AP/HREQ 4770 6.00
Democracy, Social Movements and Freedom of Assembly
This course uses a critical human rights approach to examine social movements. It takes a historical and comparative view of dissent, resistance, civil disobedience, and democratic action, and explores how social movements are sustained through time and across geographic space.
This course is a critical examination of the content (theories, history and applications), context (democracy) and consequences (freedoms) of social movements, examining such concepts as rights as well as the debates over competing and complementary claims. This course confronts the responses to the contradictions inherent in liberal democratic (capitalist) states especially in the official treatment of "rights" and concomitant issues of fundamental equality, equity, and social justice. Major trajectories in the study of rights movements will be investigated in reference to the prospects and challenges of differing perspectives ranging from the more normative traditions to an appreciation of "praxis". This course focuses on various interpretations of social activism and ideas as they are situated within public discourses (local) and hegemonic struggles (global). A central focus concerns state interventive policies and practices. Resistance, resilience and struggle as generic features of capital are also examined in different contemporary contexts of identity and power. The course balances the development of critical awareness, and appreciation, of theories, methodology with the more practical methods skills that students will acquire during this course of study. This innovative, interdisciplinary course enables you to develop advanced skills necessary for the analysis of human rights and equity issues in terms of social movements, dissent, resistance, civil disobedience, and democratic action.
Prerequisites: 78 credits or permission from the Undergraduate Program Director.