Network for Global Ethics and Human Rights
at the University of the West of England
Members
UWE, Bristol
Christien co-ordinates the network. She is a political theorist working on global justice. Christien edits the Journal of Global Ethics and is a Board member of Globalizations. She currently leads a European research project on Trafficking for forced labour in other industries than the sex industries. Her publications on Global Ethics and Human Rights include ‘Globalising liberalism or multiculturalism? The Durban agenda and the role of local human rights education in implementing global norms’ Globalization, Societies and Education 5(5)November2007: 287-302 and ‘Cosmopolitanism, Women’s rights and Trafficking’ in A. Guichon and R. Shah (eds) ‘Women’s rights in Europe’ Special Issue of Journal of Global Ethics 3(1) December 2006. Her books include (with J. Doomernik (eds.))Trafficking and women’s rights Palgrave, 2006 and (with Rhona Smith (eds.)) The Essentials of Human rights Hodder Arnold, 2005.
Anna Grear, Law
Anna Grear is a human rights theorist, currently working on the theoretical centrality of human embodiment to human rights discourse, and the utilisation of 'embodied vulnerability' as a critical concept through which to challenge the closures of law as it affects human rights. In particular she is working to provide theoretical resistance to the increasing use of human rights discourse by transnational corporations. She became an academic in 2000, after completing the two year BCL degree at the University of Oxford, and has a wide range of life experiences prior to entering academic life, including political activism, the running of socio-political forums and conferences, and theatre performance.
Simon Thompson, Politics
Simon Thompson is Reader in Political Theory and Fellow of the Centre for Psycho-social Studies at UWE. He is author of The Political Theory of Recognition (2006) and co-editor of Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues (2001) and Emotions, Politics and Society (2006). He is currently writing a book entitled Contemporary Political Philosophy in Practice for Edinburgh Unversity Press, and co-editing a collection entitled Global Justice and the Politics of Recognition for Palgrave Macmillan.
Saville Kushner, Education
Saville is Professor of Public Evaluation and a long-standing advocate of Democratic Evaluation having published widely on the topic and having conducted and directed many program and policy evaluations commissions over the past 25 years. Between 2005 and 2007 he served as Regional Adviser to UNICEF on Monitoring and Evaluation, making the case for the evaluation of development interventions to be more responsive to the information rights of children and families. He is currently developing this experience into a rights-based approach to M&E, in which the evaluator and the sponsor of the evaluation is seen as a duty-bearer in relation to information rights held by citizens and other stakeholders, and in which social policy is responsive to the concept of information poverty.
Jane Arthurs, Culture, Media and Drama
Jane Arthurs' teaching and research interests are in the fields of television and film studies, and especially the ways that gender and sexuality impinge on their production, textual characteristics and reception. Her most recent book is Television and Sexuality: Regulation and the Politics of Taste (Open University Press 2004) which examines the impact of the digital revolution on the ways in which television channels address their audiences as sexual citizens and consumers. Following an introductory chapter that provides an explanation of the approach taken by the book, subsequent chapter heading are Sexual Citizenship in the Digital Age, Pornography and the Regulation of Taste, Sex Scandals, The Science of Sex, Documenting the Sex Industry, Gay, Lesbian and Queer Sexualities in UK Drama, Postfeminist Drama in the USA, followed by a conclusion that looks towards the future.
Marie-Annick Gournet , Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
Marie-Annick’s area of research has been language and identity in the Caribbean. More recently she started focusing more specifically on the education experience of African Caribbean children in the Caribbean and in Europe (England and France). Marie-Annick has been partly seconded to the UWE Outreach Centre since September 2002 managing a range of projects aimed at raising aspiration and attainment of BME school students locally and regionally.
Marie-Annick has been an active member in the BME community in Bristol for over 20 year. Was involved in setting up and running a number of community organizations including the Supplementary school Buktu which run for 10 year 1985 till 1995.
Pavlina Nikolova, Politics ( Pavlina2.Nikolova@uwe.ac.uk)
Pavlina Nikolova was recently awarded a PhD by the University of the West of England at Bristol for her thesis 'Europeanisation, public administration and sub-national governance in Bulgaria'. She holds a MA in Public Policies in Europe from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Strasbourg (France) and a BA(Hons) in International Economic Relations from the University of Economics at Varna (Bulgaria). Her research interests are mainly in the field of EU policies towards states applying for membership and EU neighbouring states, including the demands placed on those states with regard to human and minority rights. She is also interested in the impact of the EU on the institutions of new member states such as Bulgaria and Romania and on their policies on immigration, asylum, human trafficking, control of borders.
Paul Hoggett, Politics
Paul Hoggett is Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies. With colleagues he has recently completed research funded by the ESRC on the dilemmas facing development workers which will be published by Policy Press in 2008 (The Dilemmas of Development Work). He is interested in the dynamics of breakdown and repair in relations between communities and the complex nature of intervention in such situations, something he is writing about in his current book Politics, Emotions and Identities for Paradigm Publishers.
Cezara Nanu (cezara.nanu@uwe.ac.uk)
Cezara Nanu is currently researching measures to prevent trafficking in human beings as part of her PhD thesis at the University of the West of England. Cezara holds an MA in Public Administration and International Management from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (Monterey, California, USA), and a BA in Education from her home country Moldova. Her main research interests are in the fields of human rights, migration, contemporary forms of slavery, global ethics and global justice.
Kristy Rasmus (kristyrasmus@gmail.com)
I am from a small rural town in Northern British Columbia, Canada. I have a B.Sc is Physical Anthropology. My interest in culture came from growing up in an area with a strong Native American culture, which is also where my interest in human rights began. After completing my degree I decided to travel. I have lived in Nepal for 6 months volunteering in an orphanage, traveled around parts of South America and worked on an environmental restoration project on the Galapagos Islands, and spent some time on a building project in Honduras. The 6 months I spent in Nepal taught me more about human nature and myself than my four years of university and it was there that I discovered a political side to myself and a desire to continue to fight for basic human rights, internationally and nationally.
James Pattison, Politics
James Pattison is a Lecturer in International Relations, with a strong background in political philosophy. He recently completed his PhD on who should undertake humanitarian intervention. He has also written various articles on this topic, including for the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy and the Journal of Social Philosophy. His current research interests concern the moral issues raised when using military force abroad, and include, in particular, the duties of humanitarian intervention and the ethical challenges posed by the increased use of private military companies.
Madge Dresser, History
I am a Reader in History at UWE (B.A. cum Laude, UCLA; MSc. Politics LSE, MSc. (Research) Economic History U of Bristol, Post grad Prof Diploma, Radio Film and Television, U of Bristol) and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Throughout much of my thirty year career, my work has dealt with questions of national identity, the position of ethnic and religious minorities and the history of slavery in 18th century Britain.
My longstanding interest in social justice and ‘history from below’ has lately caused me to stray into more contemporary periods and also sparked my engagement in debates around public history and collective memory.
My interest in the impact of slavery on British society, past and present resulted in my first monograph, Slavery Obscured (2001, reprinted 2007, and more recently in an article on Slavery and Public Monuments in London published in the History Workshop Journal (October 2007).
The past three years have been mainly taken up in leading a £120,000 Lottery-funded project on ‘Identity and the City: a History of Ethnic Minorities in Bristol, c. 1000-2001. This project (comprised of a book and a website) is part of a national initiative called ‘England’s Past for Everyone’ run by the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research. The book, Ethnic Minorities and the City, 1000-2001 by myself and Peter Fleming contains a chapter on displaced people and asylum seekers in Bristol and was published at the end of 2007.
Bristol
Jenny Foster, Bristol Fairtrade Co-ordinator
Jenny Foster Fairtrade Co-ordinator for Bristol and work to promote use and awareness of Fairtrade in the city, as well as raise trade justice issues. She organises events for Fairtrade fortnight which would be great to advertise within the network.
Houri Ghamian (email: hourighamian@yahoo.com)
Houri Ghamian is a British Refugee from the Iranian Kurdistan (naturalized since 2000), photographer, poet and mother. She is also an Anti war, Defend Asylum Seekers and Human Rights campaigner.
Elinor Harris, Refugee Action (elinorh@refugee-action.org.uk, www.refugee-action.org.uk)
Refugee Action is an independent charity which has been working with asylum seekers & refugees for over 25 years. We provide direct & consultancy advice for newly arrived asylum seekers & their advisers, & to people considering returning voluntarily to their country of origin. Our community development workers promote the development of refugee communities. We run a variety of projects to enhance opportunities & integration for refugees and asylum seekers, such as volunteer advocacy & support for new refugees. We also run a specialist ‘awareness raising ‘ project which work with local & community groups to increase understanding of refugee issues, & we provide more specialist training for statutory & voluntary service providers. Elinor would be very happy to contribute on any questions or issues people may have specifically around asylum.
Forward Maisokwadzo, Exiled Journalists Network
The Exiled Journalists’ Network (EJN) is an independent body set up to provide support to journalists from all over the world who seek refuge in the UK after persecution for fulfilling their professional duties. Run by and for exiled journalists, the EJN is the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and aims to promote press freedom as well as assisting asylum seeking and refugee journalists.
The EJN grew out of the Refugees, Asylum-seekers and the Media (RAM) Project run by The Mediawise Trust, the journalism ethics charity with which it shares an office at the University of the West of England.
Alex Rotas (Alex.Rotas@blueyonder.co.uk)
I’m an Hon Research Fellow at Cardiff University in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies – drawn there very much due to the work of Prof Terry Threadgold and her team on the representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK media. My background is Visual Culture and my recent research has been an investigation of visual artists in the UK who were/are also asylum seekers/refugees and also on the visual representation of asylum and refugees by contemporary artists (who may or may not be refugees themselves). Published quite widely on the subject, bit of a conference junkie too (am giving the keynote presentation at a symposium in Frankfurt on Friday/Saturday of this week as it happens, on the impact of African migration on the arts in Europe – that’s what the conference is about, my talk is called Is ‘Refugee Art’ Possible?) I’m co-editing a book called Migrant Settings: Transnational Perspectives on Place with Murat Aydemir of the Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Analysis at Amsterdam University. I teach UWE’s Art, Media and Design students on the Bower Ashton campus
Mark Smalley, BBC Radio 4 Producer ( mark.smalley@bbc.co.uk)
I’m one of a number of Bristol-based producers who make documentaries and features for BBC Radio 4 which seek to reflect current issues in the West and South-West of England. Recent programmes have focused on the experience of migrant workers in Cornwall, and a portrait of Radio Salaam-Shalom, a Bristol-based project and the UK’s only radio station run by Jews and Muslims. Besides such current affairs-style programmes I also produce radio dramas and literary shows.
Tina Lynch, The Pierian Centre, 0117 924 4512, (info@pierian.com, www.pieriancentre.com)
The Pierian Centre is a social enterprise which organises community and cultural events as well as providing space for conferences, celebrations and complementary therapies. Our status as a Community Interest Company expresses the Centre’s involvement in both local and wider reaching communities. Through exhibitions, concerts, workshops and discussions we aim to explore and raise awareness of social and human rights issues. Some of the major events in our calendar have been Refugee Week, International Human Rights Day, World Peace Day and Abolition 200.
Jo Bloxham (info@thinking-people.co.uk) http://www.thinking-people.co.uk/
Jo used to be a secondary school teacher (Geography) and manager of international youth volunteering programme called Global Xchange at VSO (bringing together young people from the North and South to promote global citizenship). Now runs a learning consultancy, thinking-people, based in Bristol and Chester, that specialises in the following three areas: cross-cultural understanding and competence, valuing diversity and global citizenship. Also volunteers on Refugee Action’s Refugee Awareness Project in Bristol.
Sally Britton, 07968 045 448 (spbritton@aol.com)Director of TwentyFifty Ltd ( www.twentyfifty.co.uk)
Sally has worked as an organisation and management consultant, trainer and facilitator since 1988. Since 2002, she has focused on the business and human rights agenda: developing with Luke Wilde the first corporate training programme on business and human rights; chairing the steering group for the 2004 and 2005 Business and Human Rights Seminars; and founding TwentyFifty Limited as a business and human rights consultancy.
Sally has a particular interest in working with change agents, enabling them to develop skills of leadership and vision and to implement realistic solutions. Consultancy clients include blue chip companies for whom she has worked on strategy, policy and implementation in order to address human rights and corporate responsibility both internally and within the supply chain.
She has developed in-house and open training courses for businesses on human rights, corporate responsibility and ethical trading issues. These have included workshop based, e-learning and blended courses. Her approach to training is based on working through cycles of action and reflecting, in order to integrate learning into work-based experience and generate real and sustainable changes in business practice.
Sally’s role as a consultant builds on her experience of working to develop organisations which enable people to maximise their potential and contribute fully to society. She believes that business has a key role to play in creating a wealthy and sustainable society which enables people and communities to achieve their goals, but that business also needs to pay attention to the ways in which it can damage people and communities.
Sally is a board member of EIRIS (the ethical investment research service) and a member of Amnesty International’s UK Business Group. She holds an Honours Degree in Economics (University of Bristol) a Diploma in Social Administration (University of Bristol) and a Masters Degree in Responsibility and Business Practice (University of Bath).
Charleen Agostini (charagos@gmail.com)
Charleen Agostini born in Trinidad 1941 and has lived in the UK since 1964.
She has worked in Theatre and Montessori Education. Last 30 years have been focussed on psychotherapy and in particular Process Oriented Psychology which perceives individuation as a personal, spiritual and political process. She runs a private practice and is part of the faculty of the Research Society for Process Oriented Psychology UK.
Nadia Aghtaie, MSc Policy Research, BSc Childhood Studies, BA Sociology
I am currently a PhD student in the University of Bristol and also a member of the Violence Against Women Research Group. My current research is focused on the issue of gender-based violence amongst diaspora communities and specifically Iranians. I am conducting a comparative study between the Iranian diaspora in the UK, female and male, and their counterparts in Iran examining any transformation in their attitudes to gender-based violence. I am interested in the Civil and Criminal code of Iran and the Shari law. I have conducted empirical research in Iran focusing on the issue of domestic violence and women’s rights and the impact of misinterpretation of the Shari a law on women’s lives in court proceeding. I have recently finished co writing a report on violence against women in Afghanistan and the role of the Quran. I am currently teaching a course on children’s rights for the Childhood Studies programme at the University of Bristol.Beyond Bristol
Stuart Allan, Professor of Journalism in the Media School, Bournemouth University (sallan@bournemouth.ac.uk)
He is the author of several books, the most recent of which is Online News: Journalism and the Internet (2006). His edited collections include Journalism After September 11 (2002, second edition 2008; with B. Zelizer), Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime (2004; with B. Zelizer) and Journalism: Critical Issues (2005). He is a book series editor for Open University Press, and serves on the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals.
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Ivan Manokha (i_manokha@hotmail.com) is Lecturer and Head of a Master’s program in International Affairs at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) of Paris. He completed his doctoral thesis on the political economy of humanitarian intervention at the University of Sussex in 2004. He has taught Human Rights at London School of Economics and different International Relations courses at the University of Sussex, the University of Le Havre, and the ESSEC Business School in Paris. His research interests include historical development of the concept of human rights and its relationship with capitalism, Just War Theory, humanitarian intervention in the late-modern global political economy, and business ethics.
Kurt Mills (k.mills@socsci.gla.ac.uk)
Kurt Mills is Senior Lecturer in International Human Rights at the University of Glasgow and Convenor of the MSc in Human Rights and International Politics at Glasgow. He previously taught at Gettysburg College, James Madison University, Mount Holyoke College, and the American University in Cairo, and served as Assistant Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies based at Hampshire College. He is the founder of the Human Rights section of the International Studies Association and co-editor of the H-Human-Rights discussion network. He is the author of Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty? and a number of articles on human rights, refugees, and humanitarianism, including 'From to Darfur: Norms and Interests in US Policy Toward the International Criminal Court' (with Anthony Lott) in Journal of Human Rights and 'Neo-Humanitarianism: The Role of International Humanitarian Norms and Organizations in Contemporary Conflict' in Global Governance. His current work looks at the relationship between humanitarian intervention, international criminal justice and humanitarianism.
