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Department of Sociology
Human Rights and Multiculturalism

Human Rights and Multiculturalism

Code	15515
Year	1
Semester	S2
ECTS Credits	6
Workload	TP(45H)
Scientific area	Sociology
Entry requirements	N/A
Learning outcomes	1. To describe the history and evolution of Human Rights in conjunction with moral values and legal norms; 2. To explain its implementation in democratic and non-democratic contexts with specific attention paid to how this regime accommodates multiculturalism as a social feature of contemporary societies; 3. To explore the challenges that cultural differences pose to open societies and how globalization constitutes a challenge to the implementation of human rights in practice, looking specifically at how identity and difference can often question and even undermine the legitimacy of the international regime of human rights and its universalist aspiration; 4. To apply different types of qualitative methodology and its interdisciplinarity across areas such as sociology, international relations, political science, economics and international law; 5. To explain how human rights and multiculturalism must be addressed as both a social reality and normative imperative of democracies.
Syllabus	1. Human Rights in History 2. Sociological and Anthropological Approaches to Human Rights 3. Human Rights and Multiculturalism: Identity, Citizenship and Democracy 4. Human Rights as a ‘social construction’: Relativism and Universalism 5. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity 6. The Human Rights of Minorities of Indigenous Peoples 7. Human Rights, Forced Migration and Human Trafficking 8. International Law, IOs and NGOs: Monitoring Human Rights 9. Development, Economy and Globalization: Different models for different cultures? 10. Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Religion 11. Torture, Genocide and State Oppression: Are Human Rights always against the State? 12. Humanitarian Interventions: war in the name of Human Rights 13. The End of Human Rights: Equal rights for all or differentiated rights for the different few? Contemporary Criticisms of Human Rights after the multicultural challenge to universalism
Main Bibliography	Andriantsimbazovina, Joel and Gaudin, Helene (2008), Dictionnaire des Droits de l’'Homme, Quadrige Benet-Martinez, Veronica and Hong, Ying-Yi (2014), Oxford Handbook of Multicultural Identity, Oxford University Press Brunsma, David et all (2019), Sociology for Human Rights: Approaches for Applying Theories and Methods, Routledge Cushman, Thomas (2011), Handbook of Human Rights, Routledge Fagan, Andrew (2017), Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Core Issues and Cases, Edinburgh University Press Gaetano, Pentassuglia (2017), Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Human Rights, Brill Nijhoff Goodhart, Michael (2016), Human Rights: Politics and Practice, Oxford University Press Haddock, Bruce and Sutch, Peter (Eds.) (2013), Multiculturalism, Identity and Rights, Routledge Kymlicka, Will (2007), Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity, Oxford University Press Modood, Tariq (2013). Multiculturalism, Polity Press
Language	Portuguese. Tutorial support is available in English.