Events 2024-2025

   October 14, 2024:
     "Ending Gender Apartheid: Lessons from Afghanistan," Annual Soffa lecture delivered by Professor Karima Bennoune
      4:00-5:30pm, Alumni Lounge, Pyle Center
      Reception to follow
      Free and open to the public.  For details, visit: https://law.wisc.edu/gls/hrp/soffa_lectures.html 

November 4 & 5, 2014

Screening of documentary, "Home is Somewhere Else" with one of its directors, Jorge Villalobos. This 2D feature “animentary,” or animated feature documentary, provides a window into the hearts and minds of ​​immigrant youth and their undocumented families. It features three personal stories about undocumented youth to highlight the complexities and challenges they face today. Voiced by the actual children and their families, Home Is Somewhere Else invites discussion about the need for a new US migratory model based on respect for human rights for all. 

MONDAY, NOV 4 at Marquee Theatre
6:30-6:45 PM: Film introduction by filmmakers
6:45-8:15 PM: Film Screening
8:15-8:30 PM: Q&A with Director Jorge Villalobos 

 TUESDAY, NOV 5 at Marquee Theatre
10:30--12:00 PM: Film Screening for youth ages 11-17 from area school districts
12:00-12:30 PM: Activity for youth exploring the film's themes and the significance of storytelling
12:30-1:30 PM: Pizza party for the attendees

 December 2, 2024

“It’s a numbers game at the end of the day: How Bureaucrats Culturally Entrench Inequalities in Refugee Resettlement"
by Tobias Jake Watson
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Part of the “Global Dialogues” series sponsored by IRIS NRC

 Description:
According to formal discourse, refugee resettlement is “a life saving measure to ensure the protection of those most at risk of harm and whose lives often depend on it.” In practice, however, most spaces go to a small number of refugee groups and the institution is poorly responsive to individual needs. Drawing on a transnational ethnography of the U.S. resettlement system, this talk examines how policy administrators understand this disjuncture between discourse and practice. While recognizing that contemporary practices depart from norms of refugee rescue and equity, bureaucrats have developed a humanitarian ethic centered on maximizing the number of refugees resettled to meet and expand country quotas. This “numbers game” is framed as normatively positive, even as it works to produce and legitimize inequities in global resettlement. Watson demonstrates how this ethic works through a comparative study of resettlement imbalances between Congolese and Darfuri refugees living in Central and East Africa.

December 4, 2024:
Celebrating Human Rights Day: Flash Talks from Around the World, 4:00PM.
Details pending