Paper/Proposal Title

Grassroots Activism in Resolving Intractable Human Rights Problems: Theory and Case Studies from Ghana and Barcelona

Presenter/Author Information

Mette Brogden, University of ArizonaFollow
Phyllis Taoua, University of ArizonaFollow
Rashid Abubakar Iddrisu (Wari), CEHDA GhanaFollow
Durado Brooks Jr, Independent Artist/FilmmakerFollow
Francis M. Abugbilla, University of WashingtonFollow

Location

Grassroots Rights Activism: Ghana and Barcelona

Start Date

10-3-2019 11:00 AM

End Date

10-3-2019 12:30 PM

Keywords

Development, Youth Empowerment, Rural Communities, Grassroots Activism, Salutogenesis

Abstract

Five presentations comprise this panel discussing grassroots activism in resolving intractable human rights problems. Presenters will provide case studies, theoretical framings, and practical steps to create salutogenic trajectories toward healthy societies and communities where marginalized people can realize human rights and freedoms to attain lives "they have reason to value" (cf. Amartya Sen). The Ghanaian and U.S. presenters include academic researchers, human rights practitioners, and independent artist/filmmakers.

Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)

Francis Abugbilla is a PhD Candidate in International Studies and the International Policy Institute fellow at the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He is also the 2018 Marcy Migdal fellow at the Center for Global Studies, University of Washington. He researches on conflict resolution and peacebuilding mechanisms in post-conflict societies. His dissertation focuses on how post-conflict peacebuilding mechanisms affect the prospects of reconciliation in Africa. His secondary research interests include human rights, governance, and youth empowerment. He is from Ghana originally.

Phyllis Taoua, Ph.D. is professor of French and Francophone Studies; she is affiliated with Africana Studies, the Honors College, the World Literature Program and the Master in Human Rights Practice at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She teaches courses on African literature and cinema, Critical Theory, Global Africa, Politics of Protest in Africa and the Diaspora, and Contemporary France. She has is the author of African Freedom. How Africa Responded to National Independence (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Forms of Protest: Anti-Colonialism and Avant-Gardes in Africa, the Caribbean and France (Heinemann, 2002) and editor of special issues on Sony Labou Tansi, Sembène Ousmane, and Mongo Beti. Other recent publications have appeared in World Literature Today, The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel, Transition, SubStance, Research in African Literatures, Cahier d’Études Africaines, South Central Review and Journal of African Cultural Studies. She was the recipient of a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation award and Resident Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. She was elected to the MLA Executive Committee of the Forum on African Languages, Literatures and Cultures and has presented her research in North America, Europe and Africa. She was a Tucson Public Voices fellow with the Op-Ed Project and has published op-eds on human rights and democracy in Africa.

Rashid Abubakar Iddrisu (Wari), Director of CEHDA Ghana, is from the Gonja tribe (Ka Gbar nyi Bia) of Ghana. He is the son of a Ghanaian farmer, and speaks eight African languages as well as English, Spanish, and Catalan. As a young man, he decided to migrate to Europe (1998) to seek economic opportunities, and after nearly three years finally arrived in Barcelona. The story of his experience as a migrant en route and after arrival to Barcelona is told in a chapter of the 2016 book, Understanding Migrant Decisions: From Sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean Region and in the film, New Roots (Otoxo Productions). He has served as a guest lecturer in two online graduate classes in human rights practice for The University of Arizona. In 2001, he initiated a hunger strike in Barcelona among sub-Saharan African migrants to protest a draconian migrant law that prevented migrants from getting papers so that they could work. The strike led to a massive migrants’ revolution in Spain and resulted in thousands of people getting documents. He founded the NGO CEHDAGHANA in 2008 to address the very difficult circumstances of African migrants in Barcelona, and to help youth in Ghana resist the lure of migration to Europe based on false expectations about opportunities that would await them upon arrival. He travels between Ghana and Barcelona to carry out his mission.

Durado Brooks Jr. is an independent artist and storyteller who works across all areas of media production: narrative/commercial/documentary film and TV, fine art and documentary photography, and most recently, expanding into live art/music production. He earned his BA at Cal State Northridge (Film), then several later completed an MFA in producción artística y investigación from Universitat de Barcelona from. Since then he has been based in New Orleans, traveling the US and internationally in constant pursuit of his passion. With others, he completed the documentary film New Roots (Otoxo Productions, Barcelona), which can be seen on YouTube. He is currently making an ongoing series of photo and video portraits entitled “Colorful People in Color: Portraits of Our People”, and, with Rashid Iddrisu, a project engaging the African diaspora an a return to their roots, called Route to my Origin.

Mette Brogden, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Practice and Program Manager, Online Graduate Programs in Human Rights Practice at The University of Arizona. Mette is a medical anthropologist whose career has tacked between environmental conflict resolution, resettling refugees in the U.S., and recovery from war trauma. She holds additional advanced degrees in social work and documentary film/communication studies. A “pracademic” who has spent the bulk of her career working in NGOs, government, and university settings ranging from local to international levels, she applies her anthropological knowledge and theoretical resources to addressing human rights issues. Her current interests focus on realization of the right to migrate for all peoples, complex trauma recovery, salutogenesis out of intractable issues within complex adaptive systems, environmental protection, decolonizing knowledge systems through animist understandings, and helping grassroots leaders help vulnerable peoples to realize their desires and dreams while correcting wicked human rights problems.

Comments

Individual papers:

Francis Abugbilla, “Overcoming Poverty through Youth Empowerment with Electricity and Internet Access in Rural Ghana”

Phyllis Taoua: “Relative Degrees of Freedom in Rural Ghana: Obstacles and Opportunities”

Rashid Iddrisu (Wari): “Activating human rights in Barcelona and Rural Ghana: The CEHDA Ghana story”

Durado Brooks, Jr.: “Documentary media elevating grassroots activism”

Mette Brogden: “Beyond Outrage: How salutogenic practitioners address wicked issues in human rights, and how academics can help”