Human Rights and Technological Change: Conflicts and Convergences After 1945
Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag (2022), 392 pp.
Contains illustrations, bibliogr. pp. 354-384, acronyms pp. 385-387, index
Series: Schriftenreihe Menschenrechte Im 20. Jahrhundert, 10
ISBN 978-3-8353-5165-3 (pbk); 978-3-8353-4842-4 (pdf)
"The volume analyses the ambivalent relationship between human rights and modern technologies since 1945. Tools of suppression or agents of emancipation? Modern technologies have become a major subject of human rights policy. Surveillance technology, the military use of drones, and the possibilities of Big Data analysis pose new challenges for the international human rights movement. At the same time, these techniques offer new ways to document and denounce violations of human rights and to promote mass mobilization. The volume analyses this ambivalent relationship between human rights and technological change in a historical perspective. Showing how the spread of modern technologies both challenged and served human rights policies, the volume focuses on four key areas of technological change: 1) development politics, infrastructures and large technical systems, 2) population politics and demographical knowledge, 3) media cultures and communication technologies, and 4) the societal impact of computerization. By sketching these debates since 1945, the volume adds a historical perspective to current debates about the political and ethical challenges of new technological developments." (Publisher description)
Introduction: Human Rights and Technological Change / Michael Homberg, Benjamin Möckel, 9
I. COLONIAL LEGACIES, POSTCOLONIAL DEVELOPMENTS: HUMAN RIGHTS, LABOR, AND TECHNOLOGY
"Powering Progress, Empowering People"? (Hydro)Electricity and Human Rights in Post/Colonial India, 1920s-1990s / Ute Hasenöhrl, 37
Rationalising the Workplace. The Bengal Jute Industry between the 1920s and the 1950s / Anna Sailer, 63
The ILO, Asia, and the Beginnings of Technical Assistance, 1945-1960 / Daniel Roger Maul, 98
II. REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: FAMILY PLANNING AND DEMOGRAPHIC POLITICS
Reproductive Technologies, Contraceptives, and Human Rights / Roman Birke, 127
Contested Reproductive Rights. Population Technologies and the Quest for Individualism in the 1960s and 1970s / Heinrich Hartmann, 149
A Human Right or a Danger to the Future? Debates about Family Planning Between Parental Rights and Duties in 1960s West Germany / Claudia Roesch, 168
III. MEDIA WARS: REPRESENTING RIGHTS, LEGITIMIZING VIOLENCE
Freedom Fighter. Weapons and Rights in the Cold War / Daniel Stahl, 189
Innovation, Technology, and Humanitarianism. The Example of the International Committee of the Red Cross / Daniel Palmieri, 210
Image Activists. Building Structures, Arguing with Images, and Cooperating with Media Actors at Amnesty International 1975-1985 / Lia Börsch, 230
IV. COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES: (IN-)FORMING THE PUBLIC
Origins of a Human Right to Privacy. The United Nations' Debate on Science and Technology in the Context of the United States' Domestic Politics / Benedikt Neuroth, 257
Computer Power to the People. West German Hackers' Activism and Online Communication During the Yugoslavian Wars / Julia Gül Erdogan, 281
Information and Communication Technologies in Human Rights Work in the 1990s / Barbara Keys, 308
Into the Open. An Essay on Democratizing Social Media / Moritz Riesewieck, 329
I. COLONIAL LEGACIES, POSTCOLONIAL DEVELOPMENTS: HUMAN RIGHTS, LABOR, AND TECHNOLOGY
"Powering Progress, Empowering People"? (Hydro)Electricity and Human Rights in Post/Colonial India, 1920s-1990s / Ute Hasenöhrl, 37
Rationalising the Workplace. The Bengal Jute Industry between the 1920s and the 1950s / Anna Sailer, 63
The ILO, Asia, and the Beginnings of Technical Assistance, 1945-1960 / Daniel Roger Maul, 98
II. REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: FAMILY PLANNING AND DEMOGRAPHIC POLITICS
Reproductive Technologies, Contraceptives, and Human Rights / Roman Birke, 127
Contested Reproductive Rights. Population Technologies and the Quest for Individualism in the 1960s and 1970s / Heinrich Hartmann, 149
A Human Right or a Danger to the Future? Debates about Family Planning Between Parental Rights and Duties in 1960s West Germany / Claudia Roesch, 168
III. MEDIA WARS: REPRESENTING RIGHTS, LEGITIMIZING VIOLENCE
Freedom Fighter. Weapons and Rights in the Cold War / Daniel Stahl, 189
Innovation, Technology, and Humanitarianism. The Example of the International Committee of the Red Cross / Daniel Palmieri, 210
Image Activists. Building Structures, Arguing with Images, and Cooperating with Media Actors at Amnesty International 1975-1985 / Lia Börsch, 230
IV. COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES: (IN-)FORMING THE PUBLIC
Origins of a Human Right to Privacy. The United Nations' Debate on Science and Technology in the Context of the United States' Domestic Politics / Benedikt Neuroth, 257
Computer Power to the People. West German Hackers' Activism and Online Communication During the Yugoslavian Wars / Julia Gül Erdogan, 281
Information and Communication Technologies in Human Rights Work in the 1990s / Barbara Keys, 308
Into the Open. An Essay on Democratizing Social Media / Moritz Riesewieck, 329
