We Shall Bear Witness: Life Narratives and Human Rights

E-witnessing in the Digital Age - Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith

223­ E-witnessing in the Dig­ i­ tal Age kay schaf­ fer and sid­ o­ nie smith Since we pub­ lished Human ­ Rights and Nar­ rated Lives in 2004, the so­ cial and struc­ tu­ ral en­ vi­ ron­ ments of human ­ rights cam­ paigns have ­ changed sig­ nif­i­ cantly. The major ­ change we take up in this essay con­ cerns the use of tech­ nol­ o­ gies and their im­ pli­ ca­ tions for per­ sonal sto­ ry­ tell­ ing in human ­ rights cam­ paigns. These tech­ nol­ o­ gies, when de­ ployed in the pur­ suit of so­ cial jus­ tice, af­ fect every di­ men­ sion of po­ lit­ i­ cal or­ gan­ iza­ tion, in­ clud­ ing modes of trans­ mis­ sion, ­ breadth and speed of in­ for­ ma­ tion flows, rhet­ o­ rics of ap­ peal, and cul­ tures of re­ cep­ tion in­ rights cam­ paigns. ­ Whereas tra­ di­ tional ­ United Na­ tions ­ rights cam­ paigns and com­ mis­ sions have ­ relied pri­ mar­ ily on re­ corded inter­ views, oral wit­ ness­ ing be­ fore truth com­ mis­ sions, and pub­ lished vic­ tim/sur­ vi­ vor nar­ ra­ tives, the en­ vi­ ron­ ments at­ tached to the cur­ rent array of dig­ i­ tal tech­ nol­ o­ gies in­ volves en­ sem­ bles of de­ vice, code, plat­ form, site proto­ col, net­ work, ge­ neric tem­ plate, and multi­ ply po­ si­ tioned user. This dense dig­ i­ tal en­ vi­ ron­ ment now af­ fects the forms of on­ line and of­ fline wit­ ness­ ing mo­ bi­ lized to reg­ is­ ter grie­ vance and ad­ vance col­ lec­ tive forms of rec­ og­ ni­ tion and re­ dress. His­ tor­ i­ cally, the pri­ mary mode of put­ ting a human face on suf­ fer­ ing and ac­ ti­ vat­ ing a human ­ rights claim has been ­ through pri­ mary and sec­ on­ dary wit­ ness tes­ ti­ mony. Per­ sonal wit­ ness­ ing has tra­ di­ tion­ ally been ad­ vanced ­ through pro­ fes­ sional jour­ nal­ ism and human ­ rights or­ gan­ iza­ tions (govern­ men­ tal and non­ govern­ men­ tal) and often cir­ cu­ lated glo­ bally by pub­ lish­ ers who reap sub­ stan­ tial prof­its from sen­ sa­ tional tales of suf­ fer­ ing and sur­ vi­ val. Ac­ ti­ vists and sur­ vi­ vor ad­ vo­ cates pro­ mote the chain of tell­ ing and lis­ ten­ ing that links wit­ ness sto­ ry­ tell­ ing to em­ pa­ thy, re­ sponse, and ac­ tion. This human ­ rights gram­ mar as­ sumes the em­ o­ tive power of the in­ di­ vid­ ual voice. The par­ a­ digm of in­ di­ vid­ ual wit­ ness­ ing here de­ scribed per­ sists and is ro­ bustly ex­ plored in this vol­ ume by An­ nette Kobak and Mi­ chio Miy­ a­ saka, and el­ o­ quently en­ acted in Hec­ tor ­ Aristiz ábal’s per­ sonal sto­ ry­ tell­ ing. It is, how­ ever, being over­ taken by other forms of tes­ ti­ mony and modes of wit­ ness­ ing made pos­ sible by the per­ va­ sive pres­ ence 224 kay schaffer and sidonie smith of tech­ nol­ o­ gies that alert a ­ larger pub­ lic to suf­ fer­ ing and grie­ vance. New modes of wit­ ness­ ing are being ad­ vanced by the glo­ bal use of dig­ i­ tal tech­ nol­ ogy in var­ i­ ous forms, such as ne­ tizen micro­ ac­ ti­ vism, dig­ i­ tally ­ driven sur­ veil­ lance tech­ nol­ o­ gies, cy­ be­ rhac­ ti­ vism and ­ ever-expanding, so­ phis­ ti­ cated user ex­ per­ tise. This is not to sug­ gest that the in­ di­ vid­ ual story no ­ longer has sa­ li­ ence; it is to sug­ gest that now multi­ ple av­ e­ nues for and modes of wit­ ness­ ing exist along­ side one an­ other and that, as Mark ­ Muller ­ argues, new tech­ nol­ o­ gies en­ able dif­ fer­ ent kinds of wit­ ness pol­ i­ tics, a pol­ i­ tics that may not de­ pend on the ­ tropes, plots, and rhet­ o­ rics of vic­ tim nar­ ra­ tives.1 Dig­ i­ tal en­ vi­ ron­ ments raise pro­ voc­ a­ tive ques­ tions about how to ap­ proach emer­ gent acts and in­ stances of wit­ ness. How might dig­ i...