Time: Friday 9.10.2020 13:00-14:00
Please join us live via Zoom-stream on the following address:
https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/69330153894?pwd=cVc1UmxwMEFmNk9Md0F3cS9HVXB4…
Meeting ID: 693 3015 3894
Passcode: 782769
Reetta Toivanen: The victim paradox – Some (Critical) Thoughts about Anti-racism in the European Union
In the presentation, Toivanen takes the recent EU anti-racism action plan (2020-2025) as one of her starting points. In launching of it, the President of the European Parliament, von der Leyen said: “We need to talk about racism. And we need to act. […] The motto of our European Union is: ‘United in diversity’. Our task it to live up to these words, and to fulfill their meaning”.
Toivanen’s presentation will discuss the paradoxes of human rights law; the ways in which the measures that are aimed to produce equality may end up reproducing inequalities. She will present some thoughts about the “ideology of law” (Sally Falk Moore) and the difficulty to enact and implement legislation to prohibit discrimination. The presentation shall raise the question, what is the use of the action plan: is it going to change anything in Europe?
About the speaker
Reetta Toivanen is a Professor of Sustainability Science (Indigenous Sustainabilities) in Helsinki University Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). Toivanen is the director of the subproject 3, Migration and the narratives of Europe as an "Area of freedom, security and justice" in the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives.