2022 CCI
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(In) Justice International
大會主題
Theme
衝突監禁與不道德國際研討會
Conflict, Confinement & Immorality World Convention
為期四天活動，六個主題 （6 Streams FOUR DAYS）
3/22 (PM) BLACK LIVES MATTER：Global Recognition & Change
The killing of George Floyd in 2020 sparked protests all over the world calling for an end to police violence against racial minorities. However, it also sparked a wave of recognition of the racist structures and systems that upheld and perpetuated violence against people of colour. This first stream of our inaugural World Convention is designed to investigate the relationship between ethnicity, race, discrimination, exclusion, violence, crime and welfare on an international scale.
Primarily, the papers will help to inform why discriminatory acts of malevolence and marginalisation are committed against black individuals in a manner that has no consideration for or of their lives whatsoever. Also of primary consideration is the particular way(s) in which the current pandemic has impacted upon minorities in terms of policing, access to medical care and vaccines as well as a focus on the broader social issues pertaining to the Covid-19 crisis.
3/23 (AM) I NDIGENOUS STRUGGLES：the fight against marginalisation, criminalisation & oppression
According to the United Nations, Indigenous peoples are the inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are uniquely different from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Yet despite their cultural differences, Indigenous peoples from around the world share common problems and obstacles in the protection of their rights as distinct peoples. As a result, Indigenous peoples have sought recognition of their identities, way of life and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years.
Throughout history, however, their rights have always been violated. Today, Indigenous peoples are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world. The international community now recognises that special measures are required to protect their rights and maintain their distinct cultures and way of life. Papers for this stream should reveal the extent and manifestation of the traumatic obstacles that Indigenous people have, and still have to, face and overcome. Papers relating to neoliberal-inspired acts of travesty emanating from extensive deforestation (in Australia, Papua New Guinee and Brazil), the confiscation of lands either by deception or force (in the US and New Zealand) and the inculcation of ‘white’ norms and values of the dominant ‘social’ configurations of the contemporary world (epitomised by the residential schools in Canada) would be welcome additions to the arguments against such heinous acts of cultural genocide.
3/23 (PM) MIGRANT PLIGHT：before, during & after flight
(In)Justice International encourages the submission of papers that reveal the true extent of the maltreatment levelled at migrant refugees. Indeed, after taking flight from their country of origin, many refugees and asylum seekers have undertaken long, arduous journeys fraught with further suffering, harm and injury. This includes degrading treatment, forms of violence and abuse from the traffickers and the terrible conditions of camps on the African or Turkish side of the Mediterranean. Moreover, the conditions that refugees had to face on the supposedly 'safe' Greek island sanctuaries were not significantly better despite UN regulations to the contrary. Often conditions were undignified, unsafe and particularly harmful for pregnant women (Cincurova, 2021). Once arriving on Lesbos, many were forced to ‘live’ in a tent in the Moria refugee camp on the island. The camp has frequently been labelled as a 'living hell' by NGOs, humanitarian workers and refugees alike.
That said, such atrocious maltreatment has not been the preserve of the Greek State alone. In the UK, for instance, Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (YWIRC), 60 miles north of London, holds approximately four hundred refugee women who are awaiting an asylum decision. These extremely vulnerable women have been treated like prisoners despite a dearth of evidence relating to any criminal behaviour (Coventry 2021). At YWIRC, 66 per cent of detainees had been subjected to sexual/gender-based violence in their own country, including rape by police, soldiers or prison guards who represented the State (Dorling et al. 2012) and, because of such, detainees often feared male authoritative State figures. Incidents of sexual misconduct and intimidation by the Serco staff (members of a private, profit-making neoliberal company acting on behalf of the UK State inside YWIRC) were/are widespread too. The most common of which was/is the invasion of sexual decency within the compound. The staff intruded upon the privacy of detainees and entered their rooms unannounced while they were naked, taking a shower or on the toilet (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 2015).
By revealing these atrocities, papers will be taking the first steps toward the criminalisation and eradication of such heinous behaviour. Papers that portray an understanding of the motives and ideological opposition to accommodating those seeking a safe haven would also be greatly appreciated.
3/24 (AM) DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION：ablism, hate & social ostracism
Presentations for this stream should concentrate on the definitions and effects of ‘ableism’, ‘disablism’ and the social harms caused by hate, stigmatisation and marginalisation leading to alienation. On the one hand, ableism relates to the ‘…idea that disability is created by a world designed for able-bodied living rather than by the way bodies are impaired’ (Finklestein, 1996). In so doing, ableism promotes social constructions of disability and looks at disability through the lens of an ‘able-bodied’ person that belittles the idea of disability being the product of a world designed for ‘able-bodied’ life and living rather than looking at the way bodies are impaired and what should be done to rectify the social barriers put before impaired individuals. Quite simply, ableism concentrates on the specific impairment (and therefore the individual) as the reason for an inability to function in society rather than critiquing the ‘able-bodied’ construction of the term ‘disabled’.
On the other hand, disablism forms a conceptual wall where, on one side of it, ‘able-bodied’ people see themselves in terms of ‘normality’ skewed by a medical view of health coupled with an ambition to provide cradle to grave health services. On the other side, disabled people are seen as ‘abnormal’, ‘deviant’, ‘people with special needs’, etc., who must be provided with impossible, overly expensive cradle to grave welfare (care) services. In effect, ‘able-bodied’ people have deposited their own natural ‘vulnerability’, and genuine social dependency, into disabled people as if this was unique to being disabled. The so-called vulnerability of disabled individuals is thus seen as an attribute that separates these individuals from the essentially normal. Consequently, disabled people are condemned as not quite human in what Finkelstein (1991) has referred to as the ‘social death’ model of disability. In short, the aim of this stream is to expose how disabled people are stigmatised and, because of such, have been subject to nefariously criminal acts of institutional discrimination, social discrimination, ostracism, hate crimes and lasting social harms encompassing individual, familial and communal consequences.
3/24 (PM) CRIMINALISING THE WORKING CLASS & BENEFIT CLAIMANTS: contrasting costs of crime & blame
To be clear from the onset, not all working class people are on benefits (hence their social classification) but some are. And mainly for reasons beyond their control. Others are in ‘precarious’ employment, on zero-hour contracts, fixed term contracts, ‘contingency’ work or part-time employment (see ‘Welfare Recipients’ on the website for more information) yet many are suffering from ‘in-work poverty’. In contrast to the prevailing narrative that the working class want to claim benefits, want to live an unproductive life (in terms of work in the paid labour market), live a life of crime and are (ir)responsible for high rates of illegitimacy this is factually not true. For the majority, work is an essential aspect of self-fulfilment but, in the neoliberal climate of today, are often denied the opportunity through employer quests to maximise profits leaving working class ‘victims’ reliant on seeking financial support from elsewhere.
Put simply, this group of precariously employed people on a minimum insecure wage and unemployed people—invariably through no fault of their own—are being criminalised or left overly reliant upon charity funded foodbanks because of the situation they find themselves in. And when this is compared to the financial and socio-economic damage of the 2008 financial crisis, one wonders why attention, punishment and poverty is enforced upon the poor rather than penalising the wealthy financiers who left their employment with handsome, minimally taxed ‘golden handshakes’ completely unstigmatised by their immoral if not criminal behaviour. These are the type of issues that this stream aims to assist participants and beyond in their awareness and thus bring such concerns to the fore, publicly argue against and promote possible solutions for the future (i.e. a universal basic income).
3/25 (AM) GENDER, YOUTH & DIFFERENCE：LGBTIQ+, ‘folk devils’, alienation & human rights abuse
This stream is designed to highlight the marginalisation of key groups in society. Presentations on issues relating to and critiquing the treatment of the young as a stereotypically troublesome group are welcome. So too would critiques about the gender stereotyping that is a dominant and alienating conviction in the societies of today. In a similar vein, the stream would also welcome talks which examine the heinous atrocities levelled at LGBTI+ communities.
In this latter respect, (In)Justice International would be especially pleased to receive papers that help to expose and tackle the ongoing violence, discrimination and victimisation of LGBT+ communities which have resulted in severe suffering, whereby LGBT+ communities have long been the target of State, community and everyday abuse, aggression and exclusion within society, their families and households. Globally, even today, while there have been some advances in some parts of the world, such as marriage equality, there has simultaneously been, in other parts of the world, an active campaign of criminalisation, punishment and surveillance of LGBT+ persons and their communities.