Universität Wien

070086 SE BA-Seminar - The "Aborigines' Protection Society" (2023S)

Discourses of global human rights in the 19th century

10.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 7 - Geschichte
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: German

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Was ist das Verhältnis von Rechtswissenschaft, indigenen Gewohnheitsrechten und Kolonialismus? Es gehört zu den bitteren Einsichten, dass das europäische bürgerliche Recht den Kolonialismus ohne weiteres zu inkorporieren vermochte, und dass das exportierte Strafrecht in Übersee rechtlose Verhältnisse zu schaffen half. Wie aber setzten die Gegner des Kolonialismus das Recht ein? In keinem Bereich wurden so emanzipative Rechtstraditionen entwickelt, wie im Falle der juristischen Kämpfe der Abolitionisten um die Abschaffung der Sklaverei. Die jüngere Forschung sieht die Aboriginies‘ Protection Society mehr und mehr als eine transnational vernetzte Bewegung (Laidlaw 2021). Diese soll aus rechtshistorischer Perspektive quellennah erschlossen werden.
In welchen Kommunikationsformen verfestigte sich dieses Rechtswissen? Wie universal waren die dabei eingesetzten Forderungen oder wie präzise konnte der Abolitionismus plurale Rechtsformen abbilden und bewahren? Ging die Position der lokalen Gewohnheitsrechte in die Emanzipationskämpfe ein, wo doch viele Abolitionisten der Revolutionen von Saint-Domingue und Haiti (1791-1804) wenig Unterstützung zuteilwerden ließen? Wie wurde dieses emanzipative Recht gelehrt, wo fand man sich zusammen um es zu diskutieren und weiterzuentwickeln? Wie schließlich wurde dem Wissen zur Gültigkeit verholfen: Wie wurden diese grundlegenden Menschenrechte konkret durchgesetzt?
Das Ausgangsmaterial für dieses stellt die in London ansässige Aborigines Protection Society (1837 –1909), deren internationales Netzwerk rekonstruiert werden soll. Ziel des Seminars ist neben der inhaltlichen Arbeit die Unterstützung bei der Abfassung einer Bachelorarbeit. Bei diesem Seminar handelt es sich um eine Kooperation zwischen der Wissenschaftsgeschichte und dem Programm für Indigenous Legal Studies der Juristischen Fakultät der Universität Wien. Mit unserem geteilten Interesse an den aufgeworfenen rechts- und kolonialhistorischen Fragen tragen wir aus zwei verschiedenen Hintergründen zum Seminar bei: einerseits in der Rechtsgeschichte Lateinamerikas und andererseits in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus im Pazifik.

  • Thursday 09.03. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 23.03. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 30.03. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 20.04. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 04.05. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 11.05. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 25.05. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01
  • Thursday 01.06. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum 10, Kolingasse 14-16, OG01

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

What is the relationship between jurisprudence, indigenous customary law and colonialism? It is one of the bitter insights that European civil law was able to incorporate colonialism without further ado, and that exported criminal law helped to create lawless conditions overseas. But how did the opponents of colonialism use the law? In no other area were such emancipative legal traditions developed as in the case of the legal struggles of the abolitionists for the abolition of slavery. Recent research increasingly sees the Aboriginal Protection Society as a transnational networked movement (Laidlaw 2021). This is to be developed from a legal-historical perspective close to the source.
What forms of communication did this legal knowledge take? How universal were the demands used, or how precisely was abolitionism able to depict and preserve plural legal forms? Did the position of local customary rights enter into the emancipation struggles when many abolitionists of the Saint-Domingue and Haiti revolutions (1791-1804) gave little support? How was this emancipative right taught, where did you meet to discuss and further develop it? Finally, how was the knowledge validated: How were these fundamental human rights actually enforced?
The source material for this is provided by the London-based Aborigines Protection Society (1837 –1909), whose international network is to be reconstructed. The aim of the seminar, in addition to the content-related work, is to provide support in writing a bachelor's thesis. This seminar is a cooperation between the history of science and the program for Indigenous Legal Studies of the Law Faculty of the University of bVienna. With our shared interest in the legal and colonial-historical questions raised, we contribute to the seminar from two different backgrounds: on the one hand in the legal history of Latin America and on the other hand in the scientific history of German colonialism in the Pacific.

Assessment and permitted materials

In this type of seminar, you will first study a historical topic and subsequently be asked to generate a theme for a Bachelor's thesis, one of the two theses in Module 7. Regular and committed collaboration, participation in the seminar discussions, smaller research tasks on the topic of the seminar as part of a working group, discussion of your own project with the seminars leaders, development of a 2-page exposé ( research question, structure, corpus, time frame), presentation of your own ideas for the BA work in the plenary session, final submission on September 25th, 2023 via upload to Moodle (optional pre-submission of the table of contents and a chapter).
Scope of the bachelor's thesis: approx. 65,000 characters (± 5%), including spaces, footnotes, title page, table of contents, bibliography, excluding images and graphics. This results in approx. 25 manuscript pages, 1½ lines, 12pt. Don't forget: English-language abstract of approx. 1,000 characters and declaration of originality.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Good orientation in the subject area, knowledge of the most important concepts and methods in the history of science, ability to use pecialist bibliographies and pertinent archival portals, familiarity with exemplary cases, the standard is always general academic ability: originality of approaches, independence and clarity of argumentation, critical handling of the material, nuanced assessment of the research literature, depth of research.

Examination topics

The material results from the seminar and the topic of the bachelor thesis, which was determined in a consultation hour.

Reading list

Literature will be communicated in the seminar and via Moodle.

Association in the course directory

BA Geschichte (V2019): PM7 - BA-Seminar (10 ECTS)
BEd UF GP12: BA-Seminar für GP (9 ECTS)

Last modified: We 10.05.2023 11:47