De-Colonising Human Rights by learning from the Global South: A marginalised model of social change that emerged in self-determination struggles of oppressed communities

This paper presents a model of social change that emerged from the Global South as a method to overcome colonial and Racist domination via collective action from below. Despite its effectiveness, it is being marginalised not only in academic human rights discourses but also in European social movement research. This framework includes a specific understanding of power and social change, which inspired strategic resistance for the decolonisation of India, against white supremacy in the United States and the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa, as well as many other post-colonial struggles, and is often neglected in mainstream debates. Decolonising our research not only requires taking seriously and making space for heuristic tools and methodologies from struggles of marginalised communities but also designing research in a way that strengthens and supports the struggle of such communities and of us all to overcome oppression in our structures and work. And this requires understanding when and how oppressed communities can act collectively for their rights, which again requires understanding the dynamics and shifts in power relations between involved groups that precede the institutionalisation of human, civil, labour and other rights. Particularly important are dynamics between those that benefit from the status quo and those that are oppressed by it. This power-blindness of concrete social actors, beyond states, is especially striking in international law and peace studies. Power dynamics do not vanish if they are ignored. Rather they can only be transformed after having been acknowledged and understood. Interestingly the understanding of power underlying this model of social change, is very different from the domination-focused Weberian power-over-concept, as it contrarily emphasises the inter-dependence of social actors. Its theory of power and change is not only empowering for communities but also has a very subversive potential in that it sheds light on where the power of those that appear powerless lies and how even the seemingly most brutal and powerful colonisers and oppressors depend on the contribution and cooperation of many social groups and people, which can be an entry-point for disruption and liberation. This contribution seeks to make room for this marginalised model of social change developed by communities themselves as part of learning feedback loops in their struggles for liberation and against oppression. There is an existing field of research of civil resistance or nonviolent action that continues to learn from these concepts underlying the struggles of oppressed and marginalised communities, and the involved theories and research findings are relevant to a variety of neighbouring fields, such as international law, particularly human rights, social movement research, and peace and conflict studies. The paper presents the main concepts of this model, and how it has been further elaborated by both practitioners and allied researchers in the past century. It will then lay out a research agenda based on this basic framework and show the relevance for various areas of studies, to finally discuss some implications of this approach for both research and active communities.