Calls for Contributions/Participation are due February 20, 2025
With a venue supporting a 70-person gathering, we have created several ways to support your involvement.
Oral Presentation: (20 mins) If you are ready to share your stories, essays, practice, or research, consider an oral presentation. Whether a single presenter or a team, you are welcome. Maximum 10 min presentation + 10 min for discussion. Audio-visual equipment will be available if needed.
Cafe-style Discussions: If you would like to host meaningful conversations in one of our chosen venues, both at the conference venue and in the neighborhood, then this pathway is for you. The idea is to informally share and have conversations about meaningful ideas, with the goal of bringing some of these discussions together by the end of our gathering.
Artistic & Cultural Expressions: All are invited to submit proposals that will provide attendees with creative ways to contemplate dignity. We envision an arts commons area at the conference venue where participants will engage with your art or cultural expression as it relates to dignity.
Submission Process
Peers will review all contributions to ensure quality and relevance. The submission link will prompt you to enter a 150- to 300-word description of your proposal, addressing the following elements:
Key background information so that reviewers understand your context
A description of what this presentation is about and how it relates to dignity.
A expression of how you hope to engage others through your contribution.
A note about what you consider the most important thing you wish to share.
An indication of the pathway that best aligns with what you are proposing? (Oral presentation, cafe-style discussion, artistic and cultural expressions)
Please submit your statement of contributions using the link below. If you have any issue with submissions, please email your completed statement of contribution to humandignityconference@gmail.com
Prompts to Ignite Your Thinking
As we try to disrupt the conventions of conference organizing, we offer some examples of ways you might formulate your contribution, but without expectation that this is what your contribution should be. The following prompts should provide you a better sense of the possible.
When I supported my loved one in their final days of life, I began to learn some things about dignity in dying. I invite participants to …
Every year, I appreciate that I can see my doctor for my annual check-up. This support leaves me feeling with dignity. I’m not socially vulnerable. Yet …
I have studied how dignity has been articulated and embodied during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is what I learned…
I have spent my creative time exploring how to express the human condition through ….. Please join me .
I grew up in a family where my dignity was diminished. Over the years, I have reclaimed my dignity through …
Grounding our Gathering
Our effort to bring attention to human dignity is well situated in the evolving understanding of dignity as a cherished construct. Historically, dignity was closely connected to the religious notion that human beings, as a divine creation, naturally house a version of sanctity (Mattson & Clark, 2011). Many earlier philosophers, including Cicero, Pico della Mirandola, Pope Leo and Immanuel Kant, believed that all human beings have dignity, because they are elevated over the rest of nature in virtue of possessing a capacity for freedom, reason and free will that they are obliged to use their capacities properly to be worthy of this status, and that they are expected to respect the dignity of others (Sensen, 2011). Contemporarily, dignity is often referred to an inherent value or property of human beings, with an emphasis on a strong moral obligation to respect others (Schroeder, 2012). This value-based stand is foundational for justifying human rights. Indeed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, declared that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Numerous charters, conventions and constitutions, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, have promoted respect for human dignity (Lasswell & McDougal, 1992; Mattson & Clark, 2011).
Artwork by Jessie Dean- A teardrop in the Indian Ocean, Inspired by the ancient Frescoes of Sigiriya
Still, we continue to grapple with the fundamental question, “what is human dignity?” Our struggle speaks to our determination to work towards a more complete understanding of the living idea, and our desire to hear how people from all walks of life experience and know dignity. We are committed to explore imaginative ways to honour human dignity in our interpersonal interactions, intergroup relations, and in our practice in education, policy development, business, cultural development and other expressions of personal and political human relations.
We, therefore, convene the gathering in Sri Lanka, to celebrate and to extend our understanding of dignity in concept and action. Embracing diverse forms of knowledge and ways of knowing, we welcome authentic sharing of personal and professional experiences and/or your participation in knowledge making in circles of learning.
The inaugural international conference will be held in Sri Lanka as a homage to our Elders, who have sparked the idea of re-awakening human dignity. Sri Lanka’s heritage, history and experiences have illuminated dignity as the foundation for human relationships. Among the local partners, the International Centre of Ethnic Studies in Colombo has played a leading role in fostering the understanding of ethnicity, identity politics and conflict, and promoting conditions for inclusive, just and peaceful societies. Our hope is that future conferences will be hosted by international partners in different regions.
References
Glenn, H. (2011). The concept of dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Journal of Religious Ethics, 39(1), 1-24.
Lasswell, H. D., & McDougal, M. S. (1992). Jurisprudence for a free society: Studies in law, science and policy. New Haven, CT: New Haven Press.
Mattson, D.J., & Clark, S.G. (2011). Human dignity in concept and practice. Policy Sciences, 44, 303-319.
Schroeder, D. (2012). Human rights and human dignity: An appeal to separate the conjoined twins. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 15(3), 323-335.
Sensen, O. (2011). Human dignity in historical perspective: The contemporary and traditional paradigms. Europeans Journal of Political Theory, 10(1), 71-91.