Human Rights and Social Justice
My coursework has profoundly shaped my understanding of human rights, providing me with a comprehensive and nuanced perspective on these critical topics. It’s not just about theoretical knowledge; it’s about seeing how these ideas have been fought for, established, and challenged throughout history, and how they manifest in our lived realities.
The Foundation of Human Rights: From Theory to Practice
One of my core courses, Foundations of Human Rights, provided a historical roadmap, tracing the evolution of human rights from ancient civilizations to modern-day declarations. Studying key moments like the Magna Carta and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) helped me understand that the struggle for human rights is a long and continuous one.
However, the most profound learning came from a project that transformed theory into practice. I applied my understanding of systemic injustice to write and produce a stage play titled Shattered Silence, which explored the complexities of racial injustice and police brutality. This creative work was a powerful vehicle for bridging the gap between academic analysis and real-world advocacy, demonstrating how storytelling can be a tool for human rights education and for mobilizing a community to action. This experience showed me that rights are not just abstract concepts; they are principles that must be actively championed through creative and practical means.
Critical Awareness and Ethical Frameworks
My studies went beyond history to analyze key court rulings and international treaties, which provided a concrete understanding of global efforts to protect and advance human rights. Furthermore, my coursework emphasized an interdisciplinary approach, forcing me to confront how ethical frameworks must adapt to diverse social contexts.
Through a journal assignment, I engaged with a powerful critique of the metaphor of “decolonization” and its potential to erase the unique historical and current experiences of slavery. This assignment challenged my understanding of language and its ethical implications. It made me realize that communication is not just about conveying information, but about doing so with cultural humility and a deep awareness of the historical and social weight of the words we use. This deepened my critical awareness of how language can either uphold or undermine human rights.
The most impactful part of my academic journey has been my engagement with Indigenous knowledge and wisdom, especially while studying on the unceded territory of the Secwépemc people. This coursework has consistently challenged the Eurocentric biases of human rights theory, and this outcome has been central to that decolonization process.
Engaging with Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonization
My project, Beyond the Lines: Uniting Black and Indigenous Voices for Justice, was a profound exploration of this theme. I used spoken word poetry and visual media to reflect on the shared histories and struggles of Black and Indigenous peoples. This approach helped me understand that Indigenous knowledge is not merely a historical artifact but a living, dynamic system of thought and wisdom. By using art as a form of knowledge dissemination, I was able to prioritize Indigenous and Black perspectives, acknowledging how creative expression can be a powerful tool for cultural reclamation and a vital part of achieving true social justice. This experience solidified my commitment to centering the voices of those who have been historically marginalized in my future advocacy.
Risk, Place and Social Justice
Throughout this course, my perspective on climate risk evolved from viewing it as an environmental issue to understanding it as a deeply social and political one. The first objective critiquing the types of risks embedded in our natural and built environments showed me how climate hazards are intensified or even created by human decisions. Whether through poor infrastructure planning, extractive development, or inconsistent policy responses, societies often manufacture vulnerability long before a climate event occurs.
Reflecting on how personal identity shapes exposure to risk was one of the most eye-opening aspects. I learned to see climate risk not as evenly distributed, but as disproportionately borne by people whose class, gender, ethnicity, occupation, or location limit their access to resources. Thinking about my own positionality helped me recognize the privileges that shield some individuals while leaving others consistently exposed. This realization made climate risk feel less abstract and more intimately connected to social justice.
The course also taught me how to identify gaps in climate policy and planning. Many responses appear comprehensive on paper but fail in practice because of missing community input, insufficient funding, or an overreliance on outdated data. Understanding these gaps clarified why climate risks continue to escalate despite an abundance of scientific knowledge and international agreements.
Evaluating media coverage further sharpened my critical thinking. The contrast between overexposed dramatic events like hurricanes or wildfires and underreported slow-onset crises such as desertification, water scarcity, or climate migration made me realize how media narratives shape public urgency and political priorities. Learning to differentiate between what is reported and what is actually happening felt essential for anyone hoping to engage responsibly with climate issues.
Overall, the course challenged me to think more holistically and ethically about climate risk. It reinforced that addressing climate challenges requires not only technical solutions but also an understanding of inequality, governance, and representation. This broadened perspective will shape how I interpret risk, policy, and environmental justice moving forward.
Genocide in the 20th Century
Studying genocide in the 20th century has reshaped my understanding of how ordinary political tensions can escalate into extraordinary violence when supported by ideology, state power, and social fragmentation. What stood out to me most was how systematically genocide is planned how leaders weaponize identity, redefine moral boundaries, and manipulate language to make destruction appear necessary or even righteous. Engaging with these histories forced me to see genocide not as sudden explosions of hatred but as long, deliberate processes.
Adam Jones captures the essence of this process when he highlights the UN Genocide Convention’s definition, noting that genocide involves “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” This framing helped anchor my understanding: genocide is never accidental. It is the product of intention, ideology, and the machinery of state or organized groups. Seeing how Jones applies this definition to cases across the 20th century revealed how varied genocides can be even while following chillingly similar patterns.
The case studies from this period Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, among others demonstrated how modern institutions, from bureaucracies to propaganda systems, intensified the scale and speed of killing. It was disturbing to recognize how often these atrocities unfolded in full view of the world, and yet global responses remained slow, conflicted, or politically constrained. Learning about this pattern of delayed intervention raised difficult questions about international responsibility, moral courage, and the limits of global governance.