Unit SOCIOLOGY OF HUMAN AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

Course
Investigation and security sciences
Study-unit Code
A000963
Curriculum
In all curricula
Teacher
Laura Guercio
Teachers
  • Laura Guercio
Hours
  • 36 ore - Laura Guercio
CFU
6
Course Regulation
Coorte 2021
Offered
2021/22
Learning activities
Affine/integrativa
Area
Attività formative affini o integrative
Academic discipline
SPS/12
Type of study-unit
Opzionale (Optional)
Type of learning activities
Attività formativa monodisciplinare
Contents
The program intends to analyze and develop knowledge of the social origins of human rights and their status of compliance with the demands of different communities within the international, regional and national regulatory and political dimension.
Although human rights are mostly taught in the field of legal disciplines, they are increasingly being examined as a social topic.
In this dimension, the relevance of the role of sociology and social theories in the understanding of human rights is increasingly more pressing.
How, then, does sociology help to understand and develop human rights in our age? But even more, how do human rights help to understand, and to influence, the sociological dynamics that move in our time?
The course aims to examine the different perspectives on human rights, which far from being an aseptic normative category, are in a constant dialectical relationship with the environmental, cultural, political and economic conditions of a given social structure in which human rights are interpreted, implemented, disseminated. Recent sociological approaches approach human rights not as a false myth (sociology) or as immutable attributes (jurisprudence, philosophy) but as expressions of evolutionary dynamics that vary in time and space, and which place the social demands and regulatory responses.
For this reason, the course analyzes the theoretical and doctrinal debates related to human rights including universalism vs particularism, globalism vs localism, collective rights vs individual rights, and the concrete implication of these debates in today's configuration of some specific rights, debated in the 21st century.
The analysis carried out by the manual then wants to go further to illustrate the critical capacity of the new sociology of human rights, and, moreover, to examine how human rights are in turn an instrument of understanding and influence on the social order. In this way we intend to open a debate and an open reflection on how the norm is an interpretative criterion of the social dimension and on how human rights have become increasingly present in recent decades.
The analysis carried out by the manual then wants to go further to illustrate the critical capacity of the new sociology of human rights, and, moreover, to examine how human rights are in turn an instrument of understanding and influence on the social order. In this way we intend to open a debate and an open reflection on how the norm is an interpretative criterion of the social dimension and on how human rights have become increasingly present in recent decades.
Reference texts
Blokker P- Guercio L, Sociologia dei diritti umani, Mondadori Editore.
In addition, non-attending students must also include one of the following texts of their choice:
Bobbio N., L’eta dei diritti umani, Einaudi Editore.
Guercio L., Women rights after the Arab spring, Cambridge Scholars (General Section and one chapter to be choosen among those included in special section, namely Tunisia, Yemen, Egitto)
Guercio L., Constructing the Categories of Girls and Girl Children in the social and legal system. A matters of definition?, Arnaldo Editore
Teaching methods
Interactive classes including the analysis and debate on legal texts
Learning verification modality
Oral Exams
Extended program
The main teaching subjects will be
1 Human rights: history, codification and reflections.
1.1 Human rights: historical process and geographical location.
1.2. Globalization, universalism and relativism of human rights.

2. The dialectic between power, society and human rights.
2.1 Authoritarian and democratic regimes and the struggle for human rights.
2.2 Institutions and non-governmental associations: their interaction and influence with fundamental rights.
2.3. Human rights and populisms.

3 For a sociological perspective of human rights.
3.1. Classical sociology and human rights.
3.2. Recent contributions to the sociology of human rights.
3.3 Living together locally and globally:
3.4. Methodology, practice, and theory of the sociology of human rights.

4. Practical study: new rights or mere evolutions?
Sexuality and gender
Ethnical minorities
Woman rights
Disability and society
Crimes and deviances
Family
Employment and work
Science, knowledge and technology
Communication and information
Religion
Environment and technology
Biology and sociology
1.4 New rights or new fears?
Peace, war and social conflicts
Collective behaviors and social movements
International migration

5. Society, fears, security and human rights: from populism to a normative theory of the enemy?
5.1. Influence of social fears on the law.
5.2 The century of the "enemy"?
5.3 The populist exploitation of law.
5.4. 21st Century Enemy Normative Theory.

6. The historicity and modern character of human rights
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