Digital human rights storytelling and its palimpsests: (De-) constructed images of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

Abstract

This article explores new conversations about the possibilities and limits of human rights documentation as a mode of truth-seeking. Drawing on the author’s more than two decades of experience working with human rights NGOs on issues related to state-sponsored violence and humanitarian assistance across Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, this article explores multiple ways in which human rights “facts” are produced rather than found.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the scholars and practitioners who generously shared their time and insights with me, as well as the anonymous reviewers, whose constructive criticism greatly improved the article.

Notes

1 Interviews conducted with IRB approval, protocol number 400 (Clark University).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ken MacLean

Ken MacLean is a professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University. His research focuses on human rights documentation and advocacy, including its digital turn.