Reclaiming Power

Joint Convening of the Social Practice of Human Rights 2023 & 6th International Conference on the Right to Development

Decolonization and Development for Africa and People of African Descent

The University of Dayton Human Rights Center, in collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights of the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, and the Free State Centre for Human Rights of the Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, will host a joint convening, bringing together the 2023 Social Practice of Human Rights Conference and the 6th International Conference on the Right to Development, which will be held for the first time outside of the African continent.

As we mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we will reflect on the growing discourse on decolonization and development in relation to the social practice of human rights, which centers the approaches of diverse communities, including activism, organizing, communications, artistic expressions, and reflective conversations. Our particular focus is on Africa, and individuals of African descent, and our work is firmly grounded in various frameworks such as the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (1986) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (Banjul Charter).

Today, we recognize that the realization of the right to development is stymied by persistent growing inequality, poverty, conflict, unemployment, and the marginalization of women and girls. Africa’s particular place in the international political economy is inextricably linked to and confounded by its former colonizers and current neo-colonial actors. Moreover, communities of African descent across the globe live in structural discrimination, scarred by poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization, social exclusion, and economic disparities. As the International Decade for People of African Descent draws to a close in 2024 and the Permanent Forum launches its work, transnational movements for racial justice have new platforms through which to bring the social practice of human rights to bear.

At this moment, we see the potential to disrupt the entrenched cycle generated by colonial and neocolonial dynamics by drawing on epistemologies of the Global South, particularly of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The goal is to envision a new future of changing political, economic, feminist, and cultural engagement around Africa and people of African descent in the US and globally. Thus, we welcome submissions that offer new insights, tools, mutual learning, and transformational advocacy to shift the paradigm from the developmental and Pan-African approaches and to reframe, reenergize, and restructure connections and theorizations of rights and justice for Africa and communities of African descent.