NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

2020 Fellows

Prison Abolition and Transformative Justice at RLC

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Brian Ruiz (he/him/they/them) /
Radical Love Consciousness /
New York, USA /

My name is Brian Ruiz, and I am a senior at Gallatin concentrating in “Prison Abolition and Transformative Justice.” This summer, I will be organizing with Radical Love Consciousness (RLC). RLC is a self-funded grassroots collective that is both for the people and created by the people, specifically, Indigenous, Queer, Womxn, Black, and other marginalized groups in the city. They focus on the idea of radical love being a verb and revolutionary mindset that demands the liberation of all those who have been marginalized and oppressed.

RLC creates content through a set of popular learning sessions. RLC and I will be re-structuring sessions related to Prison Abolition and Transformative Justice for folx to engage with. This will be a space for my comrades and me to envision and work towards building a post-carceral world, community, and households. RLC imagines this post-carceral reality through the lens of Reindigenization, which involves a two-fold process. Firstly, it is the abandonment of ideals and systems established through colonization. Secondly, it is an evolution towards, and rememory of, ancient modes of knowledge and community.

Core elements of this class are theorizing, employing the arts, direct organizing, solidarity, accessibility, and long-term sustainability. With theorizing, we want to expand not just by reading and thinking about the experiences, stories, and theories of folx, but by sharing this information through audio recordings, PowerPoint slides, weekly book clubs, social media threads, and zines.

Employing the arts means understanding its role as a means of furthering resistance, liberation, and healing within the movement. Arts could be in the form of zines, dance, paintings, music, theater, ancestral rituals, and more. Organizing includes fundraisers, popular learning sessions, mutual aid, self-defense, and art showcases. Solidarity is our commitment to folx who are directly and indirectly affected by the carceral system, such as victims and survivors, community members, migrants, and the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.

For accessibility, we ask how this work is accessible to people in regards to language, disability, level of education, gender inclusivity, class status, citizenship status, and more. Long-term sustainability focuses not just on the longevity and evolution of our movements and ideals but also on the investment in resources to cultivate the post-carceral world such as community gardens, communal healing circles, pot-lucks, conflict-resolution, and reparations, as well as employment and educational and service opportunities.

Interning Amidst Uprisings

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Dylan Brown (he/him)
Rikers Public Memory Project
New York, USA  

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself referring back to the words of Dr. Angela Davis: “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world, and you have to do it all the time.” In the wake of state-sanctioned police terrorism against Black communities in the United States, there have been uprisings in all 50 US states and 12 countries across the world. Dr. Davis’s words feel especially relevant in this moment of rebellion, as the need for abolition and a complete restructuring of our society feels more urgent to me now than it ever has before in my life.

Since May 25, I have felt exhausted, enraged, and depressed, but never hopeless. Being surrounded by a community of individuals who are deeply invested in the liberation of all Black people from systems of oppression gives me hope that one day my people will be truly free. Moreover, seeing folks who are allowing this moment to radicalize their thinking and embrace prison abolitionism and the Black radical tradition at large gives me a renewed sense of hope for a liberatory future. 

When examining the struggle against the prison industrial complex, an internationalist lens is absolutely necessary in order to build a transnational movement to dismantle carceral regimes around the world. This summer, I was originally supposed to be working with the Ubuntu Learning Community (ULC), the first prison-to-university educational pipeline program of its kind in South Africa. This program partners with Stellenbosch University to provide educational programming to incarcerated South Africans at Brandvlei Correctional Centre. However, due to the spread of COVID-19, I was unable to travel to South Africa.

Instead, I have continued my commitment to prison abolition by doing remote work with the Rikers Public Memory Project (RPMP), a New York-based initiative that seeks to utilize storytelling and oral history strategies as tools to enact justice. The RPMP also seeks to document the impact of Rikers Island to ensure that public memory of Rikers, one of the largest jailing complexes in the world, is collectively shaped by the communities that have experienced the most harm. Furthermore, the RPMP is part of a larger political project that is working towards the immediate closure of Rikers Island, with the ultimate goal of achieving reparative justice for people who were detained on the island.

Due to the recent public health crisis, New York City jails–Rikers Island, particularly–have become epicenters for COVID-19. The work of creating an alternative archive to ensure that the horrors of Rikers Island are never repeated or replicated in NYC feels especially important during this global pandemic.

Thus far as an intern with RPMP, I have transcribed oral interviews, aided in coordinating with partner organizations, and managed RPMP’s social media. I look forward to what the rest of my work with RPMP this summer will bring as we fight to create a comprehensive archive of the history of Rikers Island that will center directly impacted voices.

Free Expression in the time of COVID-19 & BLM

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Erin O’Brien
PEN America
New York, USA

I was initially supposed to travel to Istanbul this summer to work for Dokuz8 News and MEDAR, a news organization and media research foundation dedicated to protecting free speech and freedom of expression in Turkey. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my plans had to change. On May 26, I began a virtual internship with PEN America, working with the Free Expression Program team on the Writers at Risk database. Fortunately, I have been able to focus on many of the same topics I was intending to work on in Istanbul.

As the PEN offices are closed through the summer, I have worked remotely from New York City. I jumped headfirst into the internship, helping the team finalize the Writers at Risk database, which was formally launched the week I started. Case descriptions for the database had not been finalized, so I kicked off the internship by summarizing and updating them, which allowed me to familiarize myself with the material and style of work.

We finished the database last week, and I am now updating case pages on PEN America’s website. These case pages are critical, as they provide a public-facing source of information for much of the organization’s advocacy for writers at risk. I have focused particularly on Iranian and Turkish cases, of which there are many in PEN’s advocacy pool. Especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and conditions in prisons around the world, there has been significant work to do to make sure these case summaries are up to date.

In addition to my work at PEN, I have also been in contact with several organizations and academics in Turkey working in human rights. I have discussed my academic research with them, and they have offered to share resources with me, while I have helped several of them with translation, editing, and research. For the remainder of the summer, I will continue to offer support to them as I continue to update PEN’s current case pages and scope out new advocacy cases to be included in next year’s report and databases.

man pouring milk on his face amongst a crowd of protesters
Protester who was maced near the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY, 5/29/20

One particularly fascinating aspect of the last few weeks has been working with the Free Expression program during growing protests in response to George Floyd’s death and police brutality in America. I have been reporting on these protests to the best of my ability, and I have felt my work at PEN informing the way I approach this coverage.

man with arms raised in forefront before a line of police
Protesters standing off with NYPD at Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY, 5/29/20

It is easy to relegate press freedom abuses to the realm of something that happens “out there.” However, going into the streets every night–particularly during the first few weeks of protests, as the NYPD cracked down on demonstrators and the press–has driven home to me the pertinence and local relevance of the PEN issues I am working on.

The Venezuelan Exodus: Lost Childhoods

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Annissa Saleh
UNHCR, Southern Latin America
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Hi everyone! I’m Annissa Saleh, a senior at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. My concentration, “The Art and Science of Childhood,” is centered around human beings’ development and immense growth. My concentration views children not as passive but rather active actors who can significantly shape their everyday experiences, given the opportunity to do so. When considering “childhood” as a broad construct, many think of pleasant memories with safe havens and wonderful caregivers. Yet, the experiences and complexities of many aspects of childhood are tinted depending on where one is born and depending on the political atmosphere, social and economical growth, war, pandemics, etc.

For my fellowship internship placement, I wanted to find a human rights organization dealing with the plight of refugees and migrant rights, with a focus on families and children. I sought a way to diversify and complement my academic knowledge of what childhood looks like around the world. As an intern this summer for the UNHCR, I will see how an organization employs an operational, on-the-ground response throughout the Southern Cone. Broadly, my work will relate to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees in the area, though I have been also assigned work on Venezuelan refugees and migrants entering Argentina.

The Venezuelan migrant crisis has contributed to the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history. More than four million Venezuelans now live abroad, mostly in neighboring countries throughout the Southern Cone and the Caribbean. Many people are fleeing Venezuela due to ongoing and worsening political, human rights, and socioeconomic developments: political persecution, food insecurity, a lack of adequate medical and essential services, mass poverty and violence.

Through my remote work with the UNHCR this summer, I hope to continue thinking about how I can use my intersected academic knowledge and skills to directly impact the on-the-ground work I am pursuing.

Gender justice in light of India’s lock-down

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Nithya Reddy
Gender at Work
India

India’s gig economy, or the informal sector, has the potential to increase female employment and in turn increase household spending money by offering women temporary contracts or freelance roles. With technology companies dominating the Indian marketplace, more women are being employed as drivers, delivery people, beauticians, and maintenance workers. The number of women employed in the delivery sector alone has increased by 40,000.

Yet, the informal sector, which makes up 81% of India’s economy, faces almost no government regulation. Women are subjected to harsh working conditions, are paid less than their male counterparts, and work undefined hours. Informal labor is not a simple panacea for India’s staggeringly low participation rate of the female labor force.

people manning stands full of wares on a street where dogs play
Street vendors in India conducting informal labor

I originally planned to conduct fieldwork this summer in India for Gender at Work, interviewing women employed in the gig economy to learn about their experiences since starting work. I would have spent a majority of my summer traveling across Andhra Pradesh, using my fluency in Telugu to record women’s stories and bring them back to Gender at Work.

These interviews would have helped Gender at Work to develop a structured plan centered around meeting these women’s needs for prominent tech companies in India. My research would have delved into women’s roles for various employers of the gig economy, such as taxi cab companies, food suppliers, and agribusiness companies. Ideally, my work would have played a critical role in strengthening women’s voices within these sectors to create gender-equitable working conditions. 

However, COVID-19 changed my plans: I have been conducting research for Gender at Work this summer, but from my home in suburban New Jersey. My supervisor, Sudarshana Kundu, suggested I use this opportunity to critically assess the pandemic’s effect on women’s rights in India.

I started my remote internship with Gender at Work this past Monday, and a bulk of my work has been compiling a literature review on Indian social policy focused on women and labor, which is getting thwarted in light of both COVID-19 and the current volatile political climate. My research questions now include: Where has there been policy failure? For example, have top-down policy drafting/introduction processes led to poor buy-in/uptake? Are there policy absences that have led to alternative spaces or infrastructures being created (e.g., LGBTQI safe spaces)? Are new policies being promoted and/or introduced that are regressive in regards to women’s rights and gender equality, including those that restrict space for women’s rights activism? 

After making the literature review on social policy erosion for women, my next step is to help create a policy mapping critically assessing the key areas and issues of contention when it comes to contemporary gender equality (including the body, livelihood/work, rights, etc.). Questions include: Have there been any gains or tangible processes in these areas? Are any gains under threat? Who are the key coalitions/alliances for and against these gains? What strategies are being used by the resistors to push back?

In the next couple of weeks, I hope to answer these questions and narrow in on the gender justice actors and defenders and the structural forces and trends that are actively helping women’s movements in India.

Forensic anthropologist digging into human rights issues

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Esther Choo
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) 
NYC, USA

My name is Esther Choo, and I am a master’s student in anthropology, concentrating in human skeletal biology. My research interests include forensic anthropology and related issues of human rights and transitional justice.

During these tumultuous times, there have been adjustments for everyone that require flexibility with work schedules and learning/teaching remotely. I had a few weeks in quarantine where I was uncertain about my summer plans for my Gallatin Human Rights Fellowship, since I was unable to work for my originally intended organization. But luckily, another opportunity opened up for me.

This summer, I am working remotely with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) as a research intern, assisting their research and investigation team with projects. This organization is dedicated to fighting human rights violations by using science, medicine, and forensics to investigate and provide scientific evidence for reconciliation and resolution.

My personal goal for the internship is to continue my studies in forensic anthropology and further embrace my interests in human rights issues. I don’t believe that one can become a well-trained and empathetic forensic anthropologist, working on issues related to death, exhumations, and forensic identification, without a solid understanding of the bigger sociocultural context involved in necessary human rights investigations. While working with a human rights organization like PHR, I hope to enhance my ability to become a more holistic anthropologist and gain additional skills in data curation, analysis, and organization. 

We are facing some challenging times, and there are continuous struggles with deep-rooted issues in our country. But we have been given the opportunity to properly confront and combat them. I’m slowly digging into PHR’s current projects addressing dire conditions and various human rights violations in immigration detention centers, as well as the compounding impact of COVID-19 on detainees.

Further, there have been active discussions regarding police brutality and methods of deterrence such as the weaponization of tear gas, and conversations about how physicians, medical examiners, and other health professionals approach the way in which we examine deaths and human rights violations of people in custody. I’m looking forward to learning how PHR will continue to contribute to this dialogue in collaboration with knowledgeable leaders and other relevant advocacy groups.

We’ve just finished our first official week as PHR interns, and already, I’ve felt welcomed and fully engaged, even as we work remotely. I’m eager to see how these next few weeks will develop.

Human Rights in the Era of Relentless Racism and COVID-19

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Dariely De La Cruz
El Centro para la Observación Migratoria y Desarrollo Social en el Caribe (OBMICA)
Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic 

I am frustrated. I am so extremely hurt and bothered by the world we live in today. Not only with the deadly impact of COVID-19 worldwide but with the lack of regard and care for black lives. And not just in the United States, but in other countries too. This blog post, which looks at the transnational impact of COVID-19 and race on the lives of Dominicans (including Dominicans of Haitian descent) and Haitians, is dedicated to the incredible work being done at OBMICA.

Who is human and who “deserves” rights? The fact that an identification card and one’s socioeconomic status and ethnicity determines if one is considered “worthy” of belonging or receiving pandemic benefits from the government makes me sick. The injustices blatantly committed against poor Dominicans, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and Haitians have increased during the era of COVID-19, revealing deeper systemic issues at hand.

Just as there is the race war in the US between blacks and whites, there is a similar war between Dominicans and Haitians. Interestingly enough, as a result of the George Floyd protests, people are having uncomfortable and necessary conversations about blackness in the Dominican community. I’ve noticed frustration and continued denial from the Dominican government, Dominicans who have traditional Trujillista ways of thinking, and others. Working with OBMICA has pushed me to challenge those old ways of thinking, to encourage these conversations on a social platform, and to include people from various diasporic communities.

I cannot believe that by the end of this week, it will be a whole month since I started working remotely with OBMICA. While I do wish I was there in person, communicating with the team has been great. With our weekly meetings, which cover our goals for the week and detail what is happening politically, socially, and economically in the DR, I am constantly learning something new.

Though it is intimidating being the only young AfroAmerican-Dominican with a now-expanding professional Spanish vocabulary from the US, I appreciate their interest in what’s going on in the US and the welcoming of more modern conversations. Tonight, I am attending a webinar, “Racial and Social Terrorism: AfroFeminism in Action in the Dominican Republic.” This Thursday, I am co-hosting another webinar, “The Haitian and Dominican Diasporas in the US and Chile in the Era of COVID-19.” I am also currently creating OBMICA’s first Instagram page.

All this to say, I am so grateful for this opportunity and cannot wait to continue contributing to such meaningful research.

Mobility and Mortality: Migrant Domestic Workers and COVID-19 in India

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Akshara Anirjita
ActionAid
New Delhi, India

Hannah Arendt coined the famous and perhaps overused phrase, “banality of evil,” in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. What she meant by this was that not all purveyors of “evil” or gross injustices are obviously demonic; some are seemingly garden-variety rule-following bureaucrats. Her larger claim is that evil is not always visible and that policies, when implemented without thought by unsuspecting bureaucrats, can also be evil.

What has become banal in India is the state’s insensitivity to the plight of poor, unskilled workers, and the non-people-centric, gender-blind policies and efforts towards liberalization (since the 1990s) that have acted to commercialize aspects of the informal sector, such as domestic work. Domestic labor sits somewhere uncomfortably between the public and private spheres, where the workplace is the private home. It’s categorized by tasks that take a physical and emotional toll on those performing them, and these tasks are Sisyphean in that they can never truly be completed because they cater to biological and base needs that are ever-present.

Privilege, education, and wealth allow some women freedom of mobility. They transition from the private sphere of their houses to the public sphere of increasingly corporate jobs, leaving unpaid care work to become visible through inclusion in GDP calculations and economic discourses on development. As these women enter the “workforce,” a lack of public service provisions such as childcare leads to the need for hired domestic care workers, and a rigid definition of gender roles ensures that these workers are predominantly women. The number of hired domestic workers in India has been on the rise since the late 1990s and has increased 120% since liberalization of the country.

The way that female domestic workers utilize their right to mobility is cruder and a function of necessity than purely of a freedom. They migrate from poorer regions (often tribal pockets of poor states) to urban cities, looking for paid work. Domestic workers constitute some of the most vulnerable victims of COVID-19 due to a lack of formal job contracts, the unstable nature of their work, getting stigmatized by their employers as vectors of the disease, and their subsequent inability to pay their rent in the cities. Suspension of public transport systems have led to them being homeless and trapped in cities.

Actionaid poster advertising webinars on challenges of COVID-19 for domestic workers

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic burns a hole in the theory that domestic workers solely need higher wages and highlights the importance of social security nets in a time when jobs are uncertain. The lack of recognition and regulation of the sector also hinders access of workers to government pandemic relief, such as grain allotment programs.

Arendt’s aforementioned book states that the legal framework views the doer of evil as a scapegoat and asks if systems and events (in her case, antisemitism in Germany) can be tried under such frameworks at all. This leads me to ask if the international legal framework, be it international courts or transitional justice projects, is equipped to mete out justice for victims of incidents such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where the most vulnerable are the poorest who depend on unstable informal work.

While this might be a larger question, the project I am supporting ActionAid with aims to find a way forward so that policies and concerns of women in the informal sector are voiced and re-imagined in the context of COVID-19, with the help of union leaders, policy and legal experts in the field, and so on. For this month, we are planning various webinars, each concerned with a specific sector. For example: domestic workers (this week, as shown in the picture above), construction workers, garment workers, and so forth.