Tagged: Human Rights

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act: A positive step in an ambiguous direction

By Rachael Liberman In an effort to combine press freedom and human rights, President Obama signed new legislation, titled the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, which would require, according to The New York Times: “ … the State Department to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual review of human rights in each country. Among other considerations, the department will be required to determine whether foreign governments participate in or condone...

Opinion

Virtual Conference Report: Day Two (20 Oct, 2009)

The second day of the conference has been filled with three more interesting and innovative papers. David Crystal’s (University of Bangor) keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death: A Problem for All’ highlights the troubling statistics that ‘96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the people’. Given the interdisciplinary nature, and the methodology of this virtual conference, Crystal’s paper draws attention to the use of language as a way to ‘break down barriers’. The two other papers presented...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Renegotiating the Gender Contract

by ChristinaBlunt According to a recent article in the New York Times, the single mothers of South Korea are beginning to mount a battle to reclaim not only their rights but also their identities. The social stigma surrounding unwed motherhood in South Korea is particularly fierce. According to the report, in 2007, 1.6 percent of babies were born out of wedlock and of those 1.6 percent 70 percent are given up for adoption. However, nearly 96 percent of the single...

Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Comparing the role of government in self-control problems from behavioural and neoclassical economic perspectives

This post has moved to http://williampaulbell.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/comparing-the-role-of-government-in-self-control-problems-from-behavioural-and-neoclassical-economic-perspectives/ <About>  <Portfolio>  <Academia>  <LinkedIn>  <Twitter>  <Blog> Member of the World Economics Association – promoting ethics, openness, diversity of thought and democracy within the economics profession

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Uncivil Society

by ChristinaBlunt On Saturday July 18, the Washington Post reported that respected human rights group Memorial will suspend its activities in Chechnya following the murder of one of its activists, Natalya Estemirova. Reports state that Estemirova was kidnapped outside her home last Wednesday and found with a bullet in her head hours later outside the Chechen capital. Estemirova’s work involved documenting crimes committed by representatives of the authorities. The Post reports that Estemirova was killed the same day a report...

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Iran's Purchase Power

by christinablunt Iran will elect its next president on June 12 and while the rest of the world may be watching to see how the result might impact human rights within Iran as well as Iran’s aggressive foreign policy and nuclear program, Iranians, like most other global citizens, have the economy on the top of their agenda. A great debate has ensnared the candidates, including current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though the dispute continues, the divisions are clear; Ahmadinejad and his...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Refugees and the State of the Human

nmccoy1 The status of refugees, as Giorgio Agamben asserts, is predicated on an articulation of what constitutes the human.  What the refugee challenges or makes visible is not only that human rights are not naturally given but also that what is human is not naturally given.  If we are constituted and defined through the sovereign as Agamben argues, whose power is based on the ability to determine inclusion and exclusion, then our humanity is bounded solely  by the authority and...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Inside the Iron Closet

by christinablunt On Tuesday, May 12, two women attempted, in the face of almost certain failure, to become the first same sex-couple in Russia to legally marry. LGBT rights activists, as well as the gay community in Russia, have been met with antipathy and hostility in the past so, it came as little surprise to the two when their request was denied. Not only have activists been violently attacked, according to the New York Times, state officials have assigned the...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

The Struggle Continues

by rbobbitt Sitara Achikzai, a prominent women’s rights activist was assassinated in outside her home in Kandahar, Afghanistan this past week. Achikzai, who lived in Germany during the Taliban rule, had returned to Afghanistan after the ousting of the Taliban to fight for women’s rights. A member of Kandahar provincial council, she was often vocal in urging women to take jobs and join the fight to regain their rights and push for equality. This senseless murder sheds light on the...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Asian Values and Women's Rights

by christinablunt Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a move to bolster support in the upcoming presidential elections, signed a law which stipulated that, “Unless the wife is ill, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.” Human rights groups are calling foul play. To say nothing of the fact that a woman’s rights are being used as a tool of negotiation, the UN is arguing the new law essentially legalizes...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

Human Rights and the United States

by delawaregrad Recently, in a television interview, President-Elect Obama noted that the United States needed to “regain America’s moral stature in the world” through closing the Guantanamo Bay complex. An additional step that President-Elect Obama could take would be to encourage the United States to ratify major United Nations human rights treaties. Most Americans may be surprised to learn that the United States, despite being a founding member of the United Nations, has not ratified any of the five major...