Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism : Rethinking the Legacy of J.S. Woodsworth

J.S. Woodsworth, a founding member and leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party) and member of Parliament, was a social policy pioneer who promoted human welfare and rights over interests of property or finance. The essays in Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism explore the contemporary significance of Woodsworth's human rights framework by examining current social welfare objectives. Canadians continue to grapple with the enduring question of how to accommodate and reconcile social diversity and difference while articulating a common interest and advancing human rights, both domestically and internationally. These interdisciplinary essays address such issues as globalization, labour rights and law, the gendered and racialized dimensions of transnational labour, the relationship between human rights, social programs, and social rights, and the emergent cultural politics of difference. Taken as a whole, these essays pursue a careful consideration of the historical and contemporary exclusions to polity that occur around gender, ethnicity, class, and race. J.S. Woodsworth, a founding member and leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party) and member of Parliament, was a social policy pioneer who promoted human welfare and rights over interests of property or finance. The essays in Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism explore the contemporary significance of Woodsworth's human rights framework by examining current social welfare objectives. Canadians continue to grapple with the enduring question of how to accommodate and reconcile social diversity and difference while articulating a common interest and advancing human rights, both domestically and internationally. These interdisciplinary essays address such issues as globalization, labour rights and law, the gendered and racialized dimensions of transnational labour, the relationship between human rights, social programs, and social rights, and the emergent cultural politics of difference. Taken as a whole, these essays pursue a careful consideration of the historical and contemporary exclusions to polity that occur around gender, ethnicity, class, and race Contents 5 Acknowledgments 7 Contributors 9 1. A Common Interest? Reflections on the Social Legacy of J.S. Woodsworth and the Contemporary Politics of Social Change in Canada 13 2. The Historical Woodsworth and Contemporary Politics 54 3. Labour Rights in an Interregnum: The Ambiguous Legacy of J.S. Woodsworth 77 4. The Changing Struggle for Rights: A Critical Look at the Origins and Fate of Human Rights 103 5. Social Rights Are Human Rights: Furthering the Democratic Project 126 6. Human Rights and Poverty: A Twenty-First Century Tribute to J.S. Woodsworth and Call for Human Rights 148 7. Human Needs above Property Rights? Rethinking the Woodsworth Legacy in an Era of Economic Globalization 173 8. Zones of Abandonment: The Cultural Politics of Public Health in Vancouver’s Inner City 192 9. ‘Re-construction’ from the Viewpoint of Precarious Labour: The Practice of Solidarity 211 10. J.S. Woodsworth and the Discourse of White Civility 233 11. Embodied Memory: Universal Citizenship and Indigenous Cree Identity 256 12. Canadians of Tomorrow: J.S. Woodsworth and the New Ethnicities 278 Index 299 Canadians continue to grapple with the question of how to accommodate and reconcile social diversity and difference while articulating a common interest and advancing human rights, both domestically and internationally. The essays in this volume, by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, address such issues as globalization, labour rights and law, the gendered and racialized dimensions of transnational labour, the relationship between human rights, social programs, and social rights, and the emergent cultural politics of difference. Through engagement with longstanding debates on the ideals and provisions for social justice we have come to associate with Woodsworth, the essays consider the present significance of a human rights frame, and examine the historical and contemporary exclusions to polity that occur around gender, ethnicity, class, and race. --Book Jacket "J.S. Woodsworth, a founding member and leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party) and member of Parliament, was a social policy pioneer who promoted human welfare and rights over interests of property and finance. Human Welfare, Rights, and Social Activism explores the significance of Woodsworth's thoughts and achievements in the area of human rights in the light of current social welfare objectives and practices