When it comes to the creative arts and human rights, there are many ethical questions that arise.

What are the ethics of image use in human rights work? How are these images used to depict power, agency, and diversity? How can these images be problematic, reinforce stereotypes, and promote ‘othering’?
How can media and film fetishize, dehumanize, or further shape the discussion around human rights? How are human rights represented, reinforced, or challenged in film?
What goes into making human rights representation authentic? What are the hurdles to achieving authentic human rights representation?

The resources in this module will explore and discuss these questions in an attempt to answer them.

Resources

This module contains several videos on Creative Arts and Human Rights, including videos on the ethics of image use and the representation of human rights in film. The videos are described as follows:

A video excerpt from a talk on image use and its implications focuses on introducing semiotics when it comes to image analysis.
A video excerpt from a talk on image use and its implications, focusing on the content analysis of images.
A video excerpt from a talk on image use and its implications focuses on the core ethical principles and key considerations of image use.
UBC Professor David Brown provides his thoughts on the relationship between film and the presence of human rights stereotypes.
UBC Professor Alessandra Santos discusses examples of human rights advocacy in Brazilian cinema.

About the Speakers

Dr. Jenny Peterson

Dr. Jenny Peterson joined the department from the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (Manchester), where she worked as a lecturer from 2009–2013. She is broadly interested in the politics of international aid, with her past work analyzing the process of liberal peacebuilding and critiques thereof. Finding much of this critical work homogenizing a diverse range of processes, she has recently begun exploring conceptual and empirical deviations from the liberal model. Engaging with debates on pacifism, agonism, resistance, hybridity, and political space, she is now exploring diversity and innovation, both local and international, in peace and justice movements. She has conducted research and led student field trips in Kosovo, Sri Lanka, and Ghana. Her teaching interests include peace studies, international relations, humanitarian studies, and human rights.

Alessandra Santos

Alessandra Santos is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC. Her research areas are Latin American cinema and performance and comparative studies in the hemispheric Americas. She is interested in utopias, technology, gender, indigeneity, race, and social justice. Her interdisciplinary research applies postcolonial and decolonial theories, combining film studies and performance studies.

William Brown

William is both a scholar and a maker of films, with work spanning fiction, documentaries, video essays, and hybrids of all three. His current research focuses primarily on film philosophy, digital media, post-humanism, and critical race theory.