Description
How are the overlapping, albeit confronted, concepts of human rights and humanitarianism articulated in the Portuguese public discourses on migrants and racialized people? We will address this question through a framing analysis of related content from the reference newspapers Público and Expresso, the national versions of the humanitarian organizations Caritas and Amnesty International, the civil society associations SOS Racismo and Nova Portugalidade, and the political parties Chega (populist far-right) and Bloco de Esquerda (on the left spectrum). The content will be extracted from their websites during the period of November 7th, 2023, and March 10th, 2024, thus comprehending the fall of the Portuguese executive and the legislative elections. The hypothesis is that the legacies of (de)colonization inform the mediated emotional discourses on human rights and humanitarianism, especially when related to internal and external ‘Othersʼ. The discussion on the persistence of the main ideas of the imperial ideology of late colonialism has flourished in recent years. On the other hand,the rise of populism has rekindled mythical narratives of historic nations and ethnic communities. By articulating gendered and racist tropes, far-right movements paradoxically explore human rights repertoires to oppose those Others to European values. Such a strategy has historical lineages. Human rights vocabularies and repertoires were not only instrumental to anti-colonial struggles but were also appropriated to legitimize imperial resilience. For example, the propaganda of the dictatorship sought to establish the narrative that Portuguese people were the inventors of human rights in Africa. This and related narratives sustain the widespread idea of an absence of racism among Portuguese people. We aim to fill the gap between the contemporary characterization of human rights/humanitarianism and the recurrence of colonial imagery by critically discussing how and which issues involving migrants and racialized people are emotionally framed as a cause of humanitarian concern.
| Period | 19 Sept 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Human Rights in Migration Societies: Exploring the Intersection of Human Rights and Migration in Law, Politics, and Everyday Life |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Giessen, GermanyShow on map |