HU931-7-SP-CO:
Gender, Race, Identity and Human Rights
2024/25
Human Rights Centre (Essex Law School)
Colchester Campus
Spring
Postgraduate: Level 7
Current
Monday 13 January 2025
Friday 21 March 2025
15
27 May 2022
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
MA L32112 Gender and Sexuality Studies
This module will address key challenges for human rights across the developed and developing worlds. So-called identity politicking has emerged in the past 40 years as a prominent and deeply controversial phenomenon within most societies. It is undeniably true that many human rights violations specifically target groups perceived and ascribed identities.
We inhabit societies where intolerance of difference and diversity have become key challenges for the defence of human rights and the pursuit of social justice. The response to this has often involved targeted communities seeking protection from rights-based mechanisms. There exist many instruments within international human rights law that seek to protect and promote distinct communities of people. However, the rights-based approach to identity politicking raises many, difficult to answer, questions concerning the compatibility of rights-based approaches and identity-based politics. This module will provide an important opportunity for students to engage with this highly important area of theory and practice. The module will be taught over a single academic term. It will be multidisciplinary and will be delivered by colleagues across several academic departments.
The module has a number of principal aims. These include,
1. Provide a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the complex relationship between identity and human rights.
2. To enable students to develop a sound understanding of the normative basis of rights-based approaches to so-called “identity politics”
3. To enable students to make informed connections between human rights principles and instruments and ongoing topical debates surrounding various aspects of identity.
4. To enable students to engage with issues of marginalisation and systemic discrimination within contemporary societies and develop a sound knowledge of the contribution human rights can play in challenging these wrongs.
5. To enable students to situate key debates surrounding identity-based rights claims within the wider human rights PGT syllabus.
1. Gain satisfactory knowledge and understanding of the normative foundations of human rights and how these impact culturally based forms of identity.
2. Gain a satisfactory knowledge of core debates within and perspectives upon so-called “identity politics”.
3. Gain a satisfactory knowledge of the normative and legal basis to the protection of specific forms of identity within the international human rights system.
4. Gain a satisfactory knowledge of how human rights norms and legal instruments have developed to address identity-based forms of human rights violation.
5. Gain a satisfactory knowledge of core manifestations of identity—based rights claims on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, indigeneity, religious faith and conviction, native language, indigeneity, social class and disability.
6. Gain a satisfactory knowledge and understanding of intersectionality as it applies to identity and rights.
7. Gain a satisfactory knowledge and understanding of some of the core challenges which appeals to identity raise for the existing human rights regime.
8. Acquire an intellectual framework within which to situate and understand a range of contemporary debates and controversies within this area of study and practice.
The subject-matter of the module will be of particular interest to students from communities who have often directly experienced marginalisation and discrimination. By focusing so concertedly upon communities of people who experience ongoing human rights violations and social injustice, the module will provide an important component of the wider effort to de-colonise the human rights curriculum
The module comprises nine weeks, each of which focuses on key thematic aspects of importance to the wider challenges.
Indicative list of topics:
Introduction to identity politics, human rights and intersectionality
Race, ethnicity and human rights
Gender and human rights
LGBTQI+ and human rights
Language rights
Religious conviction as a form of identity
Indigenous peoples
Social class and human rights
Disability and human rights
This module will be taught via weekly 2-hour seminars.
The module teaching team will upload all relevant teaching materials on Moodle. You will find reading lists, the textbook, weekly handouts or PPS notes on Moodle. The materials in question are designed both to help you navigate the material to be covered in the seminars and to equip you to analyse the required readings. You will be expected to have completed the required readings in advance of your seminars.
-
Fagan, A. (2024) ‘The Subject of Human Rights: From the Unencumbered Self to the Relational Self’,
Nordic Journal of Human Rights, 42(2), pp. 215–233. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/18918131.2024.2339012.
-
Fraser, N. and Honneth, A. (2003) Redistribution or recognition??: a political-philosophical exchange. London: Verso Books.
-
Kenny, M. (2004) The politics of identity: liberal political theory and the dilemmas of difference. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
-
Taylor, C. and Taylor, C. (1994)
Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition. Edited by A. Gutmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=816125.
-
-
Gordon, L.R. (no date) ‘Through the Hellish Zone of Nonbeing: Thinking through Fanon, Disaster, and the Damned of the Earth’,
Human Architecture: Journal Of The Sociology Of Self-Knowledge, 5(3), pp. 5–12. Available at:
https://essex.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44UOES_INST/1h1udbn/cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_61680844.
-
Benhabib, S. (2018)
The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Available at:
https://www-jstor-org.uniessexlib.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctv346pnd.
-
Byrnes, A. (2014) ‘Gender challenges for international human rights’, in
Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law. London: Routledge. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203481417.
-
Richardson, D. (2017) ‘Rethinking Sexual Citizenship’,
Sociology, 51(2), pp. 208–224. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515609024.
-
Mbasalaki, P.K. (2020) ‘Through The Lens of Modernity: Reflections on the (Colonial) Cultural Archive of Sexuality and Gender in South Africa’,
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 26(3), pp. 455–475. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8311800.
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course.
The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students.
Further reading can be obtained from this module's
reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Essay (HU931 Gender Race Identity and Human Rights) |
23/04/2025 |
100% |
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Yes
Yes
Yes
Available via Moodle
Of 18 hours, 18 (100%) hours available to students:
0 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s), module, or event type.
Disclaimer: The University makes every effort to ensure that this information on its Module Directory is accurate and up-to-date. Exceptionally it can
be necessary to make changes, for example to programmes, modules, facilities or fees. Examples of such reasons might include a change of law or regulatory requirements,
industrial action, lack of demand, departure of key personnel, change in government policy, or withdrawal/reduction of funding. Changes to modules may for example consist
of variations to the content and method of delivery or assessment of modules and other services, to discontinue modules and other services and to merge or combine modules.
The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will also keep students informed appropriately by updating our programme specifications and module directory.
The full Procedures, Rules and Regulations of the University governing how it operates are set out in the Charter, Statutes and Ordinances and in the University Regulations, Policy and Procedures.