Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:20:50.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - Psychosocial Features of Movements That Have Advanced Human Rights

from Part III - Contemporary Issues in Psychology and Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2020

Neal S. Rubin
Affiliation:
Adler University
Roseanne L. Flores
Affiliation:
Hunter College, City University of New York
Get access

Summary

This chapter elevates and explores factors that have played a role in the advancement of human rights. The term “psychosocial” is used to mean the reciprocal and iterative relationship between psychological processes and social movements. We illustrate how psychosocial gains can create sociocultural climates and sociopolitical changes conducive to the instantiation of human rights. We begin by identifying some of the psychosocial dynamics that were in play when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted. Subsequently, we focus on psychosocial gains and the advancement of human rights in three case studies involving people with disabilities, women, and people who are most adversely affected by climate change. The centrality of psychosocial processes in the run-up to declarations of human rights is emphasized. While declarations are highly visible outcomes, our research suggests that declarations are often preceded by a diffuse pattern of smaller psychosocial and sociopolitical gains. Given the centrality of psychosocial processes, we discuss emerging roles for psychologists as emancipatory practitioners who accompany marginalized people and assist in cultivating “new power” relationships that establish and promote a digital presence for movements aimed at the advancement of human rights.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychological Association (APA). (2008). Resolution on the Americans with Disabilities Act. www.apa.org/about/policy/disabilities-actGoogle Scholar
Anti-Defamation League. (2015). A brief history of the disability rights movement. www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/disability-rights-movementGoogle Scholar
Banning-Lover, R., & Purvis, K. (2016, June 22). Disability rights around the world: From 1944 to the present day. Guardian. www.theguardian.com/usGoogle Scholar
Barnartt, S. H., & Scotch, R. K. (2001). Disability protests: Contentious politics, 1970–1999. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Bem, S. L. (1981). Bem Sex-Role Inventory. Mental Measurements Yearbook, with Tests in Print (9). https://health.ebsco.com/products/mental-measurements-yearbook-with-tests-in-printGoogle Scholar
Benedict, S., & Kuhla, J. (1999). Nurses’ participation in the euthanasia programs of Nazi Germany. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 21(2), 246–263.Google Scholar
Brisenden, S. (1986). Independent living and the medical model of disability. Disability, Handicap & Society, 1(2), 173–178.Google Scholar
Brody, E. B. (2004). The World Federation for Mental Health: Its origins and contemporary relevance to WHO and WPA policies. World Psychiatry, 3(1), 54–55.Google Scholar
Burke, T. (n.d.). You are not alone. https://metoomvmt.org/homeGoogle Scholar
Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 103-126.Google Scholar
CEDAW. (1979). Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CEDAW.aspx(1979).Google Scholar
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/ViolenceAgainstWomen.aspx(1993)Google Scholar
Dejong, G. (1979). Independent living: From social movement to analytic paradigm. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 60, 435–446.Google ScholarPubMed
Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. T., & Marcus, E. C. (Eds.). (2011). The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Dion, S. (2015). A world price for carbon: A necessary condition for an effective global climate agreement. Harvard International Review, 36(3), 49.Google Scholar
Disabled In Action. (n.d.). A discussion with Judy Heumann on independent living. http://disabledinaction.org/heumann.html#differentGoogle Scholar
Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2009). Collective psychological empowerment as a model of social change: Researching crowds and power. Journal of Social Issues, 65(4), 707–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fakhoury, W., & Priebe, S. (2007). Deinstitutionalization and reinstitutionalization: Major changes in the provision of mental healthcare. Psychiatry, 6(8), 313–316.Google Scholar
Fiske, S. T., Bersoff, D. N., Borgida, E., Deaux, K., & Heilman, M. E. (1991). Social science research on trial: Use of sex stereotyping research in Price Waterhouse v Hopkins. American Psychologist, 46(10), 1049–1060.Google Scholar
Fleischer, D. Z., & Zames, F. (2012). The disability rights movement: From charity to confrontation. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Frank, D. W., & Beane, L. L. (2015). How the ADA was passed. Federal Lawyer, 62, 62–66.Google Scholar
Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (4th ed.). New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
General Assembly. (1993). Standard rules on the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities. December 20. A/RES/48/96.Google Scholar
Glendon, M. A. (2001). A world made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York, NY: Random House Trade Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Grim, A. (2015, July 8). Sitting-in for disability rights: The Section 504 protests of the 1970s. http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/sitting-disability-rights-section-504-protests-1970s#sidrGoogle Scholar
Hanisch, C. (1970). The personal is political. In Firestone, S. & Koedt, A. (Eds.), Notes from the second year: Women’s liberation. https://repository.duke.edu/dc/wlmpc/wlmms01039.Google Scholar
Hansen, R., & King, D. (2001). Eugenic ideas, political interests, and policy variance: Immigration and sterilization policy in Britain and the U.S. World Politics, 53(2), 237–263.Google Scholar
Hasemyer, D. (2018). Fossil fuels on trial: Where the major climate change lawsuits stand today. Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-generalGoogle Scholar
Heimans, J., & Timms, H. (2014). Understanding “new power.” Harvard Business Review, 92(12), 48–56.Google Scholar
H.R.763: Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019. 116th Congress. www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763Google Scholar
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2015). Climate change 2014: Mitigation of climate change (vol. III). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
IUPsyS. (2015, July 17). Torture and human rights abuses: Comments by IUPsyS president Saths Cooper. www.iupsys.net/news/torture-and-human-rights-abuses-comment-by-iupsys-president-saths-cooperGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J. P., Jr. (2004). The scientific attack on Brown v Board of Education, 1954–1964. American Psychologist, 59(6), 530–537.Google Scholar
Jourard, S. M. (1964). The transparent self: Self disclosure and well-being. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Knox, J. H. (2016). Report of the special rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Climate Change Report. New York, NY: UN Human Rights Council.Google Scholar
Leiserowitz, A. (2007). Communicating the risks of global warming: American risk perceptions, affective images and interpretive communities. In Moser, S. & Dilling, L. (Eds.), Creating a climate for change: Communicating climate change and facilitating social change (pp. 44–63). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., Cutler, M., & Kotcher, J. (2018). Climate change in the American mind: March 2018. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.Google Scholar
Lykes, M. B., & Crosby, A. (2015). Participatory action research as a resource for community regeneration in post-conflict contexts. In Bretherton, D. & Law, S. F. (Eds.), Research methodologies in peace psychology: Peace research by peaceful means (pp. 237–254). New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Mahdavi, P. (2018, March 6). How #MeToo became a global movement. Foreign Affairs. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-03-06/how-metoo-became-global-movementGoogle Scholar
Mayerson, A. (1992). The history of the Americans with Disabilities Act: A movement perspective. https://dredf.org/about-us/publications/the-history-of-the-ada/Google Scholar
McHugh, M. C., Koeske, R. D., & Frieze, I. H. (1986). Issues to consider in conducting nonsexist psychological research: A guide for researchers. American Psychologist, 41(8), 879–890.Google Scholar
Miller, B. R. (2006). History of the blind. In Encyclopedia of Disability (vol. I, pp. 181–185). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Murad, I., & Gordon, H. (2002). Psychiatry and the Palestinian population. Psychiatric Bulletin, 26(1), 28–30.Google Scholar
Nincic, M. (1988). The United States, the Soviet Union, and the politics of opposites. World Politics, 40(4), 452–475.Google Scholar
Nystrom, S., & Luckow, P. (2014). The economic, climate, fiscal, power, and demographic impact of a national fee-and-dividend carbon tax. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/REMI-carbon-tax-report-62141.pdfGoogle Scholar
Ozkazanc‐Pan, B. (2018). On agency and empowerment in a #MeToo world. Gender, Work & Organization. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12311Google Scholar
Ourselves, F. H. (2013). Fundamental freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York, NY: Facing History and Ourselves.Google Scholar
Ratzka, A. (2005). What is independent living? www.independentliving.org/Google Scholar
Rehabilitation Act. (1973). Pub. L. No. 93-112, 87 Stat. 355, codified as amended at 29 U.S.C. §§ 701-796.Google Scholar
Rogers, C. (2003). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. London, UK: Little, Brown Book Group. First published 1954.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, E. (1961). The autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.Google Scholar
Sabatello, M. (2013). A short history of the international disability rights movement. In Sabatello, M. & Schulze, M. (Eds.), Human rights and disability advocacy (pp. 13–24). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Sanson, A. V., & Burke, S. E. L. (in press). Climate change and children: An issue of intergenerational justice. In Balvin, N. & Christie, D. J. (Eds.), Children and peace: From research to action. New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (2014). Making sense of the past and future politics of global warming in the United States. Max Weber Lecture Series. http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/33212Google Scholar
Tiffany, F. (1891). Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (5th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.Google Scholar
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2018). The United Nations and disability: 70 years of the work towards a more inclusive world. www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/news/dspd/un-and-disability.htmlGoogle Scholar
United Nations Programme on Disability (UNPD). (2015). United Nations and disability: 70 years! www.un.org/disabilities/documents/historyinfographic.pdfGoogle Scholar
van Renssen, S. (2016). News feature: Courts take on climate change. Nature Climate Change, 6, 655–656.Google Scholar
van Stekelenburg, J., & Klandermans, B. (2013). The social psychology of protest. Current Sociology, 61(5–6), 886–905.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. (1984). Small wins: Redefining the scale of social problems. American Psychologist, 39(1), 40–49.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×