Technologies of Human Rights Representation
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Analyzes the effects of new technologies on human rights, with a particular focus on how representations of technology affect our ability to understand and control it.
Description
The speed of technological development, from cell phones to artificial intelligence, opens up exciting new opportunities for promoting human flourishing. It also raises grave risks, threatening not only personal privacy and dignity but also our collective survival. Technologies of Human Rights Representation brings together three fields of research critical to securing our future: changing technologies, human rights, and representation. For each of these fields, this book asks key questions: How can we open the black box of technological advances so that we can more fully understand their effects upon our lives? What can we do to make sure that these effects align with the values of human rights? And how does the way we talk about technology and rights—from military reports and corporate marketing to human rights reports and poetry—amplify or diminish our capacity both to understand and to control what happens next? Contributors from anthropology, communications, criminology, global studies, law, literary and cultural studies, and women and gender studies bring diverse methodological approaches to these crucial questions.
Alexandra S. Moore is Professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She is the author and editor of several books, including Vulnerability and Security in Human Rights Literature and Visual Culture. James Dawes is Professor of English at Macalester College. He is the author of several books, including The Novel of Human Rights.
Reviews
"…the volume brings together a provocative set of approaches to technologies of representation, considering mediation, voicing, witnessing, and accounting … Technologies of Human Rights Representation holds broad appeal as a collection for scholars in human rights studies, humanitarian professionals, and students of international relations and government. The contributors span a diverse array of disciplines, including political science, gender studies, English, and legal studies." — H-Net Reviews (H-Sci-Med-Tech)
"…given the roaring impact of technology upon today's world, the book makes inroads on a topic of urgent interest." — CHOICE
"This collection uniquely leverages the tripartite structure of technology, representation, and human rights to reveal that acknowledging these concepts' intertwined nature advances our understanding of each. The volume's diverse approaches also provide tremendous value. Along with 'key' high-profile topics—AI and ML, quantification, criminal justice—it includes less obvious ones like the representation of human rights in interactive Holocaust memorials and by way of sonnets. This is excellent work from people who represent high quality analysis in a diverse set of disciplines.” — Brian H. Nussbaum, Assistant Professor, College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity, University at Albany