Human Rights and Global Fashion, Taught by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Mary Watson

Human Rights in Global Fashion: Value Chains, Workers, Corporate Accountability and Systems Design is a university-wide lecture course designed to show the links between consumers and workers in distant places, as fashion has long been home to some of the most glaring inequalities and injustices on an increasingly globalized scale.

Since the 19th century, the clothing sector has also been a site of social contestation that has been marked by struggles for worker rights, the rise of social movements, the exercise of corporate power, and the fallibility of national governments. It has also been a source of innovation in public policy, corporate accountability, monitoring – processes that have led to new 21st century designs of the industry itself.

The course provides an introductory overview of the key obstacles, actors, rules, and methods for crafting innovative solutions in social mobilization, legal intervention, and design with the aim of creating a more socially sustainable and economically inclusive fashion – a fashion that fulfills the human rights of workers in the supply chain.

Open to students from across the university, the course also welcomes non-credit students through The New School’s Open Campus as well as New School alumni.

The course is co-taught by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, professor of international affairs and the director of the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs, and Mary Watson, Executive Dean of the Schools of Public Engagement.

The course also features guest lectures by New School faculty experts from across the university, including William Milberg, dean of The New School of Social Research; Sheba Tejani, assistant professor of international affairs; Victoria Hattam, professor of politics; and Burak Cakmak, dean of Parsons School of Fashion.

Industry leaders also join the course to deliver guest lectures, including representatives from BRAC USA, Social Accountability International (SAI), and the Center for Global Workers’ Rights.

A public version of the course syllabus is available on Medium.

Source: New School Course Catalog