BMET 22A22 - Introduction to Research in Political Sciences : Investigating Human Rights in Asia

This course will provide students with a broad overview of the human rights situation in Asia and, in particular, it will offer them the chance to directly experience the slippery and complex environment of fieldwork in a particularly sensitive research context.

All session will be pragmatic and research oriented. For this reason, the whole course has been structured around four case studies. Each of them will prove crucial to explain and understand a specific research method as well as difficulties scholars working in this field may adopt and encounter when working on Human Rights in Asia.

The four case studies identified are North Korea, Myanmar, religion in Asia, and China. The North Korean case will be discussed from the perspective of refining accurate knowledge on one of the most secretive country in the world by collecting refugees testimonials. The human rights situation in Myanmar, instead, will be approached from either the perspective of the Rohingya crisis as well as the one of its internal civil war.

Religion in Asia will be discussed from various angles, to help students to better understand the variety of religious nuances, and human rights abuses, characterizing the region. As far as China is concerned, the class will aim at untangling the crisis of Tiananmen applying an innovative research method.

At the end of the course, the student is expected to :

1°) Better master pragmatic research methods to be adopted in sensitive research fields.

2°) Strengthen his/her knowledge on Human Rights in Asia.

3°) Familiarize with the importance of adopting neutral narratives to discuss sentitive topics.

To validate the course, the student is expected to pass the following assignments :

1°) Group presentation number 1 - North Korea

2°) Group presentation number 2 - Myanmar

3°) Group presentation number 3 - Tiananmen