People and Places
The Impossibility of Indigenous Human Rights : States of Exception at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Dakota Access Pipeline Conflict
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Colin J. Samson
Conflicts between indigenous groups and governments over the use and ownership of lands in North America have exposed hypocrisies about legality, property, human rights, and even democracy itself. These derive from tensions between historical acts of nation-to-nation recognition and governmental practice. This study examines the ongoing dispute surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, USA in which I participated. I shall argue that the conflict at Standing Rock must be understood through a series of acts of state legitimized illegalities. These began with the purchase of unceded Sioux lands from France in 1803, several nineteenth century treaties between the US and the Sioux, and further unconsented legislative acts, and judicial rulings. The DAPL conflict culminated in the Executive Order of January 2017, but involved militarized police action to suppress peaceful protest and freedom of expression. Common to all these actions is a state of exception. Because the state of exception is institutionalized in American state treatment of indigenous populations, both indigenous human rights and American justice itself are impossible to honour.
Learning to Make a Social Difference: Precarious Migrant Worker Organizations and Political Advocacy in Canada
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Simone Brown Mc Laughlin, Dip Kapoor
The Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) in Canada enables Canadian companies and employers seeking cheap and reliable labor for low skilled jobs that Canadian’s are not prepared to do. Canada is a destination for migrant labor for many sending states that broker labor to alleviate unemployment in these source countries while adding to earnings from remittances sent home by these migrant workers. The TFWP, now in a phase of expansion, has been described in the early research as creating the conditions for indentured labor and the exploitation of migrant workers, while women workers make up the majorities in the sectors with the least protections, lowest wages and the most demeaning working conditions, like the Care Givers Program (CGP). This paper shares current research insights and findings on the state of precarious migrant workers in Canada in the low skills category (including the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program or SAWP) who constitute the majority and on migrant worker learning and political advocacy based on a qualitative case study of a migrant worker organization in Western Canada and its national and regional partners. Data collected and analyzed (coding and emergent themes) includes secondary documents from migrant organizations, interviews with migrant worker activists, and focus groups with migrant workers, including observation at key events geared towards public education and advocacy for precarious migrant workers.
Gendered-caste Discrimination and the “Most Untouchable” in Schools in India
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dip Kapoor, Belen Samuel
While untouchability was outlawed in Article 17 of the Constitution of India adopted in 1950, caste/ism and untouchability as a form of pollution-purity based discrimination and humiliation peculiar to Hindu-India and a caste system dating back some two thousand years, continues to be the prevalent social reality for 19% of the Indian population who belong to the list of Constitutionally recognized (for ameliorative purposes) Scheduled Castes (SC), also referred to as Dalits (or the “downtrodden/broken people or outcastes”). Formal education as schooling is no exception to this trend and especially for female students who are subjected to double-barreled discrimination and its interpolations via gendered-casteist practices. Based on a recent (2014-ongoing) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded research initiative in the eastern state of Odisha (where 25% of the population belong to the SC category) undertaken with the Center for Research and Development Solidarity (a Dalit popular research organization) which engaged 401 Dalit students in grades 6-10 attending sixteen state schools in a twenty-five village zone, this paper reports on gendered-castiest, casteist and untouchability practices in these schools. Specifically, practices pertaining to: (1) food/meals; (2) water; (3) teacher-student classroom relations; (4) student-student classroom relations; (5) curricula; and (6) events/functions/extra-curricular activities are considered based on self-reporting by students engaged in a participatory survey process and micro-case study elaborations. The study is informed by theory pertaining to a critical sociology of education and caste discrimination in India.
Roles and Challenges of Technology in Corporate Social Responsibility
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mohamed Abualhaija
Many believe that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is irrelevant and bad for businesses, while others swear to its strategic importance for the overall growth of local and global economies. This paper examines the impact of technology on corporate morals and social responsibility. Companies like GE and Nike direct resources and strategies to strengthen the environment and local and global communities. Through improving education programs and investing in technology, these companies attempt to fulfill their social responsibilities to all communities. Companies use CSR to build a reputation and a brand name. Through technology exports, the world’s economy is synchronized. Creating and sharing technology enhances the world’s productivity and economy, mainly because developing countries are incapable of investing much in R&D. As the infusion of technology contributes to the growth of the global economy, the question remains to what degree the technological breakthroughs create ethical and moral concerns when exploring new frontiers, and to what degree scientists consider the social and ethical consequences when testing and investigating. This paper considers some of the ethical, social, and legal circumstances related to different controversial research fields including creating the atomic bomb, human cloning, and the research of synthetic biology science.
