored intercultural and interreligious dialogue in classroom praxis, how participants function in an unequal society, and the consequences of religious and cultural practices imposed on girls in patriarchal environments. The conclusions made indicated the need to articulate the ways through which subjects make meaning of human rights as they are trapped in, or exposed to, human rights violations in their everyday lives. Data indicated participants’ dissonance and dissent with the (non)realisation of the South African Bill of Rights (1996)1 in their lived realities, which remain trapped in the histories of inequality and social injustices. We argue that research in human rights literacies should be non-hierarchical, non-dualistic, multilayered, complex and evolutionary. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches and different lenses and appropriate methods should be used to explore the complexities of intersections and diverse ontologies and epistemologies of human rights and human rights literacies across data sets in specific place-space-time (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 5; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Roux & Becker, 2016). To illustrate the intersectional complexities of human rights literacies, its diverse ontologies and epistemologies in place-space-time, this chapter will firstly explore the shift in human rights advocacy and education from a top-down to bottom-up approach. Secondly, the target groups, approaches and focus of human rights literacies towards an inclusionary approach will be explained. Thirdly, before posing possible approaches to human rights literacies research, the categories of, and approaches to human rights education research will be unpacked. In the fourth place, discourses of globalisation, development and post-colonialism/decolonialisation and their relation to human rights and human rights education are unpacked. In

 The Bill of Rights (1996) is Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa (1996) (new democracy and post-apartheid) and guarantees human rights, equality and human dignity to all its citizens. 1

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conclusion, frameworks, ontologies, epistemologies and innovative methodologies for human rights literacies research are posed.

2  The Shifting Positioning of Human Rights Education Moyn (2014) argues that in terms of human rights, the study of history is important as it can suggest the need for a reinvention of human rights towards a more just world. In his view, “Human rights have so far done too little to bring that world about, which leaves a task beyond interpreting the past: crafting the future.” (Moyn, 2014, p. i). In similar vein, human rights education needs to study its past to reinvent itself towards bringing forth a more humane and just world. Although Tibbitts (2017) poses that human rights education gained momentum during the 1990s, Keet (2015) traces the history of human rights education from pre-1948. Keet (2015) distinguishes four phases in the development of human rights education. The first pre-1948 phase, roots human rights education in theories of moral education. The second (1948–1994) and third (1955–2010) came after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948, hereafter UDHR, see United Nations) demanded that every individual and state organ should teach and educate towards the respect of human rights (Flowers, 2015). The second phase, 1948–1994, reflected the formalisation of human rights education as an educational effort aimed at globally legitimising human rights universals. The third phase (1995–2010) reflected the proliferation of human rights education by the international community with the aim to canonise human rights education into a legitimate and justifiable pedagogical formation and to provide a structured conceptual framework for human rights education. The legitimacy crisis of global human rights, however, became a global counter-hegemonic distrust towards human rights which spilled over to human rights education and the start of the fourth phase (from 2011) (Keet, 2015). Both the second and third phases of human rights education were characterised by top-down approaches and coincided with the shift towards the humanitarian and ethical paradigm of human rights (cf. Moyn, 2014; Ranciére, 2015). This shift was marked by the global shrinking of political spaces and their replacement with ethical spaces and consensus (Ranciére, 2015, p. 80). Azoulay (2014, p. 335) poses that during the early stages of the development of human rights, “(U)niversal human rights were conceived as the prerogative of states; the general public was neither consulted nor invited to participate in the formulation of these rights.” People all over the globe were expected to accept rights as pre-given discursive objects and to “naturalise” application of rights in diverse contexts (ibid.). These top-down notions, unfortunately, are still reflected in human rights education programmes and processes and have as consequence the immense challenge to bridge the gap between abstract rights and their (non)realisation in lived material realities in many countries around the world (cf. Bajaj, 2011; Dolan, Gundara, & King, 2011).

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During the second phase of human rights education development and at the stage when the UDHR (1948) was accepted, there were no established international possibilities for the enforcement of human rights and various means, of which education was paramount, were implemented to make the language and principles of the declaration understood and known (Azoulay, 2014). These campaigns were conducted from above (the UN and its member states) and had as aim to enable an internalised personal sense of human rights—a sense that would produce widespread respect for and a commitment to the upholding of human rights generally supporting institutional responses to violations of these rights (Azoulay, 2014). Still following the top-down approach, the United Nations (hereafter UN) and UNESCO have since the 1970s played a major role in answering to the challenges of educating the global community on human rights (cf. Bajaj, 2011). The strategies and programmes remain embedded in the UDHR (1948). During 1974, UNESCO’s General Conference adopted the Recommendations concerning Education for International Understanding, Cooperation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and established monitoring and reporting mechanisms for these processes (Dolan et  al., 2011). During 2003 (the third phase), the member states of the General Conference of UNESCO adopted the UNESCO Strategy on Human Rights which emphasised human rights education in terms of content, provisions and processes (ibid.) The International Decade for Human Rights Education (1995–2004) was an UN-led initiative promoting the dissemination of human rights through education. This did not have the expected success. The ‘Decade’ was followed by the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005–2014) proclaimed by the UN and involving all UN agencies (ibid.). The related ‘Plan of Action’ focused on curricula, learning environments, teaching and learning methodologies and practices, the professional development of teachers and the evaluation and assessment of the above (ibid.). The fourth phase, characterised by counter-hegemonic distrust, as Keet (2015) refers to it, has not only changed human rights advocacy but has also questioned the top-down process of teaching and learning human rights (cf. Azoulay, 2014). The notion that the teaching of human rights is a top-down process has been disrupted on various occasions by NGOs, such as Amnesty International (Azoulay, 2014; Bajaj, 2011). A different approach to universal rights is now imagined, although not necessarily formally conceptualised in places and spaces of protest. Amnesty International’s approach to human rights education, for example, focusses on students, children, adults, teachers, educators becoming activists for human rights through sharing information on human rights with others in their communities and actively working to defend human rights. This approach considers universal rights to be an object of discussion “among all concerned, that is, by everyone, everywhere” (Azoulay, 2014, p.  335). This shift explains and demands the need for human rights literacies. Discussion by everyone, everywhere includes the defence, the formulation, amending, recognising and rejecting of human rights (Azoulay, 2014). Keet (2015, 2018), in reaction to this shift, advocates for critical human rights education and critical democratic human rights education. This shift is also reflected in Tibbitt’s

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(2017) Activism-Transformation model. Roux and Becker (2017) argue for human rights literacies which include critique, dissonance, disruption, dissensus through which everyone, everywhere challenges hegemonic, oppressive and marginalising notions of top-down approaches to human rights and human rights education, in answer to the challenges of this shift in human rights advocacy. Tibbitts (2017) poses that critical theory is the ‘mother’ of human rights education. Flowers (2015) explains that, as early as the 1970s and 1980s, teachers from Latin America and the Philippines who, influenced by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed used formal and popular education to teach human rights to the working class and the urban and rural poor from the bottom-up. After the political persecution stopped in Latin American countries, these struggles shifted towards the promotion of economic, social, cultural, indigenous and environmental rights through education (Bajaj, 2011; Flowers, 2015, p.  6). In the Philippines, using Freirean pedagogies, people were educated on human rights which led to the ‘People Power Revolution’ and the overthrow of Marcos (ibid.). In South Africa, human rights education has its roots in the long struggle against apartheid. As in the Latin American countries and the Philippines, advocating for rights, by for example the ‘People’s Education movement’, was premised on Freirean principles (Flowers, 2015, p. 7). Keet (2015) argues that the recent reviewing of critical theory of itself within the global challenges of the last decade can assist the renewal of human rights education. The possibility of such an approach was never envisaged at the inception of human rights and during the first three phases of human rights education.

3  H  uman Rights Literacies: Approaches, Goals, Target Groups Human rights literacies, in similar vein to various human rights education models, curricula and approaches, aim to teach and learn content knowledge about human rights, legal remedies, legal processes, values, attitudes and skills. Teaching and learning through human rights literacies, however, centre on a holistic approach to the disruption of power and ideologies within human rights frameworks, subjectification, difference, the relational aspects of human rights and of education and a bottom-up approach within diverse place-space-time. Current human rights education models2 (Tibbitts, 2017) and programmes fail to acknowledge that while human rights education can provide the tools for emancipation that states and global entities could employ human rights discourse to reinforce sovereignty (Ahmed, 2017). In an attempt to move human rights education towards a critical and transformative frame, Tibbitts and Katz (2017) ask if the purpose of human rights education is undermined, co-opted or diluted by state interests? They caution that state power in  See Chapter Roux in Part I of this volume for a critical view on education models for human rights education. 2

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both the Global North and Global South often intentionally or unwittingly undermine the emancipatory project of human rights education. In teaching-learning through human rights literacies the primary focus is on understanding the implicit and masked processes through which communities are marginalised and othered (within human rights frameworks and through the language of human rights) and the consequences thereof on inclusion and exclusion, difference and diversity and global subjective and objective violence. The processes of human rights (legal, discursive, consensus) imply simultaneous inclusion and exclusion. Understanding the processes of the (non)realisation of human rights, its consequences (marginalisation, discrimination, othering and exclusion) we argue, will develop a critical consciousness not only for the oppressed but also for the oppressor (Freire, 2017). To become critical subjects of rights concerns “those whose humanity has been stolen” and “those who have stolen it” (Freire, 2017, p.  44). Current human rights education models such as Tibbitts’s (2017) classifications of three models, focus on different approaches to different target groups. We argue that while the Activism-Transformation model (Tibbitts, 2017), for example, focusses on the transformation of societies and marginalised communities and the (non)realisation of human rights in such communities, such approaches are also relevant to both the Values and Awareness—Socialisation Model and the Accountability—Professional Development Model (Tibbitts, 2017). Teaching marginalised groups how to resist oppression will have no long-term effect if the normalised discourses of marginalisation and othering are not disrupted in classrooms and for professionals. We concur with Zembylas (2017a, 2017b) when he points to the dangers of using critical theories to reinforce the binaries between oppressed and oppressor. We propose a global and holistic view on the continual disruption of “normalised” oppressive discourses. Human rights literacies research should work towards a re-envisaging of human rights education as disruption within a holistic approach to oppression (Ahmed, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2017). A logical consequence of the above stance is that human rights literacies do not only focus on socialisation but regard subjectification as crucial to teaching and learning through human rights literacies. Subjectification, socialisation and qualification are important functions of education (Becker & Du Preez, 2014). Socialisation refers to the ways in which students become part of social, cultural, and political orders (Biesta, 2009) or as Tibbitts (2017) states, how well they are socialised into pro-social behaviour. The danger inherent to only focussing on socialisation is that students from a young age are socialised into the status quo and regard implicit or even explicit processes of marginalisation and othering as normal. Subjectification on the other hand is concerned with resisting existing cultural, political and social ideological orders (Biesta, 2009). It is about disrupting hegemonic and embedded oppressive knowledges and processes. Pedagogical subjectification is about challenging the visible and invisible, the audible and inaudible, the sayable and the unsayable. It is about the verification of equality and the potentiality of being and an emerging subject is opened up (Ranciére, 2012; Simons & Masschelein, 2010; Waghid & Davids, 2013). Through human rights literacies the possibilities open up to re-infuse human rights and human rights education with its own historic

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r­evolutionary character (cf. Cardenas, 2005) and dissident and rebellious spirit, which, Kapur (2006) argues, is lost. In line with the shift towards a bottom-up approach to human rights advocacy and human rights teaching and learning, human rights literacies focus on the lived experiences in everyday life of human rights for the subjects of rights in becoming. People live human rights and make meaning of human rights, not through declarations and treaties, but in everyday life within multiple and diverse place-space-time. They live everyday life as failed subjects or subjects of rights. Within the interconnectedness to and in their unique place-space-time, and the multiple other subjects and failed subjects they enter into relations with daily, they are either failed or emancipated by human rights. We argue that education in all its structures and systems should enable spaces where everyone, everywhere is free to disrupt, amend, challenge, reject or reconceptualise human rights and human rights education from the bottom-up in their unique place-space-time (cf. Azoulay, 2014, p. 335). Related to the bottom-up approach, human rights literacies also explore the relational aspects of human rights and human rights education. This includes the vertical relation between state and citizens and the horizontal relations between self and other concerning human rights but specifically, in terms of education, it includes all educational relations and the relation between teacher, student and the learning material (Becker, 2015, 2017a; Becker, De Wet, & Van Vollenhoven, 2015; Roux, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2016). For Freire (2017) what and how we teach and learn should be premised on dialogue, love, bravery and humility. No-one can teach a “true word” (in this case concerning human rights), Freire (2017, p.  90) argues, when the teacher projects ignorance onto others while not perceiving her own ignorance and when the teacher considers herself as the owner of truth and knowledge which is to be taught to “these people” who are ignorant. Fanon (2017, p. 74) similarly is outspoken about any arrogance of “knowing” the “truth” about the oppressed. He poses: “…the unemployed, the starving do not lay claim to truth. They do not say they represent the truth because they are the truth in their very being” [own emphasis]. Figure 13 illustrates the bottom-up approach in which the lived realities of those who “are the truth in their very being” (Fanon, 2017, p. 74) continually (re)construct the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights education and literacies through dissonance, disruption, the construction of dissensus and subjectification. Through subjectification, they collapse the binaries between oppressor and oppressed and the gap between the ideals of human rights and lived realities. This makes the continual “re-search” (Freire, 1998, p. 37) of human rights education and literacies possible.

 Also see Fig. 1 in chapter Becker and Roux in part III of this volume for the processes of human rights literacies. 3

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(RE)SEARCH

HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AND LITERACIES

Human rights documents and declarations

Human rights educaon applications, programmes, pedagogies, research Discursive and descriptive

GAP

Between discursive ideals of human rights and material reality Dissonance, disruption dissensus, subjectification Contest binaries and processes of in(ex)clusion

MATERIAL REALITY

Subjects in becoming Meaning making Place-space-time In(ex)clusions Cultures of remembrance

Fig. 1  Subjects in becoming (re)searching ontologies and epistemologies of human rights, human rights education and literacies

4  C  ategories of, Approaches to, and Possibilities for Human Rights Education and Literacies Research Tibbitts and Kirchschlaeger (2010) categorise research in, on and about human rights education into three categories: (i)  Theory of human rights education, (ii) Implementation of human rights education and (iii) Outcomes of human rights education. Under the category Theory of human rights education, they understand research concerning the goals, concepts, definitions and pedagogies of human rights education and how this relates to approaches such as citizenship education, peace education and holocaust education. This category also includes links between human rights education and other trends in education such as globalisation and

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internationalisation (Bajaj, 2011; Bajaj & Bartlett, 2017; Mihr, 2015; Tibbitts, 2017; Tibbitts & Ferneskes, 2011). Implementation of human rights education refers to research focussing on methodologies, policies, training programmes, curriculum, the conditions needed to promote human rights education and the role of key actors such as governments and NGOs (Cardenas, 2005; Tapliyal, Vally, & Spreen, 2013; Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b; Zembylas, Charalambous, Charalambous, & Lestos, 2016). Outcomes of human rights education refers to mostly evaluation studies, investigating the efficiency and results of human rights education such as reports and evaluations of UNESCO and UN programmes, local and regional programmes (cf. Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018 on the similarities and differences between research and evaluation and how politics influences both). Zajda and Ozdowski (2017) pose that human rights education research can globally be divided into three broad perspectives namely: humanism, progressivism and reconstructionism. Under humanism they categorise research focussing on knowledge, the enhancement of human development, autonomy and values. Under the progressivist approach they categorise research focussing on individual and experiential learning. Experiential learning happens through experience and stands in contrast to rote learning or as Freire (2017, p. 72) would refer to it, “the banking concept of education” (Smith & Haslett, 2017). The reconstructionist perspective focuses on improving people’s lives within specific cultural contexts. Culture refers to elements such as ideologies, organisations, languages, values and technology. Within this approach the inquiry also relates to how humans, by examining their existing economic and social conditions engage in social actions to transform society (Zajda & Ozdowski, 2017) (cf. Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Keet, 2015, 2018; Monaghan, Spreen, & Hillary, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2016). The perspectives posed by Zajda and Ozdowski (2017) are reflected in all three categories presented by Tibbitts and Kirchschlaeger (2010). While Tibbitts and Kirchschlaeger (2010) focus on what the research is about, Zajda and Ozdowski (2017) focus on the lenses or approaches through which the research is done. Ahmed (2017) identifies three forms of scholarship in human rights education research namely: diffusion scholars, classification scholars and critical scholars. Diffusion scholars are concerned with the spread of human rights education and its incorporation into textbooks and curricula. These scholars argue that global discourses influence human rights education and shape the ways it is incorporated in curricula and textbooks (Bednarczyk, 2017; Kirchschlaeger, 2012; Sirota, 2017; Tibbitts & Keet, 2017); Classification scholars focus on the classification and categorisation of human rights education and wish to provide differing education models of human rights education (Bajaj, 2011; Tibbitts, 2002, 2017). Critical scholars adopt a more critical approach and critique both human rights and human rights education (Cardenas, 2005; Keet, 2012, 2015, 2018; Roux & Becker, 2017; Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b; Zembylas et al., 2016). Following the renewed focus on critical theories is the growing interest in the Neo-Marxist critique of human rights, transformation, emancipation and the

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­influence of ideologies by scholars such as Ranciére (2012, 2015), Žižek (2005), Becker and Du Preez (2016) and Becker (2017b). Notions of dissonance, disruption and dissensus (Ranciére, 2015) in education and human rights education have been explored by scholars such as Ahmed (2017), Du Preez and Becker (2016) and Roux and Becker (2017). Although recognition, misrecognition and the relational aspect of human rights education have been explored by scholars such as Becker (2015, 2017b), Roux (2017), Keet, Nel, and Sattarzadeh (2017), it seems to be neglected in human rights education research. This aspect of human rights education (the relation between teachers/lecturers and students, and the relation of student (learner) to the learning content) is crucial if human rights education wants to move away from a top-down approach and if it wants to position itself within emancipatory and transformative frameworks. In terms of emancipatory education, Galloway (2012, p. 165) explores the theories of Freire and Ranciére and concludes that both are concerned with traditional education socialising people into “what is considered an intrinsically oppressive society and education”. She concludes that emancipation does not happen through delivering relevant and correct content knowledge but on the character of the relation students have with teachers and the relation they have with teaching and learning material.

5  G  lobal Discourses, Human Rights and Human Rights Literacies Research: Globalisation, Development and Post- colonialism/decolonialisation The global movement resulting in the humanitarian paradigm in human rights and a quest for solidarity came after the end of the Cold War (1991). The humanitarian campaign focused on global solidarity and the prevention of atrocities (Moyn, 2014, p. 94). The urgent need for human rights education (the second and third phases of the development of human rights education), was linked to this campaign and led to a focus on globalisation, world peace, an inclusive world and the prevention of atrocities. Globalisation is a “complex cultural and social theory construct” and also a “convenient euphemism concealing contested meanings and dominant perspectives and ideologies” (Zajda & Ozdowski, 2017). The need for human rights literacies scholars, to critically engage with global discourses saturating human rights and human rights education, is crucial. Although the discourses we explore do not represent the multiple discourses on human rights and human rights education and their complex intersections, we regard the following three discourses as paramount to the scope of this chapter. We explore globalisation, developmental (capitalist, neo-liberalist) and colonial and post-colonial discourses.

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5.1  G  lobalisation: Global Citizenship Education, Holocaust and Peace Education The shift towards globalisation and the emphasis on global citizenship, Holocaust and peace education during the last two decades, have socialisation into global solidarity and consensus as their aim. Baxi (2007, p. 198) poses that in terms of modern human rights and the globalised world, the subjects of rights remain subjected to “continual reconstruction and this involved in the era of ‘modern’ human rights all kinds of violent social exclusion. The contemporary human rights paradigm remains in contrast endlessly inclusive, at least normatively.” Discourses positioned in the endlessly inclusive realm, conflate is (lived realities) with ought (the ideals of human rights). Global citizenship education touts the notion of global citizenship as a way of recognizing human interdependency and responsibility beyond the local. It seeks to provide membership to an international community through fostering knowledge and skills related to universal values and standards (Bajaj & Bartlett, 2017). Tibbitts and Ferneskes (2011) pose that although civic education focuses on core concepts such as cognitive skills regarding the principles of democracy, rule of law and rights and responsibilities, the main purpose of citizenship education is teaching and learning how to live together. Bajaj and Bartlett (2017) however, argue that while they support global citizenship education in terms of dismantling borders, they find notions of globalisation and of citizenship problematic. They argue that global citizenship education does not equate for forced migration and the resulting limited choices migrant families have and they therefore promote human rights education for coexistence as alternative (Bajaj & Bartlett, 2017). In human rights education for coexistence the interplay between global and local forces is the focus. In this regard they hold Appiah’s notion of “rooted cosmopolitanism” as an example (ibid.). Appiah (2005, p. 220) holds that cosmopolitanism cannot be indifferent to the challenges of diversity and difference. Cosmopolitanism also needs to acknowledge that “moral equality” does not equate to “identical” morality (Appiah, 2005, p. 228). Rooted cosmopolitanism, for Appiah (2005, p. 211), acknowledges one’s roots in, and responsibility to one’s country of origin as well as belonging to, and being responsible to a global community. It implies the interdependence beyond one’s own kin as well as the possibilities for mutual learning that diversity presents (Bajaj & Bartlett, 2017). The past two decades have also marked the rise of Holocaust/genocide education. Holocaust education focuses on past (and present) atrocities and the history of WW2. Holocaust education is about learning to empathise with the victims of crimes against humanity, reasoning that this will result in a global moral imperative against atrocities (Mihr, 2015). Mihr (2015) argues that Holocaust education is not automatically human rights education, but Holocaust education can nevertheless be complementary to the latter. Holocaust education is part of what Ranciére (2015) refers to as the shift in human rights towards the absolute right of the victim through

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which the subjects of rights are structured towards ontologies and epistemologies premised on victimhood. (cf. Meyer, 2016, p. 474). Coinciding with the shift towards the absolute right of the victim, Ranciére (2015) argues, is the global shrinking of political spaces and their replacement with ethical spaces and consensus through which norms are collapsed into facts. Peace education is an outcome of this shift. Peace education is an overarching approach that not only teaches about different approaches to protecting and sustaining peace but also builds a common framework in which these approaches and strategies can be taught and practised in the safety of classrooms (Yeminici, 2016). It provides knowledge and practices for people from all walks of life and children of any age group to establish lasting peace. It creates awareness regarding the dangers of violence, warfare, and armed conflicts, terror, and misuse of power. Besides increasing an awareness of the root causes of violence, peace education provides the necessary skills and knowledge consistent with nonviolence, peace and harmony (Mokani & Higgs, 2016). As with global citizenship education and holocaust education, peace education is structured within global consensus societies with no place for dissensus or the disruption of the power of state and global entities who employ human rights discourses to reinforce their power, mask dominant perspectives and ideologies, within the “endlessly inclusive” discourse of global solidarity (cf. Ahmed, 2017; Baxi, 2007; Zajda & Ozdowski, 2017).

5.2  D  evelopment and Eradicating Poverty: Neo-liberalism and Capitalism Central to the search for global equity and fairness is the discourse of human rights and the rights to development and education. Development discourses are part of humanity’s assumed quest to foster moral and economic progress towards the eradication of global poverty (Becker & Du Preez, 2016). Development discourses, however, Baxi (2007, p. 150) argues, should be framed within “global reparative justice”. He argues that development should, if it is to take human rights seriously, take human suffering seriously (ibid.). Unfortunately, the hegemony of neo-liberal capitalism extends the logic of marketisation to all spheres of social life such as development politics, human rights, and education (Becker & Du Preez, 2016). Capitalism’s global reach “is grounded in the way it introduces a radical class division across the entire globe, separating those protected by the sphere of capitalism from those outside the sphere of capitalism” (Žižek, 2014, p. 63). This is exaggerated by the illusion of “full inclusion” and the “equality of all” (Ranciére, 2015, p. 196). The questions asked from development strategies and development discourses remain framed within the equality-of-­ all illusion as part of capitalism and neo-liberalism frameworks. The answers to these questions are then presented from within capitalist and neo-liberalist

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d­ iscourses, because, as Žižek (2009, p. 20) poses, “the thing itself [capitalism] is the remedy against the threat it poses”. There can never be disruption, interruption and shifts in capitalist economic and political power within these boundaries. The saturation of education and human rights education by neo-liberalism and capitalism has in recent years turned education and human rights education into an instrumental practice in which capitalist and neo-liberal values reign (Becker & Du Preez, 2016; Keet, 2018). Educational discourses for development mostly focus on the development of human capital and are assumed to be closely aligned to the human rights values of freedom, equality and social justice. Sen (1999), however, advocates for a human capabilities approach to freedom and development. Although both the human capital and human capabilities approaches seem to place humans as central, the human capital approach focusses on the (increased) production possibilities humans present while the human capabilities approach focusses on the possibilities this can have on freedom: on the possibility that humans could live a life they choose and value (Ngubane & Naidoo, 2016; Sen, 1999). Freedom, within a neoliberalist and capitalist framework, is framed within free market opportunities for developed countries to the detriment of developing countries (Baxi, 2007). Neo-liberalists and capitalists demand the privileging of civic and political rights (above socio-economic rights) and demand freedom of opportunity for private enterprise and private business corporations (Baxi, 2007, p. 129). Human rights education research focussing on development and the eradication of poverty through the right to education and the right to human rights education under-acknowledge the underlying conditions of economic inequality, the constructedness and constraining logic of underdevelopment that tend to reduce “education as a human right” to instrumental forms of Western schooling within developmental discourses. Within development discourses the human rights to education and the right to education about, through and for human rights mainly focus on a functional education, in order to find a job and contribute to economic development and economic security. As an afterthought normative aims such as participating in a peaceful society and to live a full life are added (Tarc, 2013).

5.3  Colonialisation and Post-colonialism Discourses The focus of many scholars such as Zembylas (2017a, 2017b) on decolonialisation and the devastating consequences of colonialisation (Becker, 2017b) is linked to the collapse of the anticolonial movements during the 1960s and growing global ontological and epistemological othering. According to Dolan et al. (2011) challenges to world peace and an inclusive world centres around social and economic in(ex)clusions and issues of diversity and difference. This includes the challenge to deal with dominant, hegemonic and exclusionary knowledge systems. Post-colonial and decolonialisation discourses are the responses to the challenges of colonialism and it’s swallowing of diversity and difference in a global world. Decolonialisation

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discourses have to do with power, privilege, hegemony and identity (cf. Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b). Decolonialisation speak to the ontological and epistemological alienation, marginalisation and othering within dominant Western frameworks in education, human rights education and human rights education research. Post-­ colonial scholarship holds that the Enlightenment principles which still inform modern human rights often function as standardised culture in and through education at the expense of cultural difference (Osler, 2015, p. 262). Pitsoe and Letseka (2018) argue that Eurocentric epistemologies and worldviews ignore the African point of view, restrict diversity in education research and display a dualistic relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. They argue that Afrocentricity should be advanced as an alternative philosophical stance to widen conceptual frameworks in education research. Decolonisation would therefore refer to the interrogation of how Eurocentric thought, knowledge and power structures dominate present societies, and how, for example Afrocentricity, could disrupt Western epistemology and opens epistemic diversity in human rights education (Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b). Decolonialisation and the disruption of ontological and epistemological othering and marginalisation is often presented as a (only) global South problem. It is however a global North and South problem. Human rights and democracy, in many European countries, are proudly presented as central to a homogenous national culture resulting in othering of the migrant, refugee and outsider who is considered not part of ‘our culture of human rights’ (Osler, 2015). Paradoxically, in Norway specifically, a minority group, the Sami’s culture and language have been marginalised for decades and only in 2006 has Sami culture, language and identity been acknowledged in curriculum (Osler, 2015). Aubrecht (2010) in the North American context, Villegas (2010) in the American context and Simmons (2010) through the Caribbean Diaspora, use Fanon’s writings on colonialism and decolonialism, to interrogate colonialist assumptions and othering in global societies and educational contexts. Aubrecht (2010) explores the racist and ableist assumptions saturating the Review of the Roots of Youth Violence report (2008), which emerged as a response to gun violence in Toronto in 2005. The report shows no acknowledgement or concern for the continual alienation which racialised and disabled youth experience in everyday life, but rather propose a restructuring of policing, education and community infrastructure to manage the marginalised (Aubrecht, 2010). Villegas (2010) uses Fanon’s notions of visibility and power as well as invisibility and powerlessness to explore the “In/visibility” of migrants in the USA (Villegas, 2010, p. 147). Invisibility is a consequence of the erasure of knowledges and experiences and operates through markers such as race, gender, sexuality, ability and immigration status (Villegas, 2010). Simmons (2010, p. 170) positions the “Diaspora constellation” as “somewhere within the humanism of Euro-modernity”. She argues for an “unconditionally question[ing of] the colonial archetype and its ensuing humanism” (Simmons, 2010, p. 187). Outerbridge (2010) writes through her own experiences of how she, as intimately involved with the colonial education system in Bermuda, has been robbed of an identity, culture and language. She writes about how blackness is used to render the

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other inferior. The #Mustfall (2014–2017) movement in South Africa on the decolonisation of higher education, highlighted the normative claims of students of human rights and voiced their powerlessness in a post-colonial post-apartheid state (Becker, 2017b; Keet et al., 2017; Roux & Becker, 2017). The language of equality and the “moral premise of human rights and an ethical shift in rethinking the possibilities of human rights towards the transformation of higher education especially in South Africa” (Roux & Becker, 2017, p. 57) emphasised the oppressed voices of the Born Free4 generation since 1994. Decolonialisation discourses attack and question the enlightenment humanist ontological and epistemological premise of human rights and human rights education (Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b). Human rights remain portrayed as universal facts and fail to capture the different conceptions of human rights as they exist in community knowledges and resources (ibid.). Decolonising human rights education specifically needs to move beyond the recent shift back to critical theory, which still present humanity in binaries such as oppressed/oppressor (ibid.). Decolonising pedagogy should aim at interrupting Eurocentric knowledge at the level of the classroom with the hope that these interventions help undermine historical distributions of power structures. Zembylas (2017a, 2017b) poses that a decolonising approach to human rights education needs to be critically aware of the emotional consequences of ontological categorisation and that human rights education fails to understand traumatic entangled “knowledge in the blood” (Jansen, 2009). Decolonising pedagogies furthermore need to equate for how these entangled knowledges manifest itself in apathy, resentment, hatred, anger, rage, nostalgia, sorrow, loss, shame, guilt and humiliation, and how these emotions are organised and practised across differences of place, space, time, race, class and gender (Becker, 2017b; Zembylas, 2017a, 2017b).

6  H  uman Rights Literacies Research: (Re)thinking Approaches and Methodologies If human rights literacies are to disrupt binaries, power, ideologies and the continual gap between the ideals of human rights and lived realities, the research questions we ask is paramount. Simmonds and Du Preez (2017) reviewed 10 doctoral theses in the field of education claiming to engage with, or, to make a contribution to human rights education completed between 1994 and 2012 in South Africa. They found that the research is fundamentally descriptive, uncritical and accepts the fundamental and declarationist nature of human rights and its influence on human rights education. What is asked through research questions constitutes the methodologies used in human rights education and possible human rights literacies research. If we continually ask questions in the descriptive realm focussing on the discursive ideals  The Born Free generation include all students born after 1994 and the beginning of a free and democratic South Africa. 4

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of human rights and human rights education, there will be no possibilities for everyone, everywhere to defend, (re)formulate, amend, recognise and reject human rights (cf. Azoulay, 2014). The privilege to speak for and of the masses will stay with the theoretical elite (cf. Žižek, 2012). If human rights literacies research wants to ask questions regarding the shift in human rights advocacy to a bottom-up approach, collapse the binaries on which human rights and human rights education are premised and challenge assumptions that human rights and human rights education are inherently transformative and emancipatory, it needs to (re)think approaches and methodologies. It needs to consider approaches and methodologies which focus on subjectification, the relational aspects of human rights and closing the gap between the discursive and lived realities.

6.1  Critical Approaches and Methodologies The shift back to a critical approach to human rights education and literacies research in answer to the shift towards a bottom-up approach is clear. Keet (2015, 2018) explains that the notion of a critical approach (in the tradition of the Frankfurt school) has the aim to distance human rights education from human rights universals and allow for a reflexive questioning of human rights and human rights education. The critical is “regenerative, aimed at perpetual transformation” (Keet, 2015, p. 49). He furthermore argues that the use of critical theory implies critique (Keet, 2015). For Keet (2015, p. 49) the primary task of education, including human rights education, remains the critique of the receivable categories with which it works. Keet (2015) uses critique in reference to Delanty’s (2011, pp. 87–88) five dimensions characterising critique derived from an epistemological framework of immanent transcendence. The four core characteristics are (i) a diagnostic analysis of a specific problem or crisis situation (descriptive), (ii) a reconstructive critique (interpretive reconstruction) of the actions and communications of social actors within the crisis situation, (iii) explanatory critique (explanation) of the structures of the mechanisms within the crisis situation and (iv) disclosing critique of possible normative possibilities (normative connections with practice), to explain his notions of critique. The fifth (v) characteristic is connected to the second (interpretive reconstruction) dimension when genealogical critique tests the status of normative principles which are interpretatively reconstructed from communication and actions (ibid.). The fourth dimension of critique, Delanty (2011, p. 89) argues, ties critique and social praxis together in addressing the enlightening insights made available by critical explanation to the audience. This is also where critical theory’s and critical human rights education’s concern with the subject and subject formation (individual and political) is mobilised (ibid.). Although critique and reflexivity might address the uncritical and descriptive nature of research on human rights education (cf. Simmonds & Du Preez, 2017) and, as Delanty (2011) suggests, bring social praxis to the fore, it might still not be enough to address the gap between the ideals of

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human rights and lived realities or collapse the binaries on which human rights and human rights education are premised. Critical theories, Keet (2018) argues, are relevant to address issues of social justice and equity and he therefore does not categorise post-colonial and decolonial theory under the critical approach. Decolonialisation and post-colonial scholarship aim to disrupt the enlightenment and humanist premise of human rights and have therefore a targeted and specific scholarship. He adds African Studies and African American Studies into Africana Critical Theory to theories which should be of benefit to human rights education and literacies as disruption. These theories focus, amongst others, on the political economy of race and gender, decolonisation, critical race theory and critical philosophy of race (Keet, 2018, cf. Soudien, this volume, Chap. 3). In ‘re-searching’ human rights literacies (Freire, 1998, p.  35), subjectification and ideologies, such as neo-liberalism, capitalism, nationalism, the Neo-Marxist theories (cf. Ranciére, 2012, 2015; Žižek, 2005) become crucial. Ranciére (2012, 2015) continually disrupts the stance of theoretical elitism speaking for the masses and of the masses. He elaborates on moments of political subjectification when the excluded make their claim to speak for themselves and to change the global perspective of social space (Žižek, 2012). Human rights literacies research, with its inclusive and holistic approaches, should also take note of the recent aversion and resistance scholars’ notions of theory as oppressive.

6.2  T  he Thing About Theory: Production, Consumption, Aversion and Resistance Al Daraweesh and Snauwaert (2015) pose that human rights education lacks a theoretical framework. There is however a recent scepticism regarding theories of human rights (Baxi, 2007). Baxi (2007, p.  1) describes this as “distinctive forms of human rights weariness and wariness”. Weariness he equates to moral fatigue with human rights logics and languages, and wariness he relates to contemporary politics of and for human rights. As a result, he argues, there are theory aversion and theory resistance notable in scholarly work on human rights. Theory aversion crystallises within the Enlightenment humanist project while theory resistance (which may also be understood as resistance theory) goes against the Enlightenment humanist project (Baxi, 2007, p. 3). Many human rights activists, taking a theory aversion stance, argue that what matters is good practice and not good theory (Baxi, 2007). They argue that theory mystifies human rights, it distracts from tasks at hand, that theory addiction paralyses solidarity action and masks hegemonic imperialist, racist, patriarchal, homophobic, disability and class exploitive discourses (Baxi, 2007). In the production of theory, Baxi (2007) poses, there are four elements which need to be explored in order to engage with theory aversion and theory resistance. Firstly, the domain of theory in social sciences is contested. The domains of the

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p­ re-­theoretical and a-theoretical are continually questioned because the observations and methods in research remain theory laden and mediated by language (Baxi, 2007). Secondly, theory generation is a labouring practice generating many social hierarchies of income, esteem and social power. Theory production is also a forming practice bringing forth many kinds of heterogenous organising principles (Baxi, 2007). Thirdly, forming practices such as theory production remain internally diverse and stratified. It remains the function of “globally unequal distribution of opportunities and resources and [is] characterised by class, race and gender bias” (Baxi, 2007, p. 4). Fourthly, theory is consumed by either voluntary (beneficiary) or involuntary (victim) types of consumers. Knowledge produced is codified and organised within a specific culture and within political and ideological locations. The influence of politics on theory production is managed and controlled through funding and the politics inherent to the funding of research and theory production (cf. Cohen et al., 2018, p. 85). The primary group of consumers of theory are found within the epistemic community themselves. Theory producers and consumers remain a highly selective group. The privileging of Western knowledge and epistemological frameworks has as consequence that experience-based knowledges and indigenous knowledges are regarded as lacking (Baxi, 2007, cf. Tascón & Ife, 2008, p. 307). Western privilege specifies ways in which knowledge is made and who is allowed to make that knowledge (Tascón & Ife, 2008, p. 307). For voluntary consumers of theory, knowledge products are put to use in order to advance their own life projects. Involuntary consumers of knowledge however soon find that theory-based knowledges, which include enlightenment humanist theories on gender, religion, culture, languages, class and ethnicity framed within ideologies and politics such as capitalism, neo-liberalism, nationalism and fundamentalism, are inscribed and imposed on them (Baxi, 2007, cf. Tascón & Ife, 2008). Scholars advocating for a “resistance to theory” and “resistance theories” argue that enlightenment humanist theories have oppressive characteristics (Baxi, 2007) and are used to control, through binaries, the world and the alienated other to which theory producers and consumers have no attachment (cf. Tascón & Ife, 2008, p. 309). A healthy scepticism, criticism and critique of human rights and human rights education theories as well as some distance from theory addiction (Baxi, 2007) are therefore crucial for the developing of human rights literacies research.

6.3  Posthumanism and Human Rights Literacies Baxi (2007) poses that the variegated discourses of the posthuman, (which human rights and human rights education theorists and scholars have bypassed in research), be put into conversation with human rights (and human rights education) to speak to the challenges and struggles specific to human rights in a posthuman world. Posthumanism builds on the epistemological and political foundations of anti-­ humanism, post-colonialism, anti-racism and material feminisms (Zembylas &

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Bozalek, 2014). It can be considered as a “resistance theory” framework (cf. Baxi, 2007). The posthuman turn rejects the liberal humanist subject and proposes an ontological relationship that emphasises the interconnections of self with others and a view of a subject as a dynamic non-unitary entity. Critical posthumanism claims that all knowledge is embodied, political, partial, situated and accountable. Most importantly, critical posthumanism rejects the hierarchical dualisms articulated by Cartesian objectivism, which differentiates mind from body or matter and human from nature (Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014). The aim of posthumanism is to transcend binaries by focusing on the production of difference and multiplicity (Postma, 2016). It therefore differs from critical theories in its approach to social justice by not exclusively focussing on marginalised groups or the excluded, but also includes the dominant. It aims to collapse binaries in human rights, human rights education and research. Power, the disruption of power and the enabling of power are viewed differently from within critical and posthumanist perspectives. Where the purpose of critical theories is to interrupt the reproduction of forms of domination and to question the basis on which (in)equalities are established, a posthuman approach in contrast, is characterised by the way it draws on positive and inclusive notions of power through which reality could be enacted differently (Postma, 2016). While posthumanism decentres the human, the posthuman subject is not powerless. The transformative power of posthuman subjectivity is not to be found in notions of a centred rational and emancipated subject but rather in “the capacity to be affected and to affect others” (Postman, 2016, p.  312). Social justice is not claimed or given, it is integral to empowerment with others and through others in becoming. The use of the term subjectivity instead of subject in posthumanism represents a shift from the centred and unified subject in liberal and humanist views to relational processes of subjectification and subjectivity (Postma, 2016; cf. Becker, this volume, Chap. 2). If human rights literacies research aims to collapse binaries towards the subjectification and subjectivity of the subject of rights in becoming, a posthumanist approach might answer to many of these challenges. The quest to provide a bottom­up approach grounded in material reality might furthermore find some help from posthumanist approaches, processes, methodologies and methods of analysis. Barad (2003) reminds us of Nietzsche’s warning that we determine our understanding of the world through linguistic structures. The representational privilege of the power of words to represent pre-existing phenomena is challenged by posthumanism through a performative understanding of discursive practices in methodologies and processes (Barad, 2003). Recently, scholars such as Zembylas and Bozalek (2014), Mazzei (2014), Jackson and Mazzei (2012) and Barad (2003, 2007) have questioned epistemological practices of reflexivity grounded in representationalism. They propose methodological processes and practices such as “plugging in” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) and diffraction (Barad, 2007; Mazzei, 2014) as alternatives to reflexivity and critical reflection. They argue that reflexivity remains caught up in sameness (e.g. coding) because of its mirroring and fixed positions (which, we suggest, leads to the imprisoned nature of human rights education and human rights

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education research) whereas diffraction is marked by patterns of difference and its possibilities for knowledge-making practices (Mazzei, 2014; Murris, 2017; Zembylas & Bozalek, 2014). In disrupting liberal humanist identity work centring and stabilising the subject, Jackson and Mazzei (2012) use “plugging in” to emphasise difference within data and theory. They plug theory into data and data into theory in a process to constitute “multiplicity, ambiguity and subjectivity” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. 10). Voice in this process becomes productive of meaning (ibid.). The process of plugging in works with unstable subjects and concepts-on-the-move which intervene to diffract and not foreclose thought (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). Becker (2017a) gives an example of how the methodological approach of plugging in is a “continuous process of making and unmaking theory and data” (Becker, 2017a, p. 50; Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). She explains the three steps required as firstly, putting philosophical and theoretical concepts to work, secondly, determining analytical questions possible within a theoretical concept and thirdly, working data chunks towards a suppleness of meaning (ibid.). In reference to Haraway, Barad (2007, p. 91) pose that diffraction is “a critical practice for making a difference in the world”. It is a practice of engagement and not representation. Barad (2007, pp. 89–90) distinguishes between reflection and diffraction. For her, reflection reflects the themes of mirroring and sameness (coding) while diffraction marks differences from within, as part of an entangled state. Knowing is never done in isolation but by different forces coming together. A diffractive process is thus reading data with theoretical concepts (and possibly multiple other concepts) to produce an emerging and unpredictable series of reading data with theory and theory with data (Mazzei, 2014). This has as consequence possibilities of opening up the entangled nature of the material and the discursive which is crucial in research on human rights education and human rights literacies. Diffraction is premised on the entangled ontology of material-discursive phenomena which imply a “onto-epistem-ology” holding that knowing is a material practice of engagement as part of the world in its differential becoming (Barad, 2007, p. 89). Within this approach ethics, ontology and epistemology are not separable but an “ethico-onto-epistem-ology”. Knowing, thinking, measuring, theorising and observing are material practices of intra-acting in, and as part of the world. Knowing, for example, human rights involves “specific material engagements that participate in the (re)configuring of the world” (Barad, 2007, p. 91).

7  Conclusion In this chapter we aimed to put forward some proposals for human rights literacies research which focus on a re-envisaged approach to research on teaching and learning human rights. We pose that a bottom-up approach—in contrast to the top-down approach followed in current human rights education programmes and research— should focus on a holistic view of closing the binaries between oppressor and

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oppressed, North/South, developing/developed countries and the Western epistemological and ontological divisive premise of human rights reflected in the global/local controversies of inclusions and exclusions. We argue that the assumptions that human rights and human rights education discourses are inherently emancipatory, that education is intrinsically empowering, and that states and international powers employ human rights to transform societies and liberate peoples, mask the fact that states and international powers continually use human rights languages and discourses to entrench power (Ahmed, 2017). We argued for a shift in research towards the subjectification of subjects in becoming and the relational aspects of human rights (educational relations as well as the relation with subject matter) closing the gap between human rights ideals and lived realities in place-space-time. We strongly argued for a disruption of assumptions that the ideals of human rights codified in human rights education programmes automatically enact emancipation and transformation. Ahmed (2017) in reference to the recent student movements in South Africa (Becker, 2017a, 2017b; Du Preez, Simmonds, & Chetty, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2017) and the “Penguin Revolution” in Chile (O’Malley & Nelson, 2013; Salinas & Fraser, 2012) offer examples of the bottom-up disruption of such assumptions. He proposes an approach to human rights education premised on disruption and sovereignty which he coins as “human rights education as disruption” (cf. Ahmed, 2017). Human rights education as sovereign acknowledges that states entrench power by using human rights language (ibid.). Human rights as disruption aims to generate awareness of human rights to agitate for the disruption of state power (ibid.). We argue that post-colonial theories and methodologies, critical theories and methodologies and posthumanist methodologies can all be beneficial in this regard.

References Ahmed, A. K. (2017). Disrupting power/entrenching sovereignty: The paradox of human rights education. Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 4(1–2), 3–16. Al Daraweesh, F., & Snauwaert, D. T. (2015). Human rights education beyond universalism and relativism. A relational hermeneutic for global justice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Appiah, K. A. (2005). The ethics of identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Aubrecht, K. (2010). Rereading the Ontario review of the roots of youth violence report: The relevance of Fanon for a critical disability studies perspective. In G. J. Defa Dei & M. Simmons (Eds.), Fanon and education. Thinking through pedagogical possibilities (pp.  55–78). New York: Lang Publication. Azoulay, A. (2014). Palestine as symptom, Palestine as hope: Revising human rights discourse. Critical Inquiry, 40(4), 332–364. Retrieved January 20, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1086/676411 Bajaj, M. (2011). Human rights education: Ideology, location, and approaches. Human Rights Quarterly, 33, 481–580. Bajaj, M., & Bartlett, L. (2017). Critical transnational curriculum for immigrant and refugee students. Curriculum Inquiry, 47(1), 25–35. Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs, 28(3), 801–831 Gender and Science: New Issues.

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Yeminici, A. (2016). Peace education: Training for an evolved consciousness of non-violence. All Azimuth, 5(1), 5–25. Zajda, J., & Ozdowski, S. (2017). Globalisation and human rights education: Emerging issues. In J.  Zajda & S.  Ozdowski (Eds.), Globalisation, human rights education and reforms (pp. 87–109). Dordrecht: Springer. Zembylas, M. (2017a). Re-contextualising human rights education: Some decolonial strategies and pedagogical/curricular possibilities. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 25(4), 1–13. Zembylas, M. (2017b). Re-contextualising human rights education: Some decolonial strategies and pedagogical/curricular possibilities. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 25(4), 487–499. Retrieved April 06, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2017.1281834 Zembylas, M., & Bozalek, V. (2014). A critical engagement with the social and political consequences of human rights: The contribution of the affective turn and posthumanism. Acta Academica, 46(4), 29–47. Zembylas, M., Charalambous, P., Charalambous, C., & Lestos, S. (2016). Toward a critical hermeneutical approach of human rights education: Universal ideals, contextual realities and teachers’ difficulties. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49(4), 497–517. Žižek, S. (2005). Against human rights. New Left Review, 34, 115–131. Žižek, S. (2009). First as tragedy, then as farce. London: Verso. Žižek, S. (2012). The lesson of Ranciére. Afterword in Ranciére: The politics of aesthetics. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Žižek, S. (2014). Trouble in Paradise. From the end of history to the end of capitalism. London: Penguin. Anne Becker  is a Research Fellow in Human Rights Education and Philosophy in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Cornelia Roux  is an Extraordinary Professor in Human Rights Education and Curriculum Studies in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Part II

Possibilities and Probabilities

Subjects and Failed Subjects in Place-Space-­ Time: The Quest for Meaning Cornelia Roux and Anne Becker

Contents 1  2  3  4  5  6  7 

Introduction Making Meaning of Human Rights in Everyday Life Human Rights in Place-Space-Time and Everyday Life Subjects and Failed Subjects in Linear Place-Space-Time The Initiative in a Quest for Meaning in Human Rights Literacies The Research Project: Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) Outline of the Research Processes (2012–2014 and 2015–2016) 7.1  Phase One (2012–2014) 7.2  Phase Two (2015–2016) 8  Conclusion: Human Rights Literacies Across Global and Local Linear Place-SpaceTime 9  Note References

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Abstract  In this introduction to Part II, we explain how the continual (re)structuring of difference and diversity in categories of subjects and failed subjects in linear place-space-time influenced the why and the how of a NRF project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, http://hrlit.org/documents, 2012) (Funded research projects of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa.). In our understanding of linear place-space-time, the focus is on Lefebvre’s (Rhythmanalysis. Space, time and everyday life, 2013) notion of linear time (space) as repetitive social practices in difference. We argue that the repetitive nature of social practices, actions, structures and systems, concerning human rights, crystallise differently in everyday life and influence meaning making of human rights within diverse contexts. Humans move in, across and through linear place-space-­ time as they make meaning of human rights in everyday life. Similarly, human rights, as a social practice, and the social practices and processes of human rights, move in, through and across diverse linear place-space-time. These continual

C. Roux (*) · A. Becker Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_5

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i­nteractions and movements aid meaning making and the structuring of human rights literacies. The research project on human rights literacies commenced in April 2012 as a national funded project and concluded as an international survey (2015) in linear place-space-time through five countries (The final analyses of the survey data and the dissemination of the project ended in November 2016. The collaborators in the Netherlands conducted an extra focus group discussion in April 2017 to clarify some contextual issues.). The complexities of diverse countries, the cultural and contextual mappings of the different research sites and the voluntary participants were significant for the research team’s crystallisation of the data and conceptualisation of contextual human rights literacies.

1  Introduction Dolan, Gundara, and King (2011) pose that one of the biggest challenges to human rights education and human rights education research is to bridge the gap between international ideals, instruments and recommendations regarding human rights and the political and social realities experienced in different parts of the world. In similar vein, Al-Daraweesh and Snauwaert (2013) pose that human rights education faces a number of challenges specifically in regard to the gap between the human condition and the ideals of human rights, and in regard to the use of one conception of human rights as representative of all traditions and cultures. The assumption that a universal (liberal western) conception of human rights fits all cultures and traditions, has, as consequence, a lack of recognition for diverse and different cultures and a delegitimisation of human rights and human rights education (ibid.). These challenges have a detrimental effect on the framing of difference and diversity in human rights education and research. The challenges of difference and diversity are challenges which human rights and specifically human rights education need to address (Dolan et al., 2011). This is especially relevant in cases where “difference has become construed as a deficit” (Dolan et al., 2011, p. 14) and, based on this, subjects and failed subjects of rights are continually (re)structured (Kapur, 2014). If human rights literacies research wants to (re)frame difference and diversity in human rights and human rights education, it needs to account for the influence of intersecting place-space-time in which teachers, children, learners, lecturers and students, in their difference and diversity, make meaning of human rights in everyday life. In researching how difference and diversity crystallise in meaning making of human rights and how that should inform human rights education and literacies, simplistic and deterministic frameworks are not adequate. The intersections of global and local place-space-time in meaning making are extremely complex and multi-layered and the mediational nature of place-space-time play a significant role in the structuring of human rights literacies as the nexus between human rights and human rights education.

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In introducing part II of this book we explain how place-space-time and the continual (re)structuring of difference and diversity as pre-existing subjects and failed subjects influenced the why and the how of the NRF project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, 2012a). There was a dual trajectory in the development of the project. The first phase of the project wanted to explore new understandings and insights into the dichotomy between human rights and human rights education and how this dichotomy influences human rights meanings and literacies (2012–2014). The second phase developed from the crystallisation of the South African data in the first phase which stretched the research paradigm by extending it outwards into an international linear survey within diverse contexts (2015–2016). In our understanding of linear place-space-time through which we steered this project, the focus is on Lefebvre’s (2013) notion of linear time as repetitive social practices and human activities in everyday life. For Lefebvre (2013, p. 7) repetition gives birth to difference; it produces difference. We argue that the repetitive nature of social practices, actions, structures and systems, concerning human rights, crystallise differently in everyday life and meaning making of human rights within diverse contexts.

2  Making Meaning of Human Rights in Everyday Life Globally, people make meaning of international human rights declarations, frameworks, structures and systems through everyday life experiences in a diversity of local contexts. The grappling with perceived ethico-political, ontological and epistemological dualisms regarding understandings of everyday life within diverse contexts and realities mainly concern difficulties and questions of knowing or representing everyday life through critical interpretive strategies (Gardiner, 2004, p. 231). Studies in everyday life have been polarised between two approaches: the first approach focusses on the critique of alienation within everyday life. This approach is referred to as the critical-dialectic approach and is closely aligned to neo-Marxist cultural and social criticisms. The second is a mainly academic approach working towards the countering of the overly abstract and deterministic views of everyday life in order to better understand the realm of lived experiences (Gardiner, 2004, p. 231). In a quest to make meaning of the existing gap between human rights and human rights education, and lived, everyday realities of people in diverse contexts, we argue that human rights literacies should be explored through both approaches. Such an exploration should focus on the continual alienation in everyday life of failed subjects and should continually counter an overly deterministic, abstract focus on issues of the (non)realisation of human rights in the political and social realities of everyday life within diverse contexts. We argue that people make meaning of human rights in their everyday life through and within the interconnectedness to and in their unique place-space-time. Through the mediational and shifting nature of, and in unique place-space-time,

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humans continually make meaning of rights, structure the subjects and failed subjects of rights and resist the (non)realisation of human rights through human rights literacies.

3  Human Rights in Place-Space-Time and Everyday Life How everyday life is constituted in place-space-time is a complex, multi-layered and interrelated process. In terms of place-space-time there are three aspects of importance. Firstly, place-space-time should be thought together. Secondly, the interrelated nature of place-space-time is characterised by continual movement and human interaction. Humans move in, across and through place-space-time as they make meaning of human rights in everyday life. Thirdly, human rights, as a social practice, and the social practices and processes of human rights, similarly move in, through and across diverse global and local place-space-time. There are intersecting global and local movements, and interaction between human rights as a social practice and the social practices of human rights in diverse contexts. The rhythmic interaction between human rights as social practice and humans making meaning of human rights through human rights rituals, processes, interactions and practices happen through continual movements of repetition in difference. Understanding repetition in difference in, through and across linear place-space-time is crucial to the disruption of the assumption that universal human rights can be domesticated through a top-down approach to fit any context. In what follows we explain notions of place-space-time in order to unpack the importance of acknowledging how difference and diversity in place-space-time mediate meaning making of human rights and structure subjects and failed subjects in everyday life. Although space and place are often used interchangeably, there are distinctions between place and space. Everyday life, for example, is anchored in geographically and specific place. Place, geographically speaking, indicates a bounded area or can also indicate a system of places. Place also gives an indication of human interaction and movement in space (Hawkins, 2014, p. 94). Place is often incorporated in discourses on how humans in the globalised twenty-first century move across space and time. The concept space, on the other hand, is used as an entity indicating relational places and the movement and flow of places. People continuously move in and across places, spaces and time (Hawkins, 2014, p. 93). In exploring meaning making of human rights in everyday life through place and space the notion of movement and how the movement in, across and out of place and space mediate meaning making, is therefore paramount. The nature and features of places, and the movement across and in places and spaces, influence what is and can be learned within specific places and spaces about human rights (cf. Hawkins, 2014, p. 91). Time and space are commonly defined as given, distinct and separate substances but should, in fact, be thought together within the comprehension of everyday life (Lefebvre, 2013). The relation of time (cyclical time) and space (linear time) is structured through continuous reciprocal rhythmic action (Lefebvre, 2013, p.  8).

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Movement in, across and through space happens through and in the interaction between cyclic and linear time constituting repetition and difference. Lefebvre (2013) explains the reciprocal relation between time and space as constituted within cyclical and linear repetitions in difference. Repetition in everyday life is distinguished, for analytical purposes, into cyclical (cosmic) and linear repetitions (social actions and practices). Cyclical repetitions originate in the cosmos; day, night, seasons and waves, for example (Lefebvre, 2013). Linear repetitions have to do with social practices and human activity, actions, movements and structures repeated in everyday life. Cyclical and linear repetitions are interconnected and through this relation the measure and rhythm of time is constituted in difference. The continual repetitions in difference do not only point to the diversity and difference of the human condition but everything in everyday life is constituted by repetitions in difference through cyclic and linear place-­ space-­time (Lefebvre, 2013). Repetition can only happen in difference. Absolute repetition, Lefebvre (2013, p. 7) argues, is “a fiction of logical and mathematical thought.” Difference is immediate in every repetition. Lefebvre (2013) poses that if, for example, A is repeated, A already differs from the first A, because it is the second A (ibid.). In terms of universal human rights declarations, practices and processes, the global repetition thereof in local contexts will always manifest itself differently across diverse linear place-space-time. Repetitions of human rights declarations, structures, systems, rituals, practices and processes crystallise differently in social interactions and human activity across diverse linear place-space-time. The complexity of diversity and difference in intersecting global and local place-space-time, in terms of making meaning of human rights, is thus far more than assumptions that minor shifts in universal notions of human rights should fit different and diverse traditions and cultures. Place, the movement in, across and through place, and the mediational nature of place, when it intersects with space and time, continually repeat human rights as a social practice and the social practices of human rights in difference. This continual movement and interaction influences meaning making of human rights in everyday life across global and local contexts. Logically, difference in repetition also crystallised in the research project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, 2012a). Although the survey questions were the same (repetition) across all six contexts (place-space-time) in the second, international phase, and covered mostly universal notions of human rights, both questions and answer choices were different and differently repeated and understood across linear place-space-time by participants in their unique contexts. This was already evident from the first, South African, phase. South Africa, is a developing democracy1 and post-colonial and post-apartheid nation. It is a country characterised by complex layers of difference and diversity in languages, races, ethnicities, cultures, religions and class inequality. South Africa  South Africa is a democratic state but it sometimes referred to as a developing democracy (cf. https://www.google.co.za/search?q=developing+democracy&rlz=1C1CHBF_enZA741ZA742&o q=developing+democracy&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.770j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). 1

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furthermore displays great diversity in places and movement in and through place-­ space-­time. Diverse meaning making in place-space-time in South Africa concerns rural, semi-rural, urban and metropolitan areas characterised by intersecting class, ethnicity, race, language and religious-social practices, movements, structures and human activities. Even if human rights rituals, processes and practices are repeated within the geographical borders of South Africa, such repetitions crystallise differently in place-space-time and this influenced meaning making across the six sites where data were collected during the first phase. After an extensive exploration of human rights literacies in South Africa, the project explored meaning making of universal human rights concepts, values and constructs as they crystallised in place-space-time of five diverse international contexts. The aim was not to execute a comparative study but on exploring meaning making in different and diverse contexts, each with its own rhythm of human activities, human rights processes and human rights structures in linear repetition and difference.

4  Subjects and Failed Subjects in Linear Place-Space-Time One of the consequences of not meeting the challenges which diversity and difference present for human rights and human rights education is the global reality of inequality, exclusion and marginalisation (Dolan et al., 2011, p. 15). This presents a threat to all social systems, as exclusion is a result of, and leads to the negation of human rights and increasing global and local social injustice (ibid.). The discursive content of the concepts, subjects and failed subjects of rights, are shifting and continually (re)structured in and through human rights discourses in global and local place-space-time. The illusion that the human in human rights refers to the “all members of the human family” (UDHR, 1948), has already been unpacked in chapter two. ‘Failed subjects’ (cf. Kapur, 2014, p. 27) remain and are continually (re)framed as the not-humans who fall outside the global and local in(ex)clusionary sphere of human rights. Failed subjects, whose differences are framed as a deficit, include subjects such as the non-European (sic), non-Western, non-white, women and members of the LGBTIAQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual, Queer and other sexual orientations and gender identities) communities. There are numerous discursive lines presenting possibilities through which the alienated failed subject could strive for inclusion into the human rights sphere within global place-space-time. The illusion of the good life which is characterised by freedom and happiness is presented as some of the benefits when the failed subject assimilates and moves towards the ideals of the liberal humanist pre-given subject of rights (cf. Kapur, 2014, p. 25). The concept of a good life is linked to optimism and structural transformation (Cefai, 2018, p. 126), freedom and progress (Kapur, 2014, p.  27) and capitalist notions of happiness, as the desired consequences of human rights (Cefai, 2018; Kapur, 2014). In assimilating singular and collective

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local place-space-time into global place-space-time, the failed subjects of rights can also have a good life characterised by freedom, happiness, prosperity and progress. The reality is however that the everyday experiences of failed subjects do not include narratives of transformation, happiness, freedom, progress and capitalist middleand upper-class prosperity. Coercive assimilation of failed subjects is one of the symptoms of the shift in human rights towards the ethical and humanitarian, since the 1970s. The failed subject remains in(ex)cluded in the ethical “equality for all” (Ranciere, 2015, p. 192). This is contradicted by data from the first (South African) phase of the project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, 2012a), pointing to the inability of the South African Bill of Rights (1996a) to address social injustice, either legally or ethically. The explorations in the South African contexts of the continual in(ex)clusions of failed subjects by means of racism, ethnicity, gender othering, classism, language, religion and culture, in curriculum and education, all point to persistent patterns of exclusions and human rights violations (Becker, 2017; Becker, De Wet, & Parker, 2014; Becker, De Wet, & Van Vollenhoven, 2015; De Wet, Rothman, & Simmonds, 2016; Du Preez & Becker, 2016; Rothmann & Simmonds, 2015; Roux & Becker, 2016). Du Preez, Simmonds, and Roux (2012) questioned whether in creating a human rights culture in teaching-learning and in the curriculum, human rights education should focus on an inclusive moral perspective rather than a legal perspective on human rights. They, however, concluded that the moral and legal perspectives are two sides of the same coin needed by teachers and students as they face the challenges of the (non)realisation of human rights in everyday life (ibid.). In the South African context, for example, with its diverse and multi-layered ethnic and economic contexts, failed subjects and the resulting conflict remains a reality in everyday life, regardless of the values stipulated in the South African Constitution (1996b) and Bill of Rights (1996a). The role of human rights education in specifically multi-religious and multi-­ cultural contexts remain socially contested. Data from various previous projects undertaken by the research team explored issues regarding human rights and human rights education in multi-religious and multi-cultural contexts: 2004–2009, on intercultural and interreligious dialogue (Roux, Du Preez, & Ferguson, 2009), and in 2010–2012 (Roux et al., 2013) on human rights issues concerning religious and cultural practices (Roux, 2012b). Data from these projects indicated that there was/is a dire need for defining specific goals and approaches to explore the complex make-up of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural developing democracies linked to post-colonial histories and social inequalities. Specific approaches are necessary to understand how, within specific linear place-space-time meaning making of human rights is mediated and the (non)realisation of rights is addressed. MacNaughton and Koutsioumpas (2017, p. 15) stated that although human rights and human rights education scholars and practitioners were mainly unsuccessful in securing human rights-based approaches, there are globally promising d­ evelopments, such as the announcement of the “post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) which establish the 2013–2016 agenda.”

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Since 2012, however, scholars such as Du Preez and Becker (2016), Du Preez et al. (2012), Keet (2012, 2015), Tibbitts (2017), Zembylas and Bozalek (2014), and Zembylas (2015, 2017) have extensively critiqued human rights education for its uncritical and declarationist approach to human rights and human rights education. They questioned the programmes, practices and pedagogies of human rights education in this regard. We concur with Tibbitts (2002, 2017) and Keet (2012, 2015) that the only focus in human rights education cannot be the disseminating of human rights content. We also argue that knowledge of human rights declarations and legislation alone cannot define literacy. We rather would like to broaden our scope and understanding of literacies by focussing on the consequences of the gap between human rights declarations and legislation and lived everyday realities in place-space-time (Becker, 2017; Roux & Becker, 2015, 2017; Simmonds, 2014). At the commencement of the project in 2012 we supported Lohrenscheit’s (2002, p. 176) definition of human rights education as involving “… knowledge and cognitive skills and the understanding and positive valuing of human rights.”

5  T  he Initiative in a Quest for Meaning in Human Rights Literacies Although we regard human rights education as an “important part of creating a sustainable environment for human rights” (Roux & Du Preez, 2013), various research, reports and personal experiences (Roux, 2010; Roux & Du Preez, 2013; Simmonds, 2010, 2014) in education environments in primary, secondary and higher education, have since 2008 indicated a lack of knowledge and understanding of human rights in basic and tertiary education (Becker, 2017; Roux, 2017; Simmonds, 2010, 2014; Tibbitts & Keet, 2017). Lack of knowledge of human rights perpetuate the (re)structuring of failed subjects, exclusion and marginalisation in global and local placespace-time. As researchers in human rights education, we were also aware that the sustainability of human rights education, especially in developing democracies and post-colonial conflict societies, might increasingly be at risk. We wanted to explore how the movement in place-space-time influences meaning making of human rights and enable the structuring of contextual human rights literacies. As to the lack of knowledge of human rights, this, in our view, firstly necessitates a focus on teacher education (the target group) in an attempt to understand why there is a lack of knowledge making, skills and attitudes, and following from that, no understanding of the marginalising processes and consequences of human rights within everyday life (cf. Simmonds, 2010). Our focus was to explore the reasons for such superficial content knowledge and perceptions of human rights among educators, teachers and students. This, in the South African context, is despite the fact that the post-apartheid curriculum is premised on the Constitution of South Africa (1996b) and human rights education has since 2003 been included in Life Orientation as subject in the curriculum.

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Secondly, we focus on exploring possibilities and examples of how knowledges, contexts, meaning making and applications of human rights influence internalisation of human rights by individuals, communities, societies or nations. This, we argue, requires intensive research. We question whether human rights, as outlined in the United Nations’ declarations (1948), could be regarded as a universal moral code and application. Related to this is the questioning of the assumption that education programmes and modules in or on human rights will educate individuals or communities to act upon these rights, in formal and/or informal education settings. We agree with the Secretary-General of the UN when he, during the announcement of the Roadmap for the implementation of the Millennium Goals (2001) indicated that there is a continuous need to reassess the meaning and implementation of human rights in general and in applications of human rights education in particular (Du Preez & Roux, 2010; Zembylas, 2017).

6  T  he Research Project: Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) The research project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, 2012a)2 emerged from the research team’s experiences and outputs of previous research studies on human rights education focussing on social justice issues in intercultural and interreligious teaching-learning and curriculum making. Previous research projects focused on discourses regarding the normative premise of human rights education and the notion that in diverse social and education environments common denominators such as human rights values might overcome conflict in South African society, skewed by previous political dispensations and with a history of violating human rights. The project consisted of two phases. Phase one (2012–2014) commenced in April 2012 and was initiated in South African higher education contexts. The second phase (2015–2016) commenced in March 2015 and included different countries and was developed after the crystallisation of the 2013–2014 data. In August 2014, and with the support of an international collaborator, the 2013 survey data and related survey questions (Survey2013) were re-assessed and the second phase was finalised in February 2015. In collaboration with, and because of the interest of colleagues from four countries, a follow-up survey (Survey2015) in the human rights literacy project resulted in a second phase (May–November 2015). Final dissemination and crystallisation of data of the project was completed in November 2016. The research team in phase one consisted of four academics (senior researchers), three post-doctoral fellows, five post-graduate students, and two academics at

 The research project was in collaboration with the selected South African universities (2012– 2014) and international universities (2015–2016). 2

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c­ ollaborating South African universities. The research team in phase two involved 10 academics (7 senior and 3 junior researchers) and five post-doctoral fellows from South Africa [3], India [1] and Israel [1]. The research team are scholars in human rights education, peace education, education law, sociology, social sciences, curriculum studies and teacher training. The overall aim of the research project was to study the knowledge field of human rights education in teacher education at selected South African faculties of education. This research explored fundamentals to determine what human rights literacies entail and how they can establish and develop improved transformative curriculum and teaching-learning approaches in the South African context. The rationale of the project wanted to explore the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies, through a rhizomatic research paradigm based in grounded theory methodologies (Roux, 2012a; Roux & Du Preez, 2013). The rhizomatic research paradigm with grounded theory methodologies fitted the complexity of the research aim and rationale. The South African research team were experienced in autoethnographic, ethnography, intersectionality and feminist research and selected a paradigm that offers possibilities to “elaborate on the rhizome as a metaphor for postmodern knowledge, as opposed to the tree as a modernist model of knowledge” (Roux & Du Preez, 2013). According to Guerin (2013, p.  138) “flexibility and fluidity, through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1980/1988) model of the rhizome … provide the principles of connection, heterogeneity, and multiplicity encountered in today’s rhizomatic academic networks” (Guerin, 2013, p. 138; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987 in Lather, 2007). Lather (2007) describes the rhizome as a metaphor for postmodern epistemology. She poses that “… [r]hizomes are systems with underground stems and aerial roots, whose fruits are tubers and bulbs.” Rhizomes represent a nexus with “an open trajectory of loose and resonating aggregates” (Lather, 2007, p. 93) that suggests a “… journey among intersections, nodes, and regionalizations through a multicentered complexity” (Lather, 2007, p. 124). The rhizomatic research paradigm creates a research space to valorise difference, diversity, pluralism, uniqueness and subjectivity. It opens possibilities to explore the importance of temporality and context in understanding meaning (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018, p. 24). Meaning, within a rhizomatic research paradigm is understood as embedded in time, space, cultures, societies and are not universal across contexts. This supported our search for meaning in diverse place-space-time contexts. Grounded theory was utilised in the research as a qualitative research methodology “in which substantive theory is derived through an ongoing process of continually reviewing the data, refining questions and re-evaluating these changes” (Jacelon & O’Dell, 2005, p. 4). Grounded theory, as it arises from quantitative research, does not preclude quantitative methods. It does however differ from quantitative and positivistic research in the way in which it views theory. In grounded theory, theory does not pre-exist and data are not forced to fit pre-existing theory (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 714). Developing theory from data in grounded theory supports the collection of rich data that could influence directions in the quest for meaning of human rights

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l­iteracies (Roux & Du Preez, 2013). The range of possibilities when reflecting on theory and diverse data, collected through various methods, also motivated the reasons for utilising grounded theory as: (i) Grounded theory seems to optimize the possibilities and outcomes to develop the knowledge construction and knowledge field on human rights literacy. It is also an appropriate design to answer the proposed research question of the project. (ii) Research in the five different identified areas of gender issues, human rights values, social justice, socio-cultural contexts and curriculum development and implementations was conducted simultaneously. The point of departure was the topic that develops with a historical literature review into the research question and hypothesis feeding into the conceptual framework, which gave structure to the data collection. At that point theory was generated from the different methods applied in the rhizomatic research paradigm. The researchers’ specialisation enhances the analyses of the collected data and improves the outcomes of the research question on knowledge development of human rights literacy especially for teacher training at faculties of education (Roux & Du Preez, 2013). One of the most rewarding processes of the rhizome was the flexibility and the possibilities to re-assess knowledge and data. We did not deal with predicable contexts, because as Guerin (2013, p. 146) argues we could not move knowledge to a “single endpoint of truth” in the “quest for fixed either/or answers to the field’s questions.” This requires, in the views of Guerin (2013), the re-assessment of new knowledge, the approaching of unknown material, networking, collaborating and listening to the voices of the participants (either through the walk-abouts, surveys or focus group discussions). One of the consequences of this was that although the initial search was concerned with human rights literacy, we soon realised that within diverse place-space-time, there are several contextual human rights literacies. We also shifted our focus from a search for the ontology and epistemology of human rights literacy to ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies. The rhizome research culture gave us, as Guerin (2013, p. 146) argues, opportunities “to be in a state of constant learning, of being open to new knowledge, and capable of approaching unknown material.” By contrast, those working in rhizomatic research cultures need to be in a state of constant learning, of being open to new knowledge, and capable of approaching unknown material. They are networked and connected to others, attuned to working in collaborative, collegial ways. Their knowledge claims remain tentative in full awareness of the vast array of what might seep into their field of focus from surrounding research. This in turn encourages modesty and humility in what can be said; listening actively is valued, as is the capacity for flexibility and occupation of the space in between (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1988). Thus, the researcher inclines towards heterogeneity and multiplicity in the search for both/and answers (Guerin, 2013, p. 146).

The research team complied with the principles of a rhizomatic research paradigm by using multivocality supported by member reflections, to crystallise the data, Various methods, multiple data sources, forms of analysis and lenses, were

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used in order to explore complexities and multiple views (Becker et al., 2014), thus building a rich and openly partial account of a phenomenon that problematises its own construction (Ellingson, 2009, p. 4; Tracy, 2010, p. 843) and allowing a more complex and multi-layered understanding of human rights literacies to crystallise. The researchers employed reflective and reflexive practices and processes (Nicholls, 2009, p. 121) that contributed to crystallisation within an understanding that ‘knowledge is situated, partial, constructed, multiple and enmeshed in power relations’ (Ellingson, 2009, p. 1). Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches and different lenses, appropriate methods of analysis were used in order to explore complexities of intersections of race, class, gender, religion, culture and diverse ontologies and epistemologies of human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies across the data set. Data were analysed through the lenses of post-­ modernism, hermeneutics, critical theory, critical race theory, neo-Marxism, feminist theory, phenomenology and the appropriate methods of analysis such as discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, content analysis, reflective phenomenological analysis and plugging-in (Roux, Becker, & De Wet, 2016, p. 6). Using the data analysis tools of the SurveyMonkey website, quantitative data from the survey (Survey2013 [RSA2013] and Survey2015) were analysed by means of descriptive statistics. Frequency tables, means and standard deviations and charts were used to illustrate these findings. Researchers working on gender othering and marginalisation, for example, used sexual identity as reported by survey participants (S2013Q7_RSA) for comparisons (ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis) to explore possible differences in human rights experiences between different categories of sexual identity (De Wet et al., 2016; Roux et al., 2016). Jasper and Abs (this volume) used SPSS to analyse Pearson’s correlation (r) between student-teachers’ cultural identity and their human rights understandings. A mixed-method of qualitative and quantitative research was utilised to explore different possible routes to obtaining the data and executing the empirical research (cf. Merriam, 2002). When using both qualitative and quantitative methods there is, in literature, a distinction made between studies mixing methods of data collection and studies mixing methods of data analysis. In the project we used mixed methods of data collection and methods of data analysis (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 847). Initial data collection, during phase one, used qualitative methods, such as the walk-about to collect data. After an analysis of the initial qualitative data, the ­survey, consisting of quantitative and qualitative data questions were constructed. The data from the survey were crystallised and reflected upon during the focus group discussions. During the second phase the data collected from the first phase informed the survey which consisted of qualitative and quantitative questions and options. The data from the second phase were crystallised through focus group discussions (Israel and Netherlands),3 e-mail responses and through contexts (place-space-time) of the participating countries (cf. India, Israel and South Africa) and biographical data and context (cf. Germany).

 For reference purposes Netherlands will be used when in brackets instead of the Netherlands.

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7  O  utline of the Research Processes (2012–2014 and 2015–2016) As indicated before, the project consisted of two phases. Phase one (2012–2104) involved six faculties of education campuses of five South African universities. After the establishment of a democratic South Africa, many universities merged with higher education institutions separated previously by race and the policies on race in the previous apartheid regime. All teachers’ colleges merged with faculties of education at universities or universities of technology. This resulted in many universities having more than one campus situated in different towns or economic environments. The dominant languages on campus derives from the separate histories of the institutions. The diversity of race and ethnicities on the situated campuses and the demographic change of universities are still very slow after more than 20 years of democracy. In phase two (2015–2016) seven universities in Germany, India, Israel, Norway and South Africa, and one teacher education college in the Netherlands took part. The contextual mapping of the institutions was compiled by the different collaborators, linked to their institutions, in the project. The research initiative was executed with ethical clearance from the institutions securing voluntary participation and consent from the students. Researchers of phase one (South Africa) introduced the project’s aim, access to the on-line survey and the e-mail discussion group to prospective participants at all the sites, except in site 10 (India). The collaborator and post-doctoral fellow at site 10 took full responsibility for introducing the project and informing the participants of the time-line, the online link and voluntary e-mail discussion group. The research team had numerous Skype meetings to discuss research strategies and finalise data collections. Participating university campuses in the research project (phase one [2012– 2014] and phase two [2015–2016]) were contextualised as follows: Site Site 1

Site 2

Contextual mapping Metropolitan university since 2004 as a merger between two universities and a teacher training college. Students and lecturers (local and international) are from different races, ethnicities, cultures and religions. The dominant language of communication and teaching is English and isiZulu. Students originate from different economic classes (deep rural poor to middle and upper-class suburban incomes) Metropolitan university of technology (the largest in the region) and was merged with three teacher education colleges. The institution enrols students across five campuses and the official languages are Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa. This site is a campus in the city centre. Diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, dominant language (English and isiXhosa) and different economic classes from township and rural poor to suburban and metropolitan middle class

Country South Africa Phase one (2013–2014) Phase two (2015–2016) South Africa Phase one (2013–2014)

(continued)

114 Site Site 3

Site 4

Site 5

Site 6

Site 7

Site 8

Site 9

Site 10

Site 11

Site 12

Site 13

C. Roux and A. Becker Contextual mapping Semi-rural campus of a metropolitan university of technology (Site 2) and one of the campuses in a small town. The campus has diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, religions (dominant Christian) and dominant language (Afrikaans). The economic classes differ from poor rural environments and small town to middle and upper class Merged university of two universities, a university of technology and a teacher college. This is a campus of a semi-rural university with diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, dominant religion, dominant language (Afrikaans) and growing number of English-speaking students. Students are from deep rural, farm communities and metropolitan areas. Economic classes differ from poor rural to suburban middle and upper class Metropolitan campus of the merger with the semi-rural university (Site 4) with diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, dominant language (English). Economic classes differ from poor township and rural to suburban middle and upper class Deep-rural campus of the merger with the semi-rural university (Site 4) with a dominant race, few ethnicities, cultures, religions, dominant language (Setswana and English). Economic classes differ from very poor township and rural to suburban middle class Metropolitan university (merged with a deep rural university and teacher college). Students and staff are from diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, languages (Afrikaans & English) and economic classes from deep rural, township, middle and upper class. *Withdrew after walkabout in November 2012 Small town university with no merger but with four campuses related to students enrolled in medicine, economics (Business school), military and the main campus with different faculties. The university has two dominant races, few ethnicities and cultures. A dominant religion (Christian), languages (Afrikaans/English) and attracts many international students and researchers. The economic differences are vast. Students come from poor township and farming environments, but the majority are middle to upper-class income groups Metropolitan university (merged before) with diverse races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, dominant language (German) and different economic classes Metropolitan university with dominant race, different ethnicities, and cultures. Different castes and three main religions with a dominant language of teaching and communication (English). Students enrolled are from different economic classes Metropolitan university with dominant race, ethnicity, and culture, diverse religions, dominant language (Norwegian) and different economic classes (middle to upper-class) *Only one participant accesses the survey monkey online and the student’s information is not included in this book Metropolitan university with a dominant race, two dominant ethnicities and cultures, two diverse religions, dominant language (Hebrew) and different economic classes Teacher college in small city with dominant race, ethnicity, culture religion (Christian), language (Dutch) and mostly middle class

Country South Africa Phase one (2013–2014)

South Africa Phase one (2013–2014) Phase two (2015–2016)

South Africa Phase one (2013–2014) South Africa Phase one (2013–2014) South Africa Phase one (2012)

South Africa Phase two (2015–2016)

Germany Phase two (2015–2016) India Phase two (2015–2016) Norway Phase two (2015–2016)

Israel Phase two (2015–2016) Netherlands Phase two (2015–2016)

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Data collection methods and n = factors of the different phases: Phase One (2012–2014) • (i) Walk-about (Site: 4,6,7 [(n = 103]); (ii) Piloting (Site: 4 [n = 63]); (iii) Online survey4 (Site: 1–6 [n = 1192 1st and 4th year BEd students5 n = 1086]); (iv) Small focus group discussions (Site: 1–6 [n = 68]). Phase Two (2015–2016) • (i) On-line survey (Site: 1,4,8,9,10,11,12;13 [n  =  434 responded; 351 completed]); (ii) Focus group discussions (Site: 12,13 [n = 39]); (iii) Email feedbacks (Site: 1, 8, 10;12 [n = 12]).

7.1  Phase One (2012–2014) Phase one was only executed in South Africa. The research concentrated on five specialist areas of the South African researchers that could contribute to the development of the epistemologies and ontologies of human rights literacies. The predetermines were (i) gender issues, (ii) human rights values and social justice, (iii) socio-cultural contexts, and (iv) curriculum development and implementation. Each of these five identified areas could act as starting points to meaning making and to enhance possibilities for a theoretical underpinning for human rights literacies (Roux, 2012a; Roux et al., 2016). Phase One (2012–2013 data collection) (i) Walk-about (2012) used convenience sampling to probe under- and postgraduate students (from various faculties and disciplines), concerning their conceptions and understandings of human rights. Students were asked four questions. Questions asked were: (i) Whether they agree with human rights; (ii) What they thought the most important human right was; (iii) In what way they lived out human rights; (iv) What their conceptualisation of human rights were. Data were recorded by means of field notes on interview schedules, and data from these field notes were transcribed and organised into tables before analysis commenced (Becker et al., 2014). (ii) A self-constructed questionnaire (2012) was piloted among 63 BEd Honours students6 in 2012 at Site 4. The analysis of the walk-abouts (2012) at Sites  Although online surveys, as a data collection method, have many advantages, they also have disadvantages such as a possible low response rate, the risk of superficial answers and minimal responses, respondents quitting when they get tired and respondents may misunderstand the questions (Cohen et al., 2018, pp. 359–360). As is evident from the numbers, many respondents started, but did not complete the survey. The response rate was low during the second phase and there were some superficial answers in both phases. As English was a second or third language for many participants, language also played a role in their understanding of the questions in the survey. 5  Students enrolled for a degree in the education. 6  BEd Honours is a one-year post-graduate degree obtained after the four-year education BEd degree (BEd = Bachelor Educationus). 4

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4,5,7 were taken into consideration in compiling the questionnaire. The participants in the pilot were selected on the basis of convenience. Data were analysed and crystallised and after researchers’ reflections, the survey was completed (Becker et al., 2014). (iii) The online survey (2013) included structured multichoice questions with Likert scale options (quantitative data), open-ended questions and optional comment boxes (qualitative data). Not all the students were computer literate, resulting in some manual completion and manual capturing. By means of the seventy-four (74) questions, data were collected regarding (i) biographical information of participants; (ii) perceptions of human rights; (iii) gender, sexuality and human rights; (iv) human rights and society; (v) human rights constructs; (vi) human rights and religion; (vii) human rights and culture; (viii) human rights education; (ix) human rights in educational contexts and human rights education (focussing on basic education). (iv) Focus group discussions (2013) were introduced to crystallise the survey data and the ontological and epistemological understandings of participants (Roux & Du Preez, 2013). During the first focus group discussion only one question was posed to participants in order to crystallise ontological understandings: Do human rights exist? During the second focus group discussions, four different scenarios drafted by the research team sketched fictitious events in diverse socio-cultural, gender and religious contexts and human rights violations within educational contexts in order to crystallise ontological and epistemological understandings. In the discussions and in probing participants’ conceptions, fixed meanings and understandings on human rights were disrupted. These focus group discussions strengthened the rhizome to provide possibilities to re-­evaluate the literature, and the ontological and epistemological understandings of human rights literacies (2014). This developed continuously after the survey data were collected and analysed.

7.2  Phase Two (2015–2016) Phase two aimed to explore human rights literacies of students within diverse global contexts. Most of the students were enrolled in modules in human rights and/or human rights education and were therefore suited to provide information for the purpose of the research projects’ aims and outcomes. Although some of the participants did not have any content or module in human rights and/or human rights education as part of their curriculum, they were selected as their future professions will require them to engage with human rights issues and possible human rights violations. The international survey was finalised in collaboration with international partners to accommodate the complexities of diverse social environments. The second phase’s survey concentrated on only four predetermines: (i) gender, (ii) morals and values, (iii) social justice and (iv) socio-cultural contexts. The on-line survey opened on 5 May 2015 and closed on the 30 November 2015. The extended duration

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of the opened survey was related to the different academic calendars across the different sites. Phase two (2015 data collection) (i) The survey (Survey2015)  was reduced to 54 questions. Experiences of the researchers and dissemination of the data of the first phase (Survey2013) supported the choices and identified the gaps and issues where more data was required to present more clarity on specific issues and to determine basic knowledge construction on human rights literacies. Contextual questions specifically related to the social and cultural make-up of the South African society were excluded. In collaboration with one of the international collaborators the survey included notions which, in the first place, made it possible for participants in diverse place-space-time to relate to and answer the questions in difference. In the second instance it was important, during the second phase, to further crystallise data on the ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies and to include new concepts. (ii) There were two focus group discussions (sites 12 and 13) facilitated by the respective collaborators. A post-doctoral fellow (researcher) from the South African team was present at site 12 (Israel) initiating the focus group discussion in cooperation with the international collaborator. (iii) An open invitation to all survey participants to reflect by e-mail on the ontological stances of human rights by means of the same question posed during the first phase: Do human rights exist? did not get a big response. There was very little feedback to influence crystallisation of the second phase’s data (Roux et al., 2016).

8  C  onclusion: Human Rights Literacies Across Global and Local Linear Place-Space-Time Human rights and human rights education face many challenges today. The devastating repercussions of the inability to address issues of diversity and difference render both human rights and human rights education impotent. The lack of innovative ways to engage with difference and diversity is caused by several implicit and explicit fault lines in both human rights and human rights education. Many of these are related to the assumption that global human rights related interventions (such as human rights education) can address the material realities of the (non)realisation of human rights in everyday life in local contexts. This assumption holds that making meaning of human rights in diverse place-space-time contexts happen through globally presented declarations, processes, practices and structured human rights knowledges and discourses. The chapters in this part illustrate that although participants know human rights and know the ‘correct’ applications and processes of human rights, they make meaning of human rights in, through and across the specific linear place-space-time of their everyday context. And that often contradicts the ‘correct’

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application of human rights. The repetitive nature of global social practices and actions concerning human rights play out in difference in diverse place-space-time. Both linear surveys (2013 and 2015) had as purpose to explore ontologies and epistemologies of human rights literacies. Both surveys were based on international consensual human rights declarations, processes and practices. Most participants (in developing and developed countries)7 had varying degrees of knowledge about universal human rights, processes and practices. Participants, however, responded to the same survey questions (repetition) within their unique place-space-time (in difference). Within each context, every individual participant’s answer choices also differed in terms of their singular place-space-time material realities. The data across the five countries, therefore, displayed complex movements, layers and interactions across global and local linear place-space-time. The intersecting global and local movement and interaction between human rights as a social practice and the social practices of human rights in diverse contexts were specifically relevant in terms of global and local political and social upheavals and related narratives during the second phase survey timeline (May 2015–November 2015). In South Africa the socio-political dynamics changed dramatically between the two on-line surveys (2013 and 2015). Racial incidents and post-apartheid/post-colonial discourses and rows at institutions of higher education escalated on different levels and impacted on all levels of society (politics, society, media and education). These highly politicised narratives could also have impacted on participants’ answering of survey questions during the second phase (2015) (Becker, 2017; Pillay, 2015, p. 138; Roux, 2017). Global and local events such as (i) the violence experienced during the xenophobic attacks in South Africa, (ii) the #MustFall8 student protests emerging on South African higher education institutions and campuses during the second half of 2015, (iii) the migrant and refugee crisis evolving in Europe (May–October 2015) and the Middle East, and (iv) Israel and India both experiencing sporadically domestic sectarian violence and border clashes where issues of human rights violations were regularly reported on. The number of events unfolding in participating countries underlined the complexity of international research and, in particular, research searching for meaning and understanding regarding complex social phenomena and the lack of social ­justice across global and local contexts. The project aimed to search for meaning(s) of human rights literacies within and across diverse linear place-space-time con The term developed and developing is used to illustrate the economic position of the country. The definition is used by the Human Development Index (HDI) and clarifies the level of industrialization and per capita income per individual. It is therefore important to note that the participants (students) were citizens of both developed and developing countries. The countries also represented both colonisers (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and post-colonial (post-1948) societies. See chapters Roux; Soudien; Becker and Roux in part I of this volume for development, post-colonial and decolonising discourses and the influence thereof on human rights and human rights education. 8  #MustFall is the comprehensive reference to all the student protests during 2014–2016 (Roux & Becker, 2017). 7

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texts. At each point of repetition in difference (Germany, India, Israel, Netherlands, Norway and South Africa) the complexities of diverse intersecting global and local place-space-time related meanings and understandings were unpacked through data analysis. In using a rhizomatic research paradigm based in grounded theory methodologies, globally accepted assumptions that ‘universal’ human rights can be domesticated through a top-down approach to fit any context, were disrupted several times. Diverse contextual human rights literacies crystallised and ontologies and epistemologies manifested. In any research where the focus is on making meaning, closed methodologies will not be able to disrupt, critique and (re)frame. Flexible and fluid methodologies which allow participants’ voices to write theory and construct knowledge are needed to (re)frame human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies. In focusing on a bottom-up approach every teacher and student in teaching-learning contexts and every participant in research contexts become researchers and produce human rights theory. Freire (1998, p. 35) poses: …there is no such thing as teaching without research and research without teaching. One inhabits the body of the other. As I teach, I continue to search and re-search…

A rhizomatic paradigm and grounded theory methodologies allow a continual ‘re-­search’. It allows what Freire (1998, p. 37) refers to as an “epistemological curiosity” which continuously ‘start over.’ In allowing the everyday life experiences of subjects of human rights in becoming to be voiced in teaching and learning, ontologies and epistemologies are continually re-structured. This is not a process which is the exclusive domain of philosophers and expert theory producers/consumers. It is a process which happens in every classroom and lecture room in every educational contexts everywhere in the world. It is evident in continual repetitive rhythmic movements and interactions across global and local contexts in difference and should be explored in more depth in ‘re-search’ on human rights, human rights education and human rights literacies.

9  Note • What follows is a series of chapters by various authors from the five different countries who participated in the research project (2015–2016). They were given carte blanche in terms of the topics, selection of data and data analysis. They were, however, asked to reflect on how their explorations, in their respective place-time-space contexts, could contribute to the conceptualisation of human rights literacies. The chapters will present reflections of contextual human rights literacies across, in and through global and local place-space-time.

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References Al-Daraweesh, F., & Snauwaert, D. T. (2013). Towards a hermeneutical international human rights education. Educational Theory, 63(4), 389–411. Becker, A. (2017). Moral responsibility and human rights: Speaking to the ‘dark side of human rights’. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(6), 45–60. Becker, A., De Wet, A., & Parker, G. (2014). Moving towards understanding one an-other: Cornelia Roux on religion, culture and human rights. Journal for the Study of Religion, 27(1), 234–266. Becker, A., De Wet, A., & Van Vollenhoven, W. (2015). Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and transformative action through understandings of dignity, equality and freedom. South African Journal of Education, 35(2), 1–12. Bill of Rights see South African Constitution. Cefai, S. (2018). Mediating affect in John Pilger’s Utopia: ‘The good life’ as a structure of whiteness. Cultural Studies, 32(1), 126–148. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education. London: Routledge. De Wet, A., Rothman, J., & Simmonds, S. (2016). Human rights: Protecting sexual minorities or reinforcing the boundaries of ‘the closet’? South African Review of Sociology: Special Edition, 47(1), 85–109. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Dolan, P., Gundara, J., & King, L. (2011). The role of research for the promotion of rights and values in education: A commemorative paper  – 60 years into human rights education. In Contemporary issues in human rights education. Paris: UNESCO. Du Preez, P., & Becker, A. (2016). Ontologies and possibilities of human rights: Exploring dissensus to facilitate reconciliation in post-conflict education contexts. Perspectives in Education, 34(3), 1–14. Du Preez, P., & Roux, C. (2010). Human rights values or cultural values? Perusing values to maintain discipline in multicultural schools. South African Journal of Education, 1(30), 13–26. Du Preez, P., Simmonds, S., & Roux, C. (2012). Teaching-learning and curriculum development for HRE: Two sides of the coin. Journal of Education, 55, 83–102. Ellingson, L. (2009). Engaging crystallization in qualitative research: An introduction. London: Sage. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom, ethics, democracy and civic courage. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Gardiner, M. E. (2004). Everyday Utopianisms. Lefebvre and his critics. Cultural Studies, 18(2/3), 228–254. Guerin, C. (2013). Rhizomatic research cultures, writing groups and academic researcher identities. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 8, 137–150. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://ijds.org/Volume8/IJDSv8p137-150Guerin0400.pdf Hawkins, M. R. (2014). Ontologies of place, creative meaning making and critical cosmopolitan education. Curriculum Inquiry, 44(1), 90–112. Jacelon, C. S., & O’Dell, K. K. (2005). Case and grounded theory as qualitative research methods. Urologic Nursing, 23(1), 49–52. Jasper, J., & Abs, H. J. (chapter 6 in this volume). Student-teachers coping with changing times: The intersection of student-teachers’ understanding of human rights issues and their cultural identity. In C.  Roux & A.  Becker (Eds.), Human rights literacies: Future directions. Switzerland: Springer. Kapur, R. (2014). In the aftermath of critique we are not in epistemic freefall: Human rights, the subaltern subject, and non-liberal search for freedom and happiness. Law Critique, 25, 25–45. Keet, A. (2012). Discourse, betrayal, critique: The renewal of human rights education. In C. Roux (Ed.), Safe spaces: Human rights education in diverse contexts (pp. 7–28). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

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Keet, A. (2015). It is time: Critical human rights education in an age of counter-hegemonic distrust. Education as Change, 19(3), 46–64. Lather, P. (2007). Getting lost. Feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lefebvre, H. (2013). Rhythmanalysis. Space, time and everyday life. London: Bloomsbury. Lohrenscheit, C. (2002). International approaches to human rights education. International Review of Education, 48(3-4), 173–185. MacNaughton, G., & Koutsioumpas, K. (2017). Universal Human Rights Education for the Post-­ 2015 Development Agenda. In J.  Zajda & S.  Ozowski (Eds.), Globalisation, human rights education and reforms (pp. 15–33). Dordrecht: Springer. Merriam, S. (2002). Qualitative research in practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Nicholls, R. (2009). Research and indigenous participation: Critical reflexive methods. Journal of Social Research Methodology, 12(2), 117–126. Pillay, S. (2015). Why I am no longer a non-racialist. In X. Mangcu (Ed.), The colour of our future: Does race matter in post-apartheid South Africa? (pp. 133–152). Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits. Ranciere, J. (2015). Dissensus. On politics and aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Republic of South Africa. (1996a). The Bill of Rights: Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Cape Town: Government Printers. Republic of South Africa. (1996b). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Cape Town: Government Printers. Rothmann, J., & Simmonds, S. (2015). ‘Othering’ non-normative sexualities through objectification of ‘homosexual’: Discursive discrimination by pre-service teachers. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 29(1), 1–11. Roux, C. (2010). Religious literacy and human rights literacy as prerequisite for human rights education. In G. Durka, L. Gearon, M. de Souza, & K. Engebretson (Eds.), International handbook for inter-religious education (Vol. 4, pp. 991–1015). Dordrecht: Springer. Roux, C. (2012a). Research proposal: Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://hrlit.org/documents Roux, C. (2012b). A social justice and human rights education project: A search for caring and safe spaces. In C. Roux (Ed.), Safe spaces: Human rights education in diverse contexts (pp. 29–50). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Roux, C. (2017). Human rights literacies and students’ paradoxical understandings of tolerance and respect. South African Journal of Higher Education, 31(6), 61–78. Roux, C., & Becker, A. (2015). Human rights literacies: Quest for meaning. Oslo, Norway: The European Wergeland Centre, Publications Editions of the Council of Europe. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://theewc.org/statement/human.rights.literacy.the.quest.for. meaning/ Roux, C., & Becker, A. (2016). Humanising higher education in South Africa through dialogue as praxis. Educational Research for Social Change, 5(1), 131–143. Roux, C., & Becker, A. (2017). On critique, dissensus and human rights literacies. South African Journal for Higher Education, 31(6), 1–8. Roux, C., Becker, A., & De Wet, A. (2016). Human rights literacy: Quest for meaning. Referencing document. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from http://hrlit.org/documents Roux, C., & Du Preez, P. (2013). Human rights literacy: Quest for meaning. Retrieved May 20, 2015, from http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/Hreid%20cv%27s/ Human%20rights%20literacya%20quest%20for%20meaning_blog%20en%20website.pdf Roux, C., Du Preez, P., & Ferguson, R. (2009). Understanding religious education through human rights values in a world of difference. In S. Miedema & W. Meijer (Eds.), Religious education in a world of difference (pp. 67–84). Munster/Berlin/New York/Munchen: Waxman. Roux, C., Du Preez, P., Simmonds, S., Ferguson, R., Perumal, J., De Wet, A., et al. (2013). Human rights education in diversity: Empowering girls in rural and metropolitan school environments. South African Netherlands Projects for Alternative Development (SANPAD)-project (Final Year Report, 100 pp).

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Simmonds, S. (2010). Primary school learners understanding of human rights teaching-learning in classroom practice. Unpublished MEd-Dissertation, North-West University, South Africa. Simmonds, S. (2014). Mapping the curriculum-making landscape of Religion Education from a human rights education perspective. Journal of the Study of Religion, 27, 129–153. South African Constitution. (1996a). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Cape Town: Government Printers. South African Constitution. (1996b). The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, The Bill of Rights: Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Cape Town: Government Printers. Tibbitts, F. (2002). Understanding what we do: Emerging models for human rights education. International Review of Education, 48(3–4), 159–171. Tibbitts, F. (2017). Revisiting ‘emerging models of human rights education’. International Journal of Human Rights Education, 1(1), 2. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from http://repository. usfea.edu/ijhre/vol1/iss1/2 Tibbitts, F., & Keet, A. (2017). Curriculum reform in transitional justice environments: The South African Human Rights Commission, Human rights education and the schooling sector. In J.  Zaida & S.  Ozowski (Eds.), Globalisation, human rights education and reforms (pp. 87–109). Dordrecht: Springer. Tracy, S. J. (2010). Qualitative quality: Eight BIG-Tent criteria for excellent qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 16, 837. UNDHR see United Nations. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights (The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ Issues/Education/Training/Pages/Decade.aspx; United Nations Commission on Human Rights on a World Program for Human Rights Education [2004/71]). Zembylas, M. (2015). Foucault and human rights: Seeking the renewal of human rights education. Journal of the Philosophy of Education, 50(3), 384–397. Zembylas, M. (2017). Re-contextualising human rights education: Some decolonial strategies and pedagogical/curricular possibilities. Pedagogy Culture and Society, 25(4), 1–13. Zembylas, M., & Bozalek, V. (2014). A critical engagement with the social and political consequences of human rights: The contribution of the affective turn and posthumanism. Acta Academica, 46(4), 29–47. Cornelia Roux  is an Extraordinary Professor in Human Rights Education and Curriculum Studies in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Anne Becker  is a Research Fellow in Human Rights Education and Philosophy in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Student Teachers Coping with Changing Times: The Intersection of Student-Teachers’ Understanding of Human Rights Issues and Their Cultural Identity Janina Jasper and Hermann J. Abs

Contents 1  I ntroduction  2  T  heoretical Framework  2.1  Human Rights Literacies  2.2  Human Rights Education  2.3  Human Rights Literacies Intersecting with Cultural Identity  3  The Role of Human Rights Education in the German Education System  3.1  Historical View on Human Rights Education from the Council of Europe Perspective  3.2  Human Rights Education in German Schools  3.3  Human Rights Education in Teacher Education  4  Exploratory Case Study: The University of Duisburg-Essen  4.1  Context  4.2  Methodological Design  4.3  Analyses and Results  5  Challenges of Human Rights Literacies in German Teacher Education  References 

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Abstract  Migration into the European Union and the growing need to deal with refugees in established school systems call into question the preparation of student-­ teachers as prospective learning facilitators for social cohesion. In Germany, the explicit implementation efforts of Roux education aim at strengthening the role of student-teachers as learning facilitators for a critical analysis of human rights in society. The objective of this chapter is to lay the ground for a theory of human rights literacies for teacher education that offers student-teachers discursive space(s) to engage in dialogue on their understandings of human rights issues. In particular, cultural identity (CI) in the conceptualisation of hybrid versus mono-CI might influence understandings of human rights. After concepts of human rights education, human rights literacies and cultural identity are introduced, the role of human rights education in the German education system will be analysed. Results of an exploratory

J. Jasper (*) · H. J. Abs University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C. Roux, A. Becker (eds.), Human Rights Literacies, Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_6

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study on human rights understandings with a small sample of student-teachers from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) are discussed. We identify challenges of human rights literacies in German teacher education with special reference to its intersection with CI and distinguish three discursive spaces for the conceptualization of human rights literacies in Germany.

1  Introduction Due to the specific challenges of our time increasing attention is drawn to education “for tackling radicalisation leading to terrorism, for successfully integrating migrants and refugees and for tackling disenchantment with democracy and the rise of populism” (Council of Europe, 2017, p. 5). Migration into the European Union and the growing need to deal with refugees in established school systems call into question the preparation of student-teachers as prospective learning facilitators for social cohesion, valuing diversity and handling conflict. At the European level, the introduction and mandate of the Council of Europe have driven the development of education for democratic citizenship and human rights education since 1949. In Germany, the introduction of the UNESCO Chair for human rights education at the University of Magdeburg has aimed at a stronger implementation of human rights education on all levels of the educational system since 1993. The explicit implementation efforts of human rights education (and education for democratic citizenship) aim at strengthening the role of student-teachers as learning facilitators for a critical analysis of human rights in society. The objective of research on human rights education then is to develop a theory of human rights literacy for teacher education that offers student-teachers discursive space(s) to engage in dialogue on their understandings of human rights issues. In view of the current global and local challenges, human rights education and in particular, teacher education for human rights education in Germany can no longer be implemented in the education system limited to specific subjects or an implicit human rights education approach by teaching values without the connection to moral justification, political institutionalisation, and legal standardisation, or without discussing human rights protection (Fritzsche, 2016). Education students cannot be perceived as a homogenous group of individuals who all become experts for educational processes by simply studying their selected subject choices. Instead, due to their varied cultural sense of belonging, they may have developed different predispositions for human rights education. In this context fostering human rights literacy has been promoted internationally as the re-interpretation of human rights education (Simmonds, 2014). And while changing times confront student-teachers with increased migration, the intersection of human rights literacy with CI needs to be considered (Street, 2011); in particular, CI in the conceptualisation of hybrid versus mono-CI might influence understandings of human rights.

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The concept of human rights literacy is central to the role of student-teachers as prospective learning facilitators for future citizens and non-citizens to tackle the specific challenges of our time (cf. Council of Europe, 2017). In Germany, literacies are, for example, already known under the concept “civic literacy” in citizenship education (cf. Detjen, Massing, Richter, & Weisseno, 2012; Weisseno, Detjen, Juchler, Massing, & Richter, 2010) or equated with the notion of “competencies” in educational contexts (cf. Klieme, Hartig, & Rauch, 2008; Weinert, 2001a, 2001b). In the first section of this chapter, the concepts human rights literacies, human rights education and cultural identity (CI) are presented and discussed with ­particular focus on the German context. In the second section, we will provide information about the role of human rights education in the German education system. First, the European history of human rights education is briefly explained focusing on the work of the Council of Europe. Second, the role of human rights education in Germany is pointed out: in the first place, at the national level based on policy recommendations, and then, at the federal level based on the constituent states’ school laws and curricula. Because educational policy in Germany is mainly developed at the federal level, the chapter takes particular account of the one exemplary state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), which is the biggest state covering one fifth of the German population. Third, the role of human rights education in teacher education will be analysed within the framework of the NRW Core Curriculum for Teacher Education, as well as based on survey results of the German Institute for Human Rights. In the third section, we will then present results of an exploratory study on human rights understandings with a small sample of student-teachers from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in NRW.  In the final section, challenges of human rights literacy in German teacher education will be identified with special reference to its intersection with CI. Here we distinguish three discursive spaces for the conceptualisation of human rights literacy in Germany: legal foundation, attitudes and values, and educational approaches.

2  Theoretical Framework 2.1  Human Rights Literacies Internationally, research indicates that there are competing definitions of literacies also known as “literacy wars” (Janks, 2010, p. 13). Literacy can be understood as a cognitive skill but also as a social practice. The definition of Roux and Becker (2017, p. 4) is very broad and comprises both areas. It addresses human rights literacies as: cognitive skills (knowledge of human rights document, remedies and values) and social and moral practices (the processes and consequences of human rights), human rights literacies open spaces in which everyone, everywhere, can engage with issues such as gender violence, the marginalisation of sexual minorities, intolerance, disrespect, (non)recognition and exclusions (cf. Roux & Becker, 2015, p. 2; Simmonds, 2014, p. 143; authors’ italics).

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In addition to the cognitive and social level, the authors highlight that critique and dissent, influencing the communication about, and the response to social issues such as marginalisation or discrimination, characterise human rights literacies—so-­ called “discursive spaces”. In this sense, Becker, De Wet, and Van Vollenhoven (2015, p.  5) draw attention to the importance of human rights literacy in higher education in order to “enable and empower […] educators to internalise and implement human rights and human rights values in schools”. In the German-speaking context, human rights literacy in the sense of a systematic description of educational outcomes of human rights education with the objective to open discursive spaces do not yet exist. However, in his conceptualisation of human rights education, Fritzsche (2016, pp. 185–186) clearly points to the following two complementary dimensions: human rights knowledge and the values underlying human rights. While Fritzsche stresses that values such as “freedom, equality, and solidarity” need to be known and recognized, he provides a comprehensive description about human rights knowledge, referring to the rights that I and everyone else have, why they have developed, and where I can go if I believe that I have been violated in one or more of my human or fundamental rights. Human rights knowledge is descriptive and critical knowledge. It asks about the institutions, organizations, documents, and actors, as well as the causes of the difference between norm and reality, and the causes of human rights violations. […] it focuses attention on power interests as well as ideologies and structures of inequality that oppose human rights (pp. 185– 186; translation and italics by the authors).

Fritzsche provides a detailed description of what he views as human rights knowledge and corroborates what Roux and Becker (2017), in terms of the critical aspect, characterise as human rights knowledge or human rights literacy. Nevertheless, his statement is the equivalent of a description and may be taken rather as proof that there is still no systematic discussion on human rights literacy in Germany.1 If one does not particularly search for literacy in the German-speaking context, then Weinert’s (2001a) conception of competencies corresponds with the definition of Roux and Becker (2017). Weinert defines competencies as “the cognitive abilities and skills available to individuals, or to be learned by them, to solve specific problems and the associated motivational, volitional and social readiness and ability to successfully and responsibly use the solutions for problems in various situations” (ibid., p.  27, translation by the authors). Based on this definition, human rights

 In Germany, standards of human rights education have been developed by the Human Rights Forum (2005; an amalgamation of various human rights NGOs in Germany) to contribute to a “culture of human rights” as promoted by the UNESCO. With the standards of human rights education, the Forum seeks to substantiate the content of the GPJE (Association for Citizenship Education and Civic Youth and Adult Education) in the field of human rights. In this document, the outcome of human rights education is conceptualized as achievements of students at the end of certain grades in terms of human rights abilities and values. However, comparing the human rights education standards with the definition of human rights literacies by Roux and Becker (2017), the basic idea of discursive spaces is not included. 1

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l­iteracy can be equated to a broad interpretation of competencies, referring to both the cognitive and the social and moral dimensions. In the meantime (cf. Weinert, 2001b), many authors have opted for a narrower definition of human rights literacy that is confined to the cognitive dimension only. Weinert himself also lays down a narrower definition when he refers to key competencies that “facilitate the acquisition and use of specific competencies” and “include strategies of thinking, learning, planning and governing as well as knowledge about tasks and strategies” (Klieme et al., 2008, p. 7). Referring to Weinert, Klieme et al. introduce the definition of cross-curricular competence that most researchers in educational sciences in Germany currently use and equate with literacies. According to their understanding “competencies should be defined by the range of situations and tasks which have to be mastered, and assessment might be done by confronting the student with a sample of such (eventually simulated) situations” (Klieme et al., 2008, p. 9). This functional, pragmatic-oriented conceptualisation of competencies appears to be very narrow compared to the above-mentioned definitions by Roux and Becker (2017), Fritzsche (2016) or Weinert (2001a). On the other hand, this conceptualisation of competencies enables differentiated and practical assessment (Klieme et al., 2008, p. 9). One may argue that only by narrowing down the definition of competencies, which means keeping components separate instead of merging them in a comprehensive concept, it is possible to examine the relationship between the individual components of cognition (knowledge), motivation and responsibility. All in all, it seems that human rights literacy does not yet appear in research in the German context. However, there is an in-depth discussion on how to design literacies with regard to the intended outcomes of education for democratic competence as defined by the Council of Europe. Different competencies models for citizenship education in Germany address human rights, alongside other issues. For instance, Weisseno et al. (2010) present a competence model on citizenship education, including the concepts of fundamental rights and human dignity, indicating that the educational outcomes of human rights education can be systematically found in the competencies models of citizenship education. What is more, in the publication “Civic Competence – A Model”, Detjen et al. (2012, p. 7, authors’ translation) explicitly introduce civic literacy have been developed by the Human Rights Forum (2005; an amalgamation of various human rights NGOs in Germany) to contribute (or later on also political literacies) when conceptualizing citizenship education: “Education and training should be more knowledge-oriented and focused on literacy than before. […]. Civic literacy as an ability to deal with political symbol systems in everyday contexts is now an explicit one”. In this sense, civic literacies are viewed as comprising the following four competencies: (i) expertise, (ii) political judgment, (iii) ability to act and (iv) attitude and motivation. Looking at these four literacies dimensions, the authors point out the difficulty of transforming the last two dimensions into learning tasks as the ability to act could only be simulated and communicated in the classroom and attitudes “should” not be evaluated (cf. Detjen et al., 2012, p. 15). However, they also point to the following benefits of the competencies model for teachers:

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It is that the model makes them aware that in citizenship education the promotion of four competence dimensions alone is relevant. If they consider these four dimensions of competences in the selection of materials and the formulation of learning tasks and make them accessible to the students, the latter leads to a comprehensible development of competencies. In addition, an instruction according to competence dimensions allows teachers to carry out criteria-based diagnoses of the learning status (p. 16, translation by the authors).

Comparing the civic literacies concept of Detjen et al. (2012) in citizenship education with the human rights literacy concept of Roux and Becker (2017), these two theoretical conceptualisations show similarities in their composition of individual aspects. Both, civic and human rights literacy, comprise abilities on the cognitive, social and moral level. On the other hand, however, these two concepts show differences in their understanding of moral practices. While human rights literacy aims at creating open discursive spaces to engage with human rights issues that may be contradictory, civic literacies are more focused on developing a judgmental ability.

2.2  Human Rights Education Human rights literacy needs to be distinguished from human rights education, which can be considered as a framework enabling the promotion of human rights literacy (Becker et al., 2015, p. 2). According to Bajaj (2011, pp. 482–483), in the international discourse human rights education is defined as an education that, first, includes “content and processes related to human rights”, and second, “goals related to cognitive (content), attitudinal or emotive (values/skills), and action-oriented components”. Scholars have criticized human rights education for being (only) an “uncritical framework” and being a “conversion of human rights standards into pedagogical and educational concerns with the integration of human rights education into education systems” (Keet, 2012; Simmonds, 2014, p.  140). Therefore, Simmonds introduces human rights literacy “as a new way of thinking” to “re-­ interpret human rights education” (ibid., p.  140). While human rights education presents an approach to facilitate the acquisition of human rights literacy (Becker et al., 2015), the successful achievement of human rights literacy provides intersections or discursive spaces for teachers and students to engage with issues such as ‘marginalisation’ or ‘social injustice’ (Simmonds, 2014; Zembylas, Charalambous, & Charalambous, 2016; Zembylas & Chubbuck, 2014). Since, in Germany, there is no such terminology as human rights literacy yet, no such clear distinction can be drawn to human rights education. Fritzsche (2016, p. 181) uses the term human rights knowledge, as stated earlier, and also awareness (German: “Menschenrechtswissen” and “Menschenrechtsbewusstsein”) to describe the outcome of human rights education: … it requires an individual learning process within each individual to acquire knowledge about which human rights he/she and all others have and to develop an awareness of what human rights also mean for one’s own judgments and actions. […]. It is precisely this pro-

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cess of knowledge transfer and awareness development that is referred to as human rights education (translation and italics by the authors).

Furthermore, the author distinguishes between two types of human rights education. He understands explicit human rights education as the teaching of the importance of the values underlying human rights and the teaching of the rights itself. In addition, he argues that explicit human rights education makes explicit expressions of the principles of self-determination, egalitarianism, solidarity, and universality as the fundamental principles of human rights, and offers explicit education about institutions, instruments and actors for human rights protection. In contrast, implicit human rights education also conveys the values and principles that underpin universal human rights, however, without considering the context of moral justification, political institutionalisation, and legal standardisation and without discussing human rights protection (ibid., p. 187). The aim of human rights education is to have something that connects across countries, which is universal in its objective and commitment. Yet, one may assume that human rights education has its own regional or national profile, due to the specific political and social conditions in which it is practised. For example, Bajaj (2011) argues that “different societies, and particular contexts, result in a difference in emphasis on a given set of rights, such as socio-economic rights and/or political and civil rights”. Similarly, Fritzsche (2004, p. 2) points out that human rights education must address the urgency arising from the different social systems and the different conflicts and crises, which it is confronted with. For instance, German history provides specific examples where human rights education can show why human rights are necessary. It can show both, what can happen if state power is unbounded and civic countervailing power is lacking as well as what civic countervailing power can achieve under favourable conditions, referring to the citizen protests of 1989. Thus, a historical perspective illustrates that human rights education is also political education. According to Fritzsche (2016, p.  194), in Germany human rights education should always also be considered “education after Auschwitz […] under the imperative: Never again!”

2.3  H  uman Rights Literacies Intersecting with Cultural Identity While changing times confront student-teachers with increased migration in classrooms, the intersection of human rights literacies with CI needs to be considered. As indicated earlier, the comparison between human rights literacies in different countries demonstrates that cultural contexts influence its theoretical conceptualisation. Likewise, it might be assumed that CI leads to various understandings of human rights. Therefore, in this paper, we propose that the CI of student-teachers influences their human rights literacies.

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Street’s (2011) ideological model of literacies takes into consideration the influence of culture on literacies. The model intends “to make explicit such underlying conceptions and assumptions” to understand aspects of inequalities—representing a human rights-related key issue in Germany (ibid., p. 2). While distancing himself from an essentialist concept of culture due to its complexity, Street argues for a functionalist concept: “The job of studying culture is not of finding and then accepting its definitions but of discovering how and what definitions are made, under what circumstances and for what reasons” (ibid., p. 2). In this sense, Street defines culture as an “active process of meaning making” and equates it with the notion of literacies. Based on ethnographic research, he argues that there is a “variety and ­complexity of what counts as literacy […]. Literacy, like culture, then, is an active process of meaning making” (ibid., p. 2, authors’ italics). Applying the definitions of both concepts to understand inequality, Street argues that an ethnographical approach and an “understanding of literacy practices as multiple and culturally varied, can help avoid simplistic and often ethnocentric claims” and that it can “sensitise us to the ways in which the power to name and define is a crucial component of inequality” (ibid., p. 1). Conversely to the ideological model, the autonomous literacy model defines literacies independently of cultural context and meaning, thus making ethnocentric and universal claims (cf. Simmonds, 2014, p.  141; Street, 2011, p. 581). The ideological model of literacies lays the ground for looking at CI as an important aspect of human rights literacy. Arnett (2015) speaks of CI as “adapting the beliefs and practices – the customs complexes – of one or more cultural communities” (Jensen, 2003, p. 286). In order to take into consideration today’s various influences of culture, and the numerous resulting group affiliations, she elaborates on her concept of CI and speaks of hybrid identities. These are …individuals who integrate two or more cultures into their identity, are taking part in an active process of constructing and co-constructing their social milieu […] lead[ing] less to a bicultural identity than to a hybrid identity, combining local cultures and elements of the global culture in ways that lead to entirely new concepts and practices (Arnett, 2015, p. 60).

In particular, CI might influence understandings of human rights. This means that individuals might value specific human rights differently, depending on whether they feel a sense of belonging to only one culture and have a mono-CI or whether they feel a sense of belonging to more than one culture and thus indicate a hybrid CI. Fritzsche (2016, p. 183) implicitly confirms the influence of CI by looking at the understanding of human rights from a biographical teacher perspective: “It can easily be recognized that teachers of human rights education used to be learners beforehand”. In his argumentation, Fritzsche refers to the relevance of academic background and professional character that shape teachers’ understandings of human rights. In particular, he argues that teachers vary in their priorities as to how they look at human rights from the philosophical, political, socio-economic, legal and pedagogical dimension. In addition, Fritzsche argues that the ideological-­ political biographies might influence the way teachers understand human rights. Depending on whether they come from a socially or ecologically constructed

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e­nvironment, and whether they have a more religious or political background, teachers interpret and convey human rights differently. Street’s (2011) ideological model of literacies and Fritzsche’s (2016) biographical teacher perspective point to the crucial influence of hybrid CI (Arnett, 2015) on literacies. This influence is specifically interesting to examine with regard to human rights literacy in a specific context (Bajaj, 2011) such as Germany taking into account the increase of migrant children and non-citizens in classrooms or lecture rooms. Therefore, in the following, we will first examine the role of human rights education in the German education system and how this reflects the influence of CI. For this purpose, previously a historical view on human rights education from the Council of Europe perspective provides the framework for the German context within the European Union.

3  T  he Role of Human Rights Education in the German Education System 3.1  H  istorical View on Human Rights Education from the Council of Europe Perspective Since 1949 the Council of Europe stands up for developing common democratic principles throughout Europe. Since 1997 it has earned special merit in the field of human rights education and citizenship education through the large interdisciplinary project “Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education”. With the “Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education”, the Council of Europe (2010) aims to guide member states in their framing of policies, legislation, and practices with regard to human rights education. Often it emphasizes the mutual support of these two fields and describes differences “more in terms of focus and scope than in terms of objectives and functioning” (2010, p. 8). According to the Charter (2010, p. 7), human rights education is defined as: education, training, awareness raising, information, practices and activities which aim, by equipping learners with knowledge, skills and understanding and developing their attitudes and behaviour, to empower learners to contribute to the building and defence of a universal culture of human rights in society, with a view to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms (italics by the authors).

A comparison of the definition with education for democratic citizenship indicates that both approaches aim at an empowerment of learners for the promotion and protection of rights. The difference, however, is that human rights education focuses on creating a common culture, while education for democratic citizenship focuses on developing responsibility (cf. Fritzsche, 2016). Looking at the definition of human rights education from a human rights literacy perspective, it becomes clear that the Council of Europe promotes a broad under-

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standing of what constitutes the outcome of human rights education at school. The main objective—creating a culture of human rights—comprises knowledge, skills, understanding, attitudes and behaviour, and thus addresses the various levels presented by Roux and Becker (2017). What is more, the report advocates a functional-­ pragmatic concept of competencies (cf. Weinert, 2001a, 2001b) that focuses on social cohesion. It clearly describes the achievements to be reached with the outlined outcome. Member states should enable students: … to acquire the knowledge and skills to promote social cohesion, value diversity and equality, appreciate differences – particularly between different faith and ethnic groups – and settle disagreements and conflicts in a non-violent manner with respect for each others’ rights, as well as to combat all forms of discrimination and violence, especially bullying and harassment (Council of Europe, 2010, p. 12).

Although the concept of competencies is not actually applied, the Council of Europe is aware of its increasing application in academic literature and practice, describing (complex) outcomes rather than learner objectives. Nevertheless, it deliberately does not make use of the competencies concept since it was “not yet sufficiently well established and understood” at the time of report drafting. In the meantime, however, slight concept changes can be observed. In the recently published report “Learning to live together” the Council of Europe (2017, p. 72) applies the competencies concept to describe four learning outcomes of human rights education. Yet, competencies are not explicitly defined, the survey underpinning the report includes a question asking nations: “In your country, to what extent are educational approaches and teaching methods promoted that enable young people to acquire competences?”. The results are described according to four outcomes: (i) promoting social cohesion, (ii) valuing diversity and equality (particularly between different faiths and ethnic groups), (iii) settling disagreements and conflict in a nonviolent manner, and (iv) combating all forms of discrimination and violence. Examining these four required competencies under the ‘literacy loop’, the third competence on “settling disagreement and conflict in a non-violent manner”, best reflects the theoretical conceptualisation of human rights literacy. Its successful achievement implicitly indicates the requirement of discursive spaces, and thus the key issue of the re-interpretation of human rights education leading to human rights literacy. Although human rights literacy is not mentioned in the new report of the Council of Europe (2017), the conceptual development in terms of the competencies concept and, what is more, the idea of literacies becomes particularly obvious when the report calls for re-thinking education to advance human rights education. The report highlights the importance to focus on skills beyond the cognitive level, and thereby refers to UNESCO’s positioning that education “must be about learning to live in a world under pressure and advancing new forms of cultural literacy on the basis of respect and equal dignity”. Although specifically ‘cultural’ literacies are addressed, and no further definition of the concept is provided, in this context it becomes clear that literacies itself are understood in the sense of “new competences” going beyond knowledge, preparing for difficult societal challenges, and requiring the develop-

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ment of “new curricula and pedagogical guidance tools and to support new approaches to teacher training” (ibid., p. 31). In order to implement human rights education, the Council of Europe (2010) provides recommendations for higher education and training. Member states are requested to promote human rights education “in particular for future education professionals”, to gain “a thorough knowledge and understanding of the discipline’s objectives and principles and of appropriate teaching and learning methods” (ibid., pp. 10–11). The Charter explicitly expresses the importance of training due to the special nature of the subject: Without training in EDC/HRE of teachers […], such education will be ineffective and worse than useless. The subject is very different from traditional subjects. Those who will teach it must first be taught it themselves. The best methods of teaching it are also different, and have to be learned. This provision emphasizes the importance of training, not only of teachers, but also of those who train the teachers (ibid., p. 32).

The recently launched report of the Council of Europe (2017) mainly takes stock of the achievements and gaps in human rights education in Europe, in accordance with the objectives and principles of the Charter (2010). Based on an online survey, it highlights that human rights education appears to be less present in higher education, and as a consequence demands a more explicit ethos: higher education has “the social responsibility not only to educate ethical citizens committed to the construction of peace and the defence of human rights, but also to generate global knowledge enabling us to address current world challenges with human rights-based solutions” (Council of Europe, 2017, p. 30). Moreover, in reference to the world challenges such as the globally growing migration, the Council of Europe stresses that human rights education must operate “regardless of status” to “contribute to inclusiveness”. For educating non-citizens and migrant children and/or students in educational structures this means that they learn “to identify their rights and claim them effectively; to make informed choices; to resolve conflict in a non-violent manner; and to participate responsibly in their communities and society at large” (Council of Europe, 2017, p. 30). For future directions, it is, therefore, crucial that the conceptualisation of new competencies and curricular reacts to the daily lives and experiences of future citizens, migrant children and/or students and non-­ citizens. Particular care should be taken that these competencies can be acquired “in the context of any learning opportunity” and through engagement “in a dialogue about how human rights norms can be translated into social, economic, cultural and political reality”, underlining the relevance of context and CI for human rights literacy (Council of Europe, 2017, p. 30). The historical perspective of the Council of Europe indicates that CIs (Arnett, 2015) represent a key aspect in the conceptualisation of human rights education. The aim of human rights education to create a common European culture of human rights that is characterized by social cohesion, diversity, in particular including differences between faith and ethnic groups, and equality, is clearly triggered by the fact that individual citizens have different CIs. Now, taking into account the particular challenge of globally growing migration, future directions of the Council of

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Europe refer to a broadening of the human rights education pathway to include other CIs, regardless of their status. The current aim of social cohesion stated, now, needs to be supplemented by inclusiveness, which means that new competencies, curricula and teaching methods in the sense of literacies become a key issue in human rights education to address all potential future citizens. Thus, the Council of Europe indirectly follows the scientific agenda (Roux & Becker, 2015) and calls for human rights literacy that challenge exclusions and discrimination linked with it, issues relevant to both the national and global context. Considering the national contexts (Bajaj, 2011), the crucial question arises how individual European countries follow the Council’s call and change their future directions according to their specific context? In the following, the German context will be viewed in order to examine how its current conceptualisation of human rights education reflects the role of CIs.

3.2  Human Rights Education in German Schools Human Rights Education at the National Level In Germany, human rights education in schools most likely takes place within education for democratic citizenship, reflecting the orientation of the Charter (2010) on the European level. However, in addition to the inclusion of human rights in citizenship education, there are various policy recommendations that address human rights education either implicitly, explicitly or both. The Secretary of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) provides the state as a whole with such policy recommendations in order to ensure quality standards in education. In this sense, for instance, the KMK (ibid., 2000, p. 4) has provided an explicit recommendation on human rights education in School pointing out that […] the school must make a significant contribution to appropriate personal development. Human rights education is at the heart of the educational mission of the school and is defined as the primary educational goal in all state constitutions and school laws.

Providing a detailed statement of objectives and content of instruction on human rights issues, the KMK (2000, pp. 4–5) does not apply the competencies concept. Instead, it speaks of knowledge and understanding that need to be taught about: the historical development, present significance; importance for individuals and the community; relationship between personal freedoms and basic social rights; different views and protection in different political systems/cultures; importance for the emergence of the modern constitutional state; HR protection in international law; importance of international cooperation for the realization and the safeguarding of peace; the extent and social, economic and political causes of HR violations.

The recommendation emphasises that the outcome of human rights education should not be limited to knowledge but also includes components of affection and

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action, experienced through mutual respect in school. Here, it is important to note that the outline of learning outcomes refers to “students” in general and does not address any specific group(s) in the sense of different CIs. In order to reach the outcome of human rights education, the KMK views all teachers to be responsible but expects specific subjects within social sciences to provide a “special systematic contribution” as part of their curricula. The required teacher education lies in the effort of the KMK ministers of the individual federal states (KMK, 2000, pp. 5–6). Following the mandate of the Council of Europe to support democratic principles in Europe, besides the general document on human rights education in schools, the KMK (2008a, p. 7) also advocates human rights education as part of European Education in School. The objective of this approach is to support the development of the “awareness for a European identity”. Here, European identity is understood in the sense of a specific hybrid identity among students that is simultaneously part of a culture of integration for migrants immigrating into the European Union. To achieve both, the KMK encourages schools to impart European-oriented competences. With explicit regard to human rights, among others, these competencies deal with “advocacy for freedom” and “human rights”. With implicit regard to human rights and specific focus on CIs, these European-oriented competencies include “a cross-cultural open-mindedness that preserves the own cultural identity” (ibid., p.  5) as part of a hybrid identity. In this context, “students with migration background in German schools” take an important part in the integration process “by providing the possibility to experience the similarities, diversity, closeness and immediacy of Europe in a special way” (ibid., p.  10; italics by the authors). According to the KMK, the acquisition of the outlined competencies and attitudes takes place by dealing with key aspects of European history and processes of European integration. Following up on the responsibility of specific school subjects to look at human rights education and European Education from their particular perspective on human rights education, in Germany historical and citizenship education take important roles. Focusing on respect and violation of human rights education, the KMK (2014) advocates a Culture of Remembrance, similar to how Bajaj (2011, p. 492) refers to human rights education for coexistence in post-conflict settings and emphasizes the role of minority rights with the aim of conflict transformation. Aiming at a conflict-sensibility for various interpretations of history, the KMK argues for a comprehensive broad concept of competencies that places “an equal focus on the acquisition of historical awareness, knowledge, empathy, the development of a fundamental democratic attitude and the promotion of judgement and competence to take action” (KMK, 2014, p. 2). To specifically promote competencies for the understanding of historical processes in Germany, the recommendation outlines didactic2 principles. The relevance of these principles of cultural-sensitivity 2  In Germany the term “didactic” refers to the theory of teaching and learning. Didactics in the narrower sense deal with the theory of instruction (“Unterricht”), while didactics in the broader sense address the theory and practice of teaching and learning (“Lehren und Lernen”). Furthermore, in academic teacher education in Germany as well as in other European countries (e.g. Switzerland,

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and multi-perspectives clearly addresses the social context of all students regardless of whether they are citizens or non-citizens in a formal sense. Further components of the underlying competencies concept include “a constant autonomous reflection on interpretations of history and active participation in historical and social controversies” (ibid., p. 4, authors’ italics). The result of a Culture of Remembrance is then viewed as “a complex interaction between many stakeholders, debates and traditions”. Thus, both the notions of reflection and dialogic interaction indirectly refer to the idea of discursive spaces such as introduced in the literacies concept (Roux & Becker, 2017, p. 2). The concept of literacies itself is explicitly not mentioned by the KMK. However, its fundamental idea of opening discursive spaces is further confirmed by pointing to the need of redesigning teaching content across time both at the subject and school level. As an example of how the KMK recommendations may be implemented, Brumlik (2016) follows up on the policy initiative of a Culture of Remembrance and raises the question which human rights-based demands need to be drawn from human rights violations such as the mass murder in National Socialist Germany. Focusing on the concepts of human dignity and moral globalisation, the author(s) designs a German-specific as well as globally significant approach of human rights education that addresses “children and youth” and focuses on the confrontation with racism and anti-Semitism (ibid., p. 85). Although the author(s) do not specifically address Islamophobia, this aspect of group-related hate should be added in times of jihadist terror attacks. Another policy recommendation (KMK, 2016, pp. 4–5), which promotes human rights education across subjects, follows the UN Convention against Discrimination in Education (BGBI, 1968 II, p. 385f.) and the education mandate of the German constitution (GG 1949, §3, para. 2). It advocates for gender-sensitive education in school and also takes into account CIs in the sense of further discrimination factors such as origin, race, language, and ethnic background that are interlinked with gender. Overall, at the national level in Germany, the conceptualisation of human rights education generally follows the call of the Council of Europe to create a common European culture through social cohesion. Several policy recommendations advocate human rights education explicitly or implicitly either as an independent human rights education approach or as part of European Education, Culture of Remembrance or Gender-Sensitive Education. Within these recommended approaches, however, CIs are taken into consideration differently. While the general human rights education approach solely addresses future citizens and does not refer to any specific context in the sense of different CIs, other approaches specifically address the context of migrant children and/or students. For instance, European Education aims to promote the development of a European identity in the sense of an exclusive hybrid the Netherlands, or Norway), one distinguishes between general and subject-related didactics. On the one hand, general didactics deal primarily with principles, teaching and learning models as well as justification issues of instructional processes—independent of the specific learning content (cf. Terhart, 2009).

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identity that preserves the own CI and is simultaneously part of a culture of integration. Here, migrant children are viewed as the ‘awareness facilitators’ for similarities and diversity. Moreover, in Culture of Remembrance the cultural context of migrant children and/or students is addressed to promote tolerance and respect for various interpretations of (German) history. Didactic principles such as reflection, conflict-sensitivity, and multi-perspectives are applied to discuss different understandings of history, and thus provide a crucial basis for human rights literacy. Looking specifically at the issue of forced migration, however, it is noticeable that the group of non-citizens is not explicitly addressed, although their context of refuge is mentioned. It further stands out that over the years the addressing of contexts in the approaches has become more differentiated. Thus, the question arises whether the different contexts of migration mean the same for the education of migrant children and non-citizens (or refugees), or an update is required that takes account of citizens and non-citizens regardless of their status (Council of Europe, 2017, p. 30). Since educational policy in Germany is mainly developed at the federal level, the question follows how do federal states follow up on the policy recommendations stated? How does NRW as an exemplary state in Germany consider CIs in its conceptualisation of human rights education?  uman Rights Education at the Federal Level: North Rhine-Westphalia H (NRW) as an Example This section takes particular account of how policy recommendations related to human rights education have been implemented at the federal level and in the one exemplary state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), representing the biggest state covering one fifth of the German population. In 2008, the KMK conducted a study about the status quo of human rights education in Germany for a draft report as part of the Action Plan of the UN World Program for human rights education. For this report, interviews were conducted with all German federal states to analyse their school laws and measures with regard to human rights education. In the survey, five implementation areas within the responsibility of the federal states were addressed. In this article, the results of the following two areas will be presented: school laws and education plans. Results of the KMK analysis of school laws show that human rights education is mainly implicitly anchored at the federal level. When explicitly searching for the term ‘human rights’, only three hits can be found with regard to the school laws of Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin. Analysing the educational objectives of school laws in its entirety, many federal states include implicit human rights concepts such as fundamental rights and democratic constitution. In addition, the inclusion of educational objectives such as tolerance, international understanding, and respect for human dignity corresponds to the objectives of human rights education. In summary, it can be stated that the implicit use of human rights terminology indicates implicit starting points for the implementation of human rights education,

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however, it does not replace the explicit mention of human rights education as a mission of the school (Reitz, 2016; Reitz & Rudolf, 2014). North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), representing an exemplary state within Germany, corresponds with the overall result of the school law analysis at the federal level. Although the term human rights is not explicitly mentioned in the school law of NRW (§2 SchG, 2005/2016, para. 2–8), the document comprises useful starting points for the implementation of human rights education by referring to the following educational objectives related to human rights (italicised): […] respect for human dignity and willingness to engage in social action is the primary goal of education. Youth should be educated in the spirit of humanity, democracy and freedom, tolerance and respect for others’ convictions, […] love for people and homeland, the international community and peace […]. [The school] respects the principle of gender equality and works to eliminate existing disadvantages. […] Headmasters and teachers are acting impartially (§2 SchG, 2005/2016, para. 2–4; translation and italics by the authors).

In addition to the educational objectives related to basic values underlying human rights such as freedom and tolerance, the school law specifically addresses the issue of gender equality, complying with the KMK (2016) recommendation on equal opportunities through gender-sensitive education. Education plans at the federal level provide another important basis for a comprehensive implementation of human rights education besides the school law. The UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011, §8) identifies such anchorage in curricula for the promotion of human rights education. Results of the KMK (2008b) survey reveal that federal states in Germany refer to both general, interdisciplinary education plans and educational standards. However, possible links to human rights education (e.g. in citizenship education) are rarely outlined. The anchoring of human rights education in education plans of individual subjects might roughly be divided into two types: on the one hand, federal states explicitly name human rights in their education plans, which applies usually for subjects such as citizenship education, social studies, and partially also for historical education. However, the depth of detail varies. Sometimes fundamental human rights are named briefly, sometimes documents address the universal validity claim of human rights or deal more concretely with human rights education violations. On the other hand, the majority of educational objectives for individual subjects named by the federal states only indicate an implicit or even unclear relation to human rights education (Reitz & Rudolf, 2014, pp. 30–33). NRW represents an exemplary state in Germany that has human rights explicitly embedded in the education plans (GIHR, 2014, p.  6). This reference, however, applies only to specific subjects such as citizenship, historical, legal and philosophical education, and social and educational sciences (KMK, 2008b, pp.  42–43). In particular, the development of the Framework for Citizenship Education by the NRW Ministry for School, Science and Research (2001, p. 23) has the function to complement the Culture of Remembrance approach (KMK, 2014) on the German national level for all school types. This includes the teaching of human rights, referring to the interdependence of personal freedom, fundamental social rights, participation rights, and the historical process of their enforcement. Unlike the Culture of

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Remembrance approach, neither the contexts of migrants or non-citizens nor the issues of European identity are addressed with explicit reference to human rights. Nevertheless, issues such as the consequences of migration, and the chances and challenges of intercultural co-existence are mentioned separately (MSSR-NRW, 2001, p. 21). Moreover, tolerance and solidarity are presented as important guidelines for citizenship education. Accordingly, citizenship competencies point to the importance of multi-perspectivity by “putting oneself in the situation and perspective of others” and “tolerating - as far as human rights are not violated” (MSSR-­ NRW, 2001, p.  18). What is striking here is the reference to the limitation of multi-perspectivity indicating the complexity of human rights education, and thus the relevance of human rights literacies to provide discursive spaces (Roux & Becker, 2015). In the core curriculum of historical education for upper secondary schools in NRW, a content field deals with “human rights in a historical perspective” ­(MST-­NRW, 2014a, pp. 25–26). A competence to be acquired implies understanding and deliberating about the gap between abstract documents and the (non)realisation of human rights, and thus indicates a crucial aspect of developing human rights literacy. None of the human rights competencies outlined in the curriculum, however, directly address the contexts of migrants, non-citizens or the issue of European identity. Instead, the focus of the historical perspective on human rights appears to be on women’s rights. Furthermore, a separate content field deals with the issues of migration and integration. A competence related to human rights education deals with prejudices and indicates discursive spaces for tolerance as part of human rights literacy. In the core curriculum of social science/economics for upper secondary schools in NRW, human rights education is part of a key competence (MST-NRW, 2014b, p. 33), which refers to the discursive space for social cohesion and basically builds upon the aforementioned discursive space for tolerance. Besides, again, a separate content field takes up the context of migrant children and/or students by dealing with identity models. Thus, it provides the theoretical basis in terms of a discursive space for (cultural) identities, though not yet clearly viewed as part of human rights literacy in the curriculum. Moreover, the content field “European Union” (ibid., pp. 36–37) goes, so to speak, one step further by extending the discursive space for CIs to the European level. It clearly implies the overarching objective of European identity in the sense of a culture of integration—or a discursive space for European integration? At least what emerges quite clearly is that, again, non-citizens are not addressed in this context. Finally, European human rights education focuses on the relevance of human rights standards in the global context. This demands the reflection of various perspectives and lays the ground for another discursive space—for peace and security—clearly going beyond the borders of Germany as well as the European Union. Analysis at the federal level shows that human rights education is addressed mainly implicitly with reference to educational objectives such as tolerance. In a few cases, education plans of specific subjects explicitly address the universal validity claim of human rights or human rights violations. However, CIs are not given

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strong consideration with regard to human rights; often this issue is discussed separately. Likewise, in NRW, the school law refers to CIs in the context of human rights education only implicitly through tolerance. In the education plans of individual subjects, reference to CIs in human rights education, however, varies. In particular, social sciences/economics elaborate on CIs with reference to the universal claim of human rights for social cohesion and the function of the European integration. Apart from that, however, social sciences and citizenship and historical education deal with issues of (cultural) identity models, migration and integration without explicit reference to human rights. Furthermore, it is notable that in historical education explicit reference to human rights education rather focuses on women’s rights, following the national focus on Gender-Sensitive Education (KMK, 2016) in teacher education. In conclusion, at the federal level and in NRW, it becomes evident that the context of migrant children and/or students in human rights education is limited to social sciences, while non-citizens are neglected across curriculums. Following up on the Council of Europe’s (2017, p.  30) call for human rights education in teacher education, the question arises as to whether this result is reflected in teacher education or whether there is a different focus due to the sovereignty of universities in Germany?

3.3  Human Rights Education in Teacher Education The UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training calls for adequate teacher education for human rights education (UN-HRET, 2011, §3, para. 2; §7, para. 4). In Germany, the KMK (2000, §6, p. 6) has pointed out that human rights education should be part of teacher education. Shortly thereafter, the KMK (2004) adopted Standards for Teacher Training in educational sciences, providing a nationwide framework for the first and second phase of teacher education. In this document, however, human rights education is not explicitly addressed; out of eleven competencies only competence five “Teachers transmit values and norms, an attitude of respect and recognition towards diversity” identifies an implicit link to human rights education. However, its content does not even agree with the implicit understanding of human rights education according to Fritzsche (2016): Graduates… know and reflect democratic values and norms as well as their transmission. […] know how to promote value-oriented behaviour and self-determined judging and actions of students, know how students can be supported dealing with personal situations of crisis and decisions (ibid., p. 10; translation and italics by the authors).

In contrast, all KMK recommendations previously presented with any relation to human rights education at the national level explicitly indicate the relevance of teacher education for their different orientations in varying degrees. What is noteworthy is the decisive and elaborated way that Gender-Sensitive Education is promoted as part of teacher education (KMK, 2016) in comparison to all other human rights education approaches by the KMK.  Thus, across national policy

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recommendations, teacher education for human rights education appears to be most promoted with regard to gender competence, taking into consideration various aspects of CIs. At the federal level, the ministries of education also point to implicit human rights education by referring to the values underlying human rights or the role model of teachers to act on these values; however, formal discussions on the legal standardisation in the classroom is not indicated (GIHR, 2014). In this sense, most federal states view human rights education as mandatory in teacher education and partially describe it as a cross-sectoral task. However, the legally binding nature of human rights education varies from educational mandates anchored in school laws, education plans, and frameworks for educational standards to examination regulations of individual universities. In some instances, states simply refer to legal documents at the national level to confirm their implicit anchoring of human rights education. A few ministries at the federal level also confirm the legal anchoring of explicit human rights education, referring to the Standards for Teacher Training defined by the KMK (2004). In NRW the Ministry for School and Training referred to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to confirm the legal anchoring of human rights education: “Subjectivity of children […] is a general core of the state education and educational mission” (GIHR, 2014, p.  11). With reference to Fritzsche’s definition of human rights education (2016), subjectivity or subjectification of children is enabled through human rights education and human rights literacy implicitly. This means, for instance, that a teacher in the classroom takes the individual experiences, skills and (special) needs of every child into consideration while teaching. Similarly, the ministry referred to the NRW “Core Curriculum for Training in the Preparatory Service for Student-teachers in the Teacher Training Centre and Schools” (MST-­ NRW, 2016, p.  11) to confirm the explicit statues of human rights education in teacher education. This document, however, only provides an implicit reference to human rights education by the use of related terminology such as the conception of the human being, values and norms and democratic learning (MST-NRW, 2016, p. 6). Nevertheless, it provides a clear implicit link to human rights education and the elaboration of competence five on the transmission of values and norms equals the description of the national Teacher Training Standards (KMK, 2004). Finally, the ministry states that the federal state NRW only sets a structural framework for teacher education. This means that particular contents of teacher education courses in NRW are not specified by the legal system of higher education nor within the framework of academic study programmes, but developed by the individual university (GIHR, 2014, p. 11). In conclusion, at the national as well as the federal level of Germany, human rights education in teacher education is only implicitly addressed in policy documents. According to the ministry, every single university in Germany follows its distinct implicit or explicit profile of human rights education in teacher education— being reflected in their student-teachers’ understanding of human rights issues? Taking into account the Council of Europe’s strong focus of human rights education on CI, the implicit promotion of human rights education with regard to tolerance

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and the didactic principles of multi-perspectivity for historical interpretations at the national level, the local Ruhr migration region in NRW, and the university’s autonomy of curriculum design, the question is: To what extent do CIs (Arnett, 2015) or the biographical background (Fritzsche, 2004) of student-teachers in NRW intersect with their understanding of human rights? And in what way do these intersections indicate crucial discursive spaces for future directions of human rights literacy? To shed light on this matter, a small exploratory study with student-teachers at the University of Duisburg-Essen will be presented.

4  E  xploratory Case Study: The University of Duisburg-Essen 4.1  Context The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) is located in the heart of the Ruhr area, which consists of a conglomeration of towns in the former coal mining area of Germany. It has a population of more than ten million inhabitants and has been shaped by industry and migration since the nineteenth century until today. Following the structural framework for teacher education of NRW, the UDE has developed its individual curriculum of teacher education. Based on various manuals, the university briefly outlines the content of individual modules that constitute the content of all courses in teacher education. An analysis of these manuals in terms of human rights education reveals that the manual of the Bachelor of Educational Sciences (UDE, 2017) refers to human rights only implicitly and is limited to pointing to the international right of participation in education. Although the manual outlines a competence that expects students to “reflect the socio-cultural anchoring and norm-dependence of the construction of difference” such as “the attribution of migration status” (ibid., p. 13), no further reference is made to human rights. The role of human rights education is more explicit in teacher education with regard to the specific teaching subjects of Social Sciences (UDE, 2015a) and Political Sciences (UDE, 2015b), which is in line with human rights education at the federal and national level. For example, in the Bachelor of Social Sciences, the module International Relations (UDE, 2015a, p. 9) promotes a critical examination of theories on “human rights protection” or “European integration”. Moreover, the module Globalisation and Transnationalisation mentions “human rights” as an optional policy area. In addition, the issue of migration with its causes and consequences (and the opportunities and challenges of intercultural co-existence) is introduced. The competencies to be achieved include that … students can describe selected problems and conflict situations of […] Europeanization and migration and analyse them with methods of social science. On this basis, students can finally make independent and substantiated judgments on these controversial processes and defend theoretically informed positions (ibid., p. 52; translation and italics by the authors).

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In the Bachelor of Political Sciences, the module International Relations and Global Governance (UDE, 2015b, p. 39) addresses human rights education as an optional field of practice that may be discussed when combining theories of international relations and governance with political practice. Moreover, the module European Integration and Politics in the European Multilevel System represents an advanced module that introduces the issue of European integration from the perspective of national policies and international relations. In conclusion, at the UDE human rights education in teacher education is explicitly addressed in only two teaching subjects: social and political sciences; among these two fields, human rights are discussed, again with regard to the issues of migration, Europeanisation and integration or co-existence, however, mainly in terms of theories. The extent to which CIs are taken into account is not obvious. In conclusion, it might be assumed that at the DUE mainly student-teachers who select social or political sciences as their teaching subject will learn about human rights issues, however, not necessarily about human rights education. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to examine to what extent the CIs of student-teachers intersect with their understanding of human rights issues.

4.2  Methodological Design The study is part of the NRF sponsored project Human Rights Literacy: Quest for meaning (2012–2016) (Roux, 2012). Participants are 25 student-teachers who are enrolled in second to fourth-year teacher education at the faculty of education of the DUE in the federal state NRW in Germany. The study included an online survey with 54 open and closed questions in total and was conducted when student-­teachers were at the end of their semester module on human rights and familiar with many human rights documents and the importance of these initiatives. Students were invited to participate in the online survey during their free time via their electronic learning platform. For this paper, seven questions of the survey about student-teachers’ socio-­ cultural context and their understanding of human rights values and human rights education were examined: First, student-teachers’ CI was assessed with open questions on two types of group belonging. Student-teachers were asked: (i) “To which cultural group do you belong?” (S2015Q11_DE), and (ii) “What is your ethnicity?” (S2015Q12_DE). Second, student-teachers’ human rights understanding was assessed using various scales: (i) an 11-item scale (S2015Q17_DE) asking them to “select any 5 of the following words or phrases you associate most with ‘human rights” (e.g. women’s rights, legal protection, United Nations),3 (ii) a 14-item scale

3  Complete range of response options of S2015Q17_DE: Declaration on Children’s rights, women’s rights, legal protection, government’s responsibility, United Nations, against a religious conviction, Bill of Rights, gender legislation, constitutions of nations, police protection.

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(S2015Q18_DE) asking to “select 7 of the following words or phrases you associate with the values of human rights” (e.g. freedom, tolerance, social justice),4 (iii) a 5-point single-item scale (S2015Q38_DE) about whether “all humans have inherent dignity and are therefore entitled to rights” (I fully agree—I neither agree nor disagree), (iv) a 5-point single-item scale (S2015Q50_DE) about whether “Human rights should be addressed in all subject matters in school curricula” (I fully agree—I neither agree nor disagree), and (v) a 15-item scale (S2015Q54_DE) asked them to respond to “Human rights education involves the following:” and choose six ­components (e.g. human rights knowledge).5 Specific questions from the survey were chosen for analysis of correlations with the objective to reveal discursive spaces for the development of a theory on human rights literacy. In particular, the focus was on four domains of the survey: biographical data, knowledge acquisition and understanding of human rights constructs and human rights education. SPSS was used to analyse Pearson’s correlation (r) between student-teachers’ CI and their human rights understandings.

4.3  Analyses and Results For the analysis of student-teachers’ CIs, data of biographical information on the cultural group (S2015Q11_DE) and ethnicity (S2015Q12_DE) was aggregated. Depending on whether they indicated one or more than one group belonging(s) for one open question, they were assigned a mono- or hybrid identity. For example, if they indicated they belonged to only one cultural group (e.g. German), they were assigned to have a mono-cultural belonging (= 1), while those who demonstrated belonging to at least two or more cultural groups (e.g. German and European) were assigned a hybrid CI (= 2). Likewise, mono-ethnic and hybrid ethnic identity was assigned to student-teachers (e.g. German versus German and Pakistani). What is more, if they indicated only European as their cultural or ethnic identity, they were still always assigned a hybrid identity. Results show that student-teachers with a hybrid cultural identity, when compared to students with a mono-cultural identity agree more often with the question

4  Complete range of response options of S2015Q18_DE: Freedom, tolerance, social justice, respect, protection, fairness, morality, responsibility, dignity, caring, entitlement, relationship, and selfishness. 5  Complete range of response options of S2015Q54_DE: Knowledge of human rights, respecting human dignity, promoting gender equality, responsibility, dialogue about human rights issues, promoting understanding and friendship among different peoples, strengthening of respect for fundamental freedoms, social justice consciousness, inspiring action to defend and promote the rights of others, application of human rights in everyday life, understanding how a society should live together, knowing about mechanisms that protect human rights, understanding how human rights affect an individual, support legal understanding and moral disposition towards human rights.

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whether all human beings are entitled to human rights (r = −0.598, p