Universities and human rights in cities

Abstract

Human rights globalization is, counterintuitively, largely a process of localization. We focus on the role of universities in their localities as a way of gaining insight into the complex ways in which they shape human rights outcomes both on and beyond campus. This topic has, to our knowledge, received no explicit scrutiny in the human rights literature, where the presumption of academic workers producing and disseminating knowledge in pursuit of justice—and often on behalf of the downtrodden—prevails. We have no wish to deny or dismiss the importance of that work; our purpose is to paint a broader and more detailed picture that comprises not only this work but also the role of universities as institutions in the political economy of human rights of their communities and the institutional and political dynamics that shape and constrain human rights scholarship.