Global Campus Awarded Theses

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https://reponew.gchumanrights.org/handle/20.500.11825/738
Every year the regional master’s programmes of Global Campus of Human Rights select the best master theses of the previous academic year. The selected seven GC master theses cover a range of different international human rights topics and challenges.

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Browsing Global Campus Awarded Theses by Subject "apartheid"
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    Between localised practices and global imaginaries of boycott and peace: decolonial reflections on BDS in Palestine
    (Global Campus of Human Rights, 2018) Everly, Jo ; Alazzeh, Ala
    Since its formal inception in 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) has been a central tactic of the global struggle against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and its normalisation. It has also been at the forefront of numerous controversies around the world, especially with its recent nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. After more than 10 years, the BDS has gained recent support from the PLO Central Council, while at the same time becoming a 'strategic threat' for Israel, which has introduced new legislation to ban its support. Some argue that the boycott has in fact become central to Palestinian politics. This increasingly vocal role in stirring the debate raises the question of what role the BDS is playing as a driver of change within local, Palestinian politics and how this affects the internationally-led project of 'conflict resolution' and democratisation. Within the context of the post-Oslo era of political and social division, what is the role of the boycott movement in re-defining the terms of the 'conflict' and as part of the wider resistance on the ground? By looking at the debates arising around the academic and cultural boycott within the Palestinian community, this thesis will analyse how the BDS movement is helping to re-frame both the global and local discourse around conflict and peace from a grassroots and indigenous perspective, while shaping its own identity as a rights-based movement for justice. Conceptualisations of BDS as both a “critique” and “dialogue”, as a transgression of social, political and discursive boundaries, and as a tool to reclaim collective identity will frame the discussion of BDS to understand it as part of the “Palestine analytic”: not as an exception but as the result of a global history of colonialism and relative anti-colonial struggle.
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    Staking out a place amidst shifting soils : understanding contemporary South Africa through social memory
    (Global Campus, 2017) Raber, Richard ; Lehners, Jean-Paul ; Kmec, Sonja
    Staking Out a Place Amidst Shifting Soils: Understanding Contemporary South Africa Through Social Memory begins with the premise of global turbulence. The End of History as the global modus operandi rests on unstable ground. Within this context, South Africa is explored, as the nation’s transition has been held up as emblematic of the new and final epoch of human history. The work aims to understand the ways in which various actors conceive their place in society, the state of the nation, as well as visions for the future through story-telling and memory, primarily obtained through interviews. Directly researched issues are apartheid amnesia and discursive limits, performative memory, familial legacies of the past, Rainbowism, Democracy, and contemporary memory. Thematically woven into the research are themes of competing temporalities, debates pertaining to current student movements, the nation’s transitionary period, the Truth and Reconciliation process, controversies over public space and semiotics, and the Marikana Massacre. The work concludes by highlighting a state of uncertainty across different segments of society, a nervousness of sorts. In this context, the work calls for reconceptualising and redefining progress, as well as a new theoretical engagement between human rights and equity.