The Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut hosted a workshop on “Narrative & Testimony in Human Rights Research” on Friday, April 19. The workshop was online and featured five guests who spoke on their experiences in human rights research and the testimonies they’ve come across.
The first speaker was Dr. Carrie Booth Walling, the director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota. “My aim is to encourage us to think about ways that we can be ethically responsible with the difficulty that comes from listening to the human rights stories of others,” Walling stated.
She used the term “witness-survivor” throughout her segment to describe those who have experienced and seen human rights violations. Walling emphasizes the power of their testimonies and the need to not overshadow them in light of a broader, legal battle. “Testimony is helping to create a forensic truth,” Walling said.
Dr. Tricia Redeker-Hepner — a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Arizona State University — was the second speaker for the workshop. She described herself as “a cultural anthropologist and an ethnographer of the humanistic variety.” Her work had connected her with refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea and other countries. Redeker-Hepner stated that he has participated as an expert witness in 300 to 400 cases.
“Asylum and refugee status has become more constricted,” Redeker-Hepner commented. The requirements for individuals seeking asylum have become more specific and more difficult. “The majority of people seeking asylum in the U.S. have no access to legal representation.”
The third speaker was Hera Jay Brown, the founder and executive director of Sanctuarium which is an organization that “revolves around three key areas: advocacy with clients, researching trends in US immigration affecting our clients, and training peer organizations on how to best support Transgender, Intersex, and Gender Variant (TIGV) immigrant communities,” according to their website.
“I think of my role oftentimes as a practitioner that is informed by academic rigor and insights from my own academic research and that of others as well,” Brown said. Her work has been in service to the needs of TIGV immigrant communities, focusing on providing them legal services and avenues for asylum. “Our work is wildly under served in the U.S.,” Brown stated. The narratives of these ostracized groups are crucial to understanding the human experience of surviving.
The fourth speaker was Michelle Jurkovich, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development Office for Food for Peace and the U.S. Department of State Office of Global Food Security.
Her research was geared toward ethical concerns over food aid, specifically asking the question, “How do you ensure you do not cause harm?” The main way she tackled this was to collect interviews from refugees and those living with food insecurity. “Asking questions to people in a highly vulnerable position about traumatic experiences, in a realm of power asymmetries, is about the most horrifying thing you can imagine,” Jurkovich stated.
The fifth and final speaker was Erica Laplante, the director of the Human Rights and Research DataHub. Her research around the accounts of sex workers provided various examples of narratives and testimonies as forms of solidarity. Laplante’s research includes various accounts from sex workers in Nevada and New South Wales. She found that the rights these workers claimed “framed sex work within a labor rights frame. And then secondarily in their solidaristic allyship with other marginalized movements such as the disabilities rights movement,” Laplante stated.
The testimonies of sex workers revealed that they treated it just like any other job, although it can come with more flexible hours which allows them to spend time with their families. They also viewed it as care work, specifically for the elderly and disabled people. Some quotes from sex workers revealed that they would notify families if their elderly clients weren’t receiving ample care, and that they provided a gratifying sexual experience for those who cannot have a meaningful sex life.
Following the talks, the audience asked questions to each of the speakers, giving each one time to elaborate on their work and what it showed about the power of narrative and testimony. Overall, accounts of the human experience tend to be the most valuable piece of evidence and information, what matters is making people listen.