第六場次 Sixth Stream

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Gender, Youth and Difference: LGBTI+, 'Folk Devils', Alienation and Human Rights Abuse

性別、青年與差異：多元性別、人間惡魔、化外之民和人權霸凌

 

Isabel L. Krakoff

York University, Canada

 

Speaking for the Subaltern: Understanding the Consequences of Assumptions of Universality in

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa

 

This presentation offers a theoretical exploration outlining how the history of assumptions of universality in human rights, as well as the underlying notion of ‘the human’, manifest in contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights activisms in sub-Saharan Africa. Because the hegemonic constructions of humanity and human rights largely emerge out of Western understandings of social, economic, and political relationships and identities, their global imposition does not always adequately account for non-Western contextual and cultural specificities or alternative understandings. With LGBTQ rights in particular, the lack of flexibility in the global implementation of Western configurations of such rights frameworks often forces non-Western activists to engage in strategic mobilisations of human rights discourse in order to foster international support and funding. Not only are these strategies not always the most effective or contextually appropriate, the reliance on universalised understandings of LGBTQ identities and needs can legitimise some anti-gay political figures’ arguments suggesting that homosexuality is an ‘un-African,’ Western import. Rather than deny the importance of a human rights system that people can rely on globally, this presentation reveals how current formulations of human rights do not achieve this goal, and must be radically rethought not only to better account for diverse identities, but also to acknowledge and incorporate non-Western ideological and historical traditions that complicate eurocentric understandings of ‘the human’.

 

Ciara Cremin

University of Auckland, New Zealand

 

Trans-eye View: Life from a Trans Woman’s Perspective

 

Coming out as a trans woman is transformative. Suddenly you are the object of everyone’s gaze and, amongst friends and colleagues, the topic of conversation. One day you belong to a privileged majority, the next a discriminated against minority. Indeed, the most profound aspect of being a trans woman is the change in perception. It is the perception of the self and the world from a unique vantage point, that of a woman who for many years lived as a man and also, in distinction, an easily identifiable trans woman. The presentation is about this change in perception and what from this vantage point is discovered about the self and society. 

 

Li Yi-Zhen

National Taiwan University, Taiwan

 

Study on the Assisted Reproduction in Taiwanese Same-sex Couples: A Cross Country Comparison

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After the Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No.748 passed in May 17th,  2019, there are still many inequalities between homosexual couples and  heterosexual couples. One of them is the assisted reproduction issue. The research questions of this discussion lie in whether or not the word  “couples” in the Assisted Reproduction Act should include same-sex couples after the  implementation of Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748. The assisted  reproduction policies nowadays benefit heterosexual couples. Should homosexual  couples be applied by analogy in the Assisted Reproduction Act? Besides, why is the  Assisted Reproduction Act in Taiwan closely connected with heterosexual marriages? What is the necessity of this connection? 

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The research methods in this presentation include legal dogmatics, document analysis and comparative study. Besides collecting domestic periodicals and dissertations, this presentation will also discuss cross-country laws, periodicals and cases about same-sex couples as well as assisted reproduction issues. Through discussing the assisted reproduction in Taiwan and other countries, it is hoped same-sex couples could embrace the equal rights and responsibilities with heterosexual couples as soon as possible. 

 

Smita Chakraborty

Jhargram Raj College (Girls’ Wing), India

 

Women, Witchcraft and Witch Branding:  A Critical Discourse Analysis of Female Stigmatisation in Jhargram

 

The social story on the place of women in society has different layers. On one hand,  women are standing out as examples of empowerment, and on the other hand, they  are subjected to challenges of the patriarchal standards of society. One such area of  female ostracism is located in the tribal scenarios where women are branded as  witches or dain, who allegedly possess supernatural powers to tame the villagers and  bring out illness, death, or any evil tragedy. Several Hindu mythologies brand women  as witches too. This violation of human rights is a debatable notion since time  immemorial, but the question remains whether women being branded as witches is a myth or reality? Are they being scapegoats of the patriarchal social structure? Why are the males revered as healers (Guins/Ojha) while the females as practitioners of  witchcraft? Or is it the choice of the women to be branded as witches to attain power  and make their voice heard in society? Are they being targeted and constricted due to  their defenselessness or is it misplaced rationalism? This research is conducted in the  district of Jhargram, West Bengal which is, primarily, inhabited by the Santhals and  the Sabar tribal communities. Using critical discourse analysis on the Santhals and the  Sabar tribal members, the researcher tries to spotlight this conflicting issue of witch  branding as a popular practice, which is still prevalent in the 21st century.

 

 

 

Pan Pey-Chun & Jian Wei-Jiang

NPUST, Taiwan

 

A Pilot Study of the Attitudes Ventured Towards Disabled Women and the Social Resources Made Available in Taiwan for those Wanting Marriage and/or a Child

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This presentation conveys the findings of a pilot study undertaken in Taiwan. In Taiwan, the traditional family culture of marriage and childbirth are seen as important componants of social stability. With regard to disability matters, however, the decisions of disabled children are expected to be listened to by their parents and in-laws. This study was conducted to understand actual attitudes and exposure of parental and familial support experienced by disabled women and the implicated resources required from support services.

 

The data source of this presentation came from the demand survey of the Pingtung County Government's "Pingtung County Women with Preschool Children's Life Needs Survey Implementation Plan Survey Report". The interviewees in this survey were living in Pingtung County, Taiwan from 2019-2020. Disabled mothers with children aged 0 to 5 were interviewed. There were 92 mothers in total. 50 were willing and valid respondents and the average age of the respondents was 34.14 years old. The overall questionnaire had five aspects. Consequently, this presentation presents the research results of their marriage and childbirth status and the welfare resource requirements implicated in this questionnaire.

 

The results of the study showed that the respondents’ parents or family members left 14% of the respondees feeling they were not supported, whilst 4% felt they were completely unsupported over their attitudes toward marriage. The survey results were similar in terms of the respondents' support for marriage by parents or family members of their spouse or common-law partner. In the explanation of reasons for not supporting or even opposing marriage included factors such as the nature of disability itself and the perceived trouble it would cause for parents. 24% of the disabled women interviewed considered that the biggest difficulty in getting married was the opposition that they faced from family members. Moreover, when measuring the amount of familial approval over these disabled women having children, 14% reported they were met with disapproval and 2% met with strong disapproval.

 

In terms of the resources needed, the top three items during the pregnancy stage were pregnancy knowledge, psychological preparation and support for childbirth. Transportation to see a doctor was also an important consideration. For the medical and welfare services at the education and childcare stage, the top three are increased childcare allowances, seeing a doctor regularly and a community/public childcare system (homecare centres). This presentation will also show that the top three most important disabled women think marriage and reproductive rights should be guaranteed in legislation to protect the disabled people's pregnancy and childbirth rights, breaking family and social prejudice, and to increase the childcare support system.

 

Based on the above statistical data and qualitative opinions, this presentation will argue that the parents and family members of disabled women and their spouses still face discriminatory attitudes against marriage on the grounds that the woman is disabled. In terms of parenting attitudes, some parents and family members also believed that disabled people were equal to incompetent caregivers, indicating that women with disabilities still need to fight against the traditional social, cultural and stereotypical expectations that women have to be a ‘formal’ caregiver.

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Susan Eriksson

South Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Finland

 

Young People with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities and their Opportunities to

Physical Activities in the context of Ableism

 

Young people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities are inferior to most young people with regard to opportunities to leisure activities. In comparison with their more able peers, there is a considerable lack of sufficient supporting practices for them to exercise sports. They need personal assistance, supporting devices and support in sports and leisure services.

 

Lack of support is due to structures and practices of ableism in the culture of sports and sports activities. These social and cultural practices rely on self-evidence of physical abilities, constituting social statuses and ranks. Physical skills and abilities segregate individuals and form social hierarchies also in youth sports communities.

In this realm, the position of young people with profound disabilities is very difficult, since they are not considered to have the necessary physical abilities to practice sports. Being faced by these assumptions, we did multi-sited ethnography among these young people in our research project concerning their opportunities to physical activities, and found out that in general, it is not the case. None of our research participants was completely lacking physical abilities, and the capabilities they had, were noticed and strengthened in leisurely practices in their daily lives. However, biomedical understanding of disability is still dominant in many of their supporting practices, and the right to participate in recreation activities is not always recognised.

 

With my presentation, I shed light into current lives of young persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities and their opportunities to do physical activities as one of their crucial rights as young people. By introducing the ethnographic data collected in 2020-2021, I show the types of practices of ableism affecting their opportunities and constituting their subordinate statuses in youth sport activities, as well as the actual possibilities they have for physical recreation and the practices with which their capabilities are enhanced and promoted.

 

Claudia Radiven

University of Leeds, England

 

Training A Generation: The Language of Islamophobia in the context of the UK’s Prevent policy

 

Researchers in fields as wide ranging as Terrorism Studies, Defence and Security Studies, Sociology of ethnicities, Anthropology, Legal studies, and International Relations have helped to build up an extensive literature on contemporary radicalisation of Muslims and the policies needed to counter this. These studies have been informed by a variety of epistemologies and deployed a range of methods to investigate and improve Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policies and their impact on Muslim communities. Many of these studies have demonstrated excellent scholarship, however, a problem arises within the conception of CVE itself. This presentation provides an analysis of the Prevent policy, the training to carry out the now incumbent duty, and the impact of its implementation on the Muslim community. Through decolonial discourse theory and the lens of Critical Muslim Studies, Prevent can be understood as a discourse rooted in racialised notions of British Values. The problems with Prevent are not methodological failures but rather epistemological, as Prevent relies upon Orientalist and Islamophobic principles taken from colonial forms of governance. This presentation will reflect on how Prevent and its expansion has led to enacting two-tiered citizenship that rests on a racialisation of citizens and prejudices the Muslim community.

 

Adam Formby

University of Lincoln, England

 

An Injustice of Youth: Understanding Social Harms, Inequalities and Trajectories of Underrepresented Graduates in the UK

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Globally, ‘graduate trajectories’ into labour markets are now non-linear, protracted and complex. This is not just a development due to Covid-19 but also because of deeper structural shifts in what constitutes the ‘graduate trajectory’ and the negotiation of wider social and economic structures that govern how trajectories play out. The continued presence of labour-market associated risk and inequality has meant that ‘idealised’ graduate careers become harder to attain. The rise of the knowledge-society resulted in an assumption that all graduates are in possession of the sufficient autonomy to help avoid social inequalities and social harms, thus reducing the graduate trajectory as a political concern. Yet, for graduates from underrepresented communities (who have also had to navigate HE often as ‘first-in-family’ students), precarious experiences associated with the graduate labour market can create stigmatic, life-long and enduring social harms: harms that often remain unaddressed by the relevant social policy apparatus. This presentation will explore some of the experiences and inequalities of the modern graduate trajectory and argue for a social justice-based response to ensure fairer outcomes for all graduates.