Symposium on Oral History and Human Rights Crises: RoundtableSymposium on Oral History and Human Rights Crises: Roundtablehttp://www.haverford.edu/calendar/details/165062Stokes CPGC Cafe2011-03-23T12:00:002011-03-23T14:00:00
March 23, 12:00PM
Stokes CPGC Cafe
Roundtable on Collecting Oral Histories of Human Rights Crises
Description
Symposium on Oral History and Human Rights Crises featuring Peter Orner, Maggie Lemere and Zoe West of Voice of Witness. Sponsored by PJHR, CPGC, HHC and Distinguished Visitors.
Wednesday, March 23—two events:
- 12-2 p.m. CPGC Café (lunch provided): Roundtable on Collecting Oral Histories of Human Rights Crises.
- 4:30-6p.m. Chase Auditorium: Readings from recent Voice of Witness books on Zimbabwe and Burma.
Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that empowers those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them. Editors of two brand new books, on Zimbabwe and Burma, will be on the Haverford Campus March 22-23 to talk with students and faculty on campus about the work of collecting oral histories of human rights crises and to read from the books they worked on. For more info, see http://www.voiceofwitness.com.
Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives, edited by Peter Orner and Annie Holmes The Zimbabwe book aims to answer, by telling the stories of the people who have lived through continuing hardship and injustice, questions such as: How did a country with so much promise – a stellar education system, a growing middle class of professionals, a sophisticated economic infrastructure, a liberal constitution and an independent judiciary – go so wrong? In their own words, Zimbabweans recount their experiences of losing their homes, land, livelihoods and families as a direct result of political violence. They describe being tortured in detention, firebombed at home or beaten up or raped to ‘punish’ votes for the opposition. This book includes Zimbabweans of every age, class and political conviction, from farm laborers to academics, from artists and opposition leaders to ordinary Zimbabweans: men and women simply trying to survive as a once thriving nation heads for collapse.
Nowhere to be Home: Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime, edited by Maggie Lemere and Zoe West The Burma book highlights how decades of military oppression have led to the systematic destruction of over 3,000 ethnic minority villages, one of the largest numbers of child soldiers in the world, and the displacement of millions of people internally and across borders. Refugees who have fled military-sponsored violence and ethnic and religious persecution; political dissidents jailed and tortured for their actions; and youth and community leaders working for solutions at great personal risk, all tell their stories in their own words, revealing the human toll exacted by the country’s regime, with intersecting issues of forced labor, sexual violence, displacement, environmental degradation, the drug trade and HIV/AIDS. These stories, seen through different lenses of gender, location, education, political opinion, and ethnicity, weave together to create a testament to the complexity and magnitude of the human rights crisis in Burma, as well as to the resilience of its people.
For More Info
Jill Stauffer
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