Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy
School for International Training Study Abroad, International Honors Program
Job Announcement: Traveling Faculty 2013 and 2014
The International Honors Program (IHP), a program of World Learning/School for International Training, offers international, comparative study abroad programs for university students. We are currently seeking four to six traveling faculty members to join an interdisciplinary team of faculty, fellows, and host country coordinators for IHP’s “Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy” program.
THESE ARE TRAVELLING TEACHING POSITIONS. DO NOT APPLY IF YOU CANNOT COMMIT TO BEING OUTSIDE THE US FOR THE ENTIRE DURATION OF AN ACADEMIC SEMESTER.
We seek two to three “traveling faculty” to travel full-time and teach during the Fall semester of 2013 and two to three to do the same in the Spring semester of 2014. Faculty may apply to work both semesters if they wish, or hire on for just one semester per year but the work and the travel that goes with it is very demanding; thus, back-to-back semesters are not advised. The number of faculty in each semester team will be determined by candidates’ ability and preference to teach one or two courses, or to team-teach one course in addition to a primary course.
Each four-month program will take approximately thirty students from top-tier US colleges and universities to three countries to pursue inter-disciplinary research from a comparative perspective.
The itineraries for the 2013-2014 academic year are as follows:
Fall 2013 (Early September to mid-December): United States program launch in New York City (two weeks), Nepal (four weeks), Jordan (four weeks), and Chile (five weeks). Specific itineraries in each country are in development.
Spring 2014 (Late January to mid May): Same itinerary as above.
Program Description -- Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy
This newly launched program will interrogate the following fundamental questions: What rights are common to all human beings? How are these rights enshrined, exercised, enacted, and protected? What are the respective roles of the individual, civil society organizations, grassroots movements, and sovereign states in identifying and defending rights? The program will spend time in four different countries. A comparative approach grounded in the critical examination of neoliberal mandates will highlight disparities in rights related to political freedoms and expression, underrepresented minority groups, and gender equity, among others. This program welcomes the scholarly expertise of critical geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and lawyers with their angles on the rights discourse, e.g. ecological citizenship, right to the city debates, gender and place, health inequities, etc.
For each semester, we are seeking a complementary team of three traveling faculty members who will each teach one course and co-teach a methods and fieldwork seminar. The courses are still in development and are open to some faculty interpretation and redesign. The classes are the following:
HR FFHR: Foundations and Frameworks of Human Rights (4 credits/ 60 hours)
The United Nations articulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Using that historic moment as a point of departure, this course employs the UN framework as a preliminary lens to examine and understand how basic social and economic rights are contested in a neoliberal world order. International safeguards for rights embodied in the United Nations and legal systems will be discussed in conjunction with texts that illuminate particular national sociopolitical histories and struggles. Current human rights conditions, threats, and potential improvements will be examined in each country visited. The relevance of a human rights discourse in the political economy of development, as well as in defining the role of the security state, will be foregrounded at each field site.
HR CIHR: Comparative Issues in Human Rights
Through selected readings, focused discussions, and case studies, this course critically considers an array of current human rights challenges. Among them are the conflicts between national sovereignty and human rights, such as international interventions justified through humanitarian reason and rhetoric, or the prosecution of war crimes; how universal rights are imbricated with the nuances of culture, ethnicity, and religion; and how national governments affirm and protect human rights in written law, yet simultaneously compromise rights in the realm of politics, economics, media, and social well-being. Human rights issues precipitated by the dominance of a neoliberal global political economy are examined, such as labor conditions, migration, environmental crises, freedom of the media, and the accountability of multinational corporations.
HR HRCS: The Role Of Civil Society: Grassroots Movements and NGOs
This course focuses on the practical aspects of advocacy and the protection of human rights by non-governmental organizations, and their interaction with grassroots, popular movements for rights. Through case studies, interviews, and visits to local organizers of such groups, students learn how advocacy movements are launched and developed, as well as strategies to navigate legal, political, and public arenas. The course contrasts the role, agendas, and the effectiveness of grassroots organizations with those of governmental, private sector, and supranational stakeholders. Students will meet with local activists and officials who advocate for various human rights agendas to learn about successful and unsuccessful campaigns and to evaluate the use of inquiries, documentation, public outreach, legal action, and other approaches to protecting rights.
ANTH 3500: Fieldwork Ethics and Comparative Research Methods (may be team-taught) (4 credits/60 hours
This course provides students with the theoretical, conceptual, and practical knowledge for gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information from a range of primary sources. It offers insights for assessing students’ own cultural assumptions and for understanding other cultures. Students are familiarized with the World Learning/SIT Human Subjects Review Policy. The course is the foundation for a cumulative study project involving research in four countries and culminating in a paper and presentation at the end of the semester. Students will interact with academics, individual activists, members of civil society organizations, and officials of adjudicating institutions as they focus on the practical aspects of advocating and safeguarding human rights. This course in fieldwork ethics and research methods will equip students with knowledge about how to gather, analyze, and interpret information from a range of primary sources.
IHP’s learning model is grounded in experiential theory, as well as critical inquiry and analysis, in an attempt to bring those skills to bear on particular places and themes. It also provides continuous opportunities for students to interact with a variety of local actors representing different and competing interests, and to situate political claims in contexts of unequal access to resources, infrastructure, and political representation.
Required Experience
The ideal candidate should have:
- Experience living and working abroad, preferably in the Global South.
- The ability to work closely with a small team.
- Expertise in one or two of the topic areas listed above and general knowledge of human rights advocacy work.
- Experience teaching at the college level and a commitment to experiential learning, including dialogical and field-based methods.
- The physical stamina, emotional maturity, mental health and flexibility, and personal qualities of patience, adaptability, collegiality, cross-cultural competence, and organization that are needed to build an intensive, team-oriented study abroad program that covers four countries in three months.
- The ability and desire to support and communicate with students throughout the study abroad experience both in and outside of the classroom.
Required Education
The ideal candidates should have:
- A PhD or terminal degree in a relevant field such as: Anthropology, Sociology, Human Geography, History, Law, etc., or an MA with a specific focus on Human Rights and several years experience working in a relevant fields such as journalism, policy advocacy, or planning.
More information about IHP and the Human Rights program is available through our website.
To apply:
Please visit the World Learning employment website and scroll to find the listing "IHP Traveling Faculty: Human Rights." Then apply via the online application system by uploading your letter of interest and CV (including the contact information of three academic references).
Travelling with students for four months, and guiding their learning in the Global South, as well as conducting classroom discussions and small-group seminars, presents unique challenges and demands particular qualities. Please consider this carefully in your letter of interest, paying special attention to how you would handle the conceptual, pedagogical, intercultural, and interpersonal demands working in IHP’s “Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy” program. Specifically, what in your academic background and work experience has prepared you to do this job? Why this job instead of a more traditional academic job? Please indicate your preference for fall or spring semester.
Deadline: May 15, 2013 or until filled. Review of applications will begin March 20, 2013.