AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality Launch Event
Friday 24 September 2004, 5-7pm (followed
by a wine reception)
Darwin Conference Suite, University of Kent, Canterbury
Guest Speakers:
Professor
Carl Stychin:
'Las
Vegas is not where we are': Queer reading of the Civil
Partnership Bill.
Abstract: The focus of this paper is
the ongoing development of the British government’s
agenda for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships,
which has now resulted in the publication of the Civil
Partnerships Bill in 2004. Following on from a Private
Member’s Bill in the House of Lords – which,
although eventually withdrawn, received substantial national
support – and the government’s consultation
paper of 2003, the new Bill can be expected to be debated
in the next year.
This paper will present a critical analysis of the governments
‘relationship agenda’, focusing on the narrow
and conservative way in which relationship status is imagined.
The paper will seek to locate the same-sex relationship
issue in the wider context of the twinning of issues of
rights and responsibilities as central to its strategy
of governance. The paper will show how the legal recognition
of same-sex relationships is entirely consistent with
that wider New Labour view of the family. The insights
of queer theory will be used to inform the analysis, and
strategies of resistance to this agenda will be explored.
Professor
Nira Yuval-Davis:
Human rights and contemporary politics of
belonging
Abstract: In this lecture I shall examine
the issue of human rights from three different –
but contemporary angles. Firstly, I shall examine human
rights as one layer of contemporary multi-layered global
citizenships. Secondly, I shall examine them as ethos
and inspiration of a variety of contemporary social movements.
Thirdly, I shall examine the contradictory ways human
rights discourses, legislations and practices have been
playing in contemporary ‘glocal’ politics,
intra- and inter-communities and states. I shall end the
lecture by linking the above to contemporary debates on
multiculturalism and social cohesion.
