Responsibility to the Story: Testimony and Ethics in Human Rights
Research and Narratives
Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York (UK)
9-11 September 2009
This international conference will launch an important new journal: the
Journal of Human Rights Practice. It is hosted by the Centre for Applied
Human Rights (CAHR), University of York (UK), and Oxford University
Press, in collaboration with Amnesty International, the Medical
Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and Panos London.
The conference will bring together academics, practitioners and artists
to explore ethical concerns and practical challenges surrounding the use
of testimony. Human rights research has expanded significantly in the
academy over the past decade in a range of disciplines (law, politics,
anthropology, literature). Cultural output, ranging from child soldier
autobiographies to documentary films about transitional justice, is
similarly prominent. Practitioner research has had to adapt to its own
forms of expansion (growing interest in social, economic and cultural
rights; the use of new media). The use and study of testimony have been
driving forces behind these developments. But the ethical and practical
implications of the rise of testimonial work, particularly in the global
media age, remain under-explored.
The aim of this event is to investigate what responsibility researchers,
practitioners and artists have to the stories they use, and to
disseminate best ethical practice.
Conference fee: £70 waged; £30 unwaged/student
Film event: £5
For further details please see
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cahr/Events/Index.htm - or contact Judith
Pink, at (jkp2 /at/ york.ac.uk)
9 September, film event at City Screen Cinema, York (5.45-8.45pm)
The following films are scheduled to feature; all films will be followed
by discussion:
Statement 710399, director Refik Hodzic.
This film follows a father trying to retrace the last days of his
teenage son who disappeared during their attempt to escape the genocide
at Srebrenica.
Unheard Voices, director Cahal McLaughlin.
6x5 minute stories from survivors of the Troubles.
Sam Gregory, the Programme Director at WITNESS, will show and discuss
examples of video advocacy.
10 September, conference programme
9-10am: registration
10-10.15am: Paul Gready (CAHR, University of York; co-editor of the
Journal of Human Rights Practice), introduction and welcome
10.15- 11.30 am: Panel 1: Contested Lives: Perspectives on A Long Way
Gone (Ishmael Beah) and Child Soldier Narratives
- Chair: Paul Gready (CAHR, University of York)
- Johanna Mac Veigh (Save the Children)
- Krijn Peters (Development Studies, University of Swansea)
11.30-11.45: coffee/tea
11.45-1.15pm: Panel 2: Managing Complex Identities
- Chair: Lars Waldorf (CAHR, University of York)
- Ron Dudai (CAHR, University of York), Rescuers and Informers
- Carina Tertsakian (human rights researcher and author of 'Le
Chateau: the Lives of Prisoners in Rwanda'), Perpetrator-Victims
- Speaker on Victim-Survivors tbc
1.15-2pm: lunch
2-3.30pm: Panel 3: Transition and Testimony
- Chair: Brian Phillips (human rights consultant; co-editor of the
Journal of Human Rights Practice)
- Eduardo González Cueva (International Center for Transitional
Justice), Silence as Recognition: the Victim Hearings of the Peruvian
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- Amy Hill (Center for Digital Storytelling), Tracing Legacies of
Violence through Participatory Media in South Africa
- Refik Hodzic (International Liaison Office, International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Sarajevo, and Co-Founder,
XY Films), Visual Ethics and Documentary Filmmaking in Post-Conflict
Societies
3.30-4pm: coffee/tea
4-5.30pm: Discussion Groups
- Discussion group 1: Informed Consent
Chair: Leanne MacMillan (Medical Foundation)
Discussion leader: Danna Ingleton (Amnesty International)
- Discussion group 2: Processing the story (selection, editing
etc.)
Chair: Ron Dudai (CAHR, University of York)
Discussion leader: Siobhan Warrington (Panos London)
Kind regards.
Judith Pink
Centre Administrator
Centre for Applied Human Rights
Tel 01904 434398
(jkp2 /at/ york.ac.uk)
