Stanford University

Culture

Joseph Chung-lin Ma

CDDRL
616 Serra St.
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Visiting Scholar 2010

Joseph Chung-lin Ma is a visiting scholar at CDDRL (Jan-Dec, 2010). He is currently serving as the Director at the Passport Administration Division, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to his current assignment in San Francisco, he was Director of Political Affairs at the Taipei Mission in Sweden.

Mr. Ma received his B.A. from the Department of Diplomacy at National Chengchi University and a M.A. from Chinese Culture University.

Legalizing Human Rights in Africa Workshop #6

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At this workshop, Mark Goodale will be delivering a talk entitled "Human Rights in an Anthropological Key." Mark is an anthropologist who specializes in legal anthropology, human rights and culture, comparative ethical practice and epistemology, the anthropology of morality, and conflict studies. He has been conducting research in Bolivia since 1996 and during 2003-2004 (as a Fulbright scholar) he studied Romania’s efforts to reform its political and legal institutions in preparation for accession to the European Union in 2007. He came to George Mason's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in the fall of 2003 after serving as the first Marjorie Shostak Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology at Emory University. His Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001).

He is the author of two recent books: Surrendering to Utopia: An Anthropology of Human Rights (Stanford University Press, 2009) and Dilemmas of Modernity: Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (Stanford University Press, 2008). He is currently at work on two new books: the first is an ethnographic analysis of sociopolitical change and the moral imagination in Bolivia based on three years of research funded by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation; the second is a volume of essays on human rights and moral creativity.

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Mark Goodale Associate Professor of Conflict Analysis and Anthropology Speaker George Mason University
Seminars
Program on Human Rights

The Challenges of Using New Media to Support Social Justice Movements in Africa

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Fahamu is committed to using ICTs to support the development and growth of a powerful social justice movement that is committed to self determination in Africa. But given poor access to the internet in most of Africa, such ambitions have not been easy to realise. I will be discussing Fahamu's experiences in Africa of using ICTs in distance learning, the development of Pambazuka News, podcasts, film documentaries, mobile phone initiatives, and the book publishing program ‘Pambazuka Press', and will touch upon some of our ambitions in the future, especially in the the development of an interactive community on the Pambazuka 2.0 platform that is currently being developed.

Firoze Manji, a Kenyan with more than 30 years experience in international development, health and human rights, is founding Executive Director of Fahamu - Networks for Social Justice, a pan African organisation with bases in Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and the UK. Fahamu aims to support the building of progressive pan-African social movements by stimulating debate, discussion and analysis, building through training a culture of respect for human rights and human dignity, supporting social justice advocacy and publishing and disseminating information using both new and conventional media. 

Manji has previously worked as Africa Programme Director for Amnesty International; Chief Executive of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK); and Regional Representative for Health Sciences in Eastern and Southern Africa for the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

He is a member of the editorial board of "Development in Practice", a member of the steering group on the campaign for the ratification of the protocol on the rights of women in Africa (Solidarity for African Women's Rights), and is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths College, University of London.  
 
As founder and editor in chief of the prize-winning pan African social justice newsletter and website Pambazuka News, he oversees the production by a pan-African community of more than 1800 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators, with a readership estimated at over 500,000, and a website with more than 55,000 articles and news items on social justice in Africa.

Also he is commissioning editor of Pambazuka Press / Fahamu Books, a pan African publisher of books on freedom and justice in Africa.

Currently a Visiting Fellow in International Human Rights at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, Manji holds a PhD and MSc from the University of London, and a BDS from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Philippines Conference Room

Firoze Manji Founder and Executive Director, Fahamu Speaker
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series
Program on Liberation Technology

Geopolitics, Public Diplomacy and Soft Power

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In light of the ongoing ‘War on Terror’ and the occupation of Iraq, attention has turned again to how countries such as the United States and Britain can use ‘soft power’ to influence not only domestic communities but also countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. Inevitably, the role of media, whether in the form of radio, television, the internet or film, looms large in such debates. The United States, for example, has funded new radio stations such as Radio Farda and Radio Sawa in an attempt to influence Farsi- and Arabic-speaking audiences in Iran and the Arab world. The Middle East has, as a consequence of American geopolitical fears of both Islamist militancy and Iranian power projection, emerged as the critical space for such popular cultural expressions. Geopolitics, in this context, refers to the representation of the geographies of global politics, and in the context of the Middle East, such representations are rarely politically innocent. This special issue of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication examines the use of soft power and public diplomacy in the Middle East, the political motives behind them, their modes of operation, and their successes and failure.

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Human Rights for the 21st Century: Sovereignty, Civil Society, Culture

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A new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law. Never in human history has there been such an elaborate international system for human rights, yet from massive disasters, such as the Darfur genocide, to everyday tragedies, such as female genital mutilation, human rights abuses continue at an alarming rate. As the world population increases and global trade brings new wealth as well as new problems, international law can and should respond better to those who live in fear of violence, neglect, or harm.

Modern critiques global human rights fall into three categories: sovereignty, culture, and civil society. These are not new problems, but have long been debated as part of the legal philosophical tradition. Taking lessons from tradition and recasting them in contemporary light, Helen Stacy proposes new approaches to fill the gaps in current approaches: relational sovereignty, reciprocal adjudication, and regional human rights. She forcefully argues that law and courts must play a vital role in forging a better human rights vision in the future.

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Immigrant Identity in a Cosmopolitan World

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Dr. von Vacano’s teaching and research interests are in political philosophy and the history of political thought. He is especially interested in modern European and Latin American political theory. His current research for a monograph focuses on the problem of racial identity in relation to citizenship in the Hispanic tradition, focusing on the themes of Empire, Nation, and Cosmopolis in various thinkers. The ancillary aim of The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American Political Thought (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) is to develop a normative conceptualization of race for modern multicultural societies.

Professor von Vacano is also beginning research on a book project that defends globalization through an examination of the development of immigrant identity. This uses the dialectical tradition in German political philosophy and empirical evidence from immigrants in global cities such as New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires.

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Encina Hall
Basement E008

Diego von Vacano Visiting Professor,Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Speaker Stanford University
Workshops

User Research in Africa

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Abstract
NRC projects in Africa and learning's in the research practices in low-income communities.

Jussi Impiö is Research Leader of Nokia Research Africa (NORA) in Nairobi. NORA conducts socio-cultural research in Sub-Saharan Africa and together with non-governmental organizations and local universities creates communication solutions to assist in socio-economical development in Africa.

Jussi joined Nokia in 2003 as Senior Research Scientist and has conducted research in the areas of mobile video, civic activism and citizen journalism. Prior to Nokia he has worked as Concept Manager at Clothing+ Corp. and as Researcher at the University of Lapland.

Jussi has co-authored 4 academic publications and holds 10 patents.

Summary of Seminar
Mobile technology is already playing a major role in economic development in Africa.  What might be the impact if that technology was specifically designed for these users? This is the mission of Nokia Research Africa (NoRA); to develop services and devices that meet the specific needs of low income communities in sub Saharan Africa.

There are three stages to the group's work. First, field research is conducted in African communities. Second, the team works on concept design and prototyping. And finally field trials are held and further adjustments made. The team has a strong record of getting products out as a result of its research.

Jussi described three projects he has been involved in recently:

  • 90% of jobs in Sub Saharan Africa are microenterprises. NoRA is developing a micro entrepreneur tool kit that will be rolled out in five countries.
  • 70% of Sub Saharan Africans are members of informal banking groups where money is saved collectively. NoRA is looking at ways of bringing these groups together to share expertise.
  • There is a growing music informal music industry in African slum communities. NoRA is working with NGOs to help understand the dynamics of this.
  • The average age on Africa is 18. NoRA's Youth Africa project seeks to understand how youth segment themselves. Over 400 interviews have been conducted so far and the project is due to be completed by the end of June.

When thinking about the introduction of technology into Africa, Jussi suggests that an analogy with biology may be helpful.  Just as when a new species is introduced to a habitat, a new technology will have all kinds of unintended consequences in its environment, not all of them desirable. Therefore it is crucial to think through any potential harms and how these might be controlled. Jussi also suggested some rules of thumb for working in the field of technology for development in the Africa:

  • Think hard about what is the exact source problem you are trying to solve
  • Make sure you try out ‘horror' scenarios
  • Work with local organizations
  • Talk to journalists - they are often the best sources of information
  • Talk to governments; it is very hard to achieve anything in Africa unless you involve government from the earliest stages
  • Conduct long and controlled pilots
  • Educate users with the skills they will need
  • Don't trust your instincts too much - we can make the mistake of thinking we ‘know' Africa, attributing to it a single culture
  • Expect the worst! It is better to have thought through what could go wrong
  • Be real(ideal)istic. It is important to understand the magnitude of the problems you are dealing with while keeping motivated by the belief that your work could have a major impact

Wallenberg Theater

Jussi Impio Research Leader Nokia Research Africa Speaker Nokia
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series
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