Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Graduate Certificate
Both natural and unnatural disasters are having increasingly significant impacts on communities across the planet, creating humanitarian crises and debates over the rights of people being displaced. Our Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Graduate Certificate prepares you to join those conversations, seek answers, and develop solutions so that our shared planet remains a place for everyone.
Program Overview
The Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Graduate Certificate explores how disasters, migration, and humanitarianism impact the human condition.
Designed as an add-on certificate, our program prepares students to engage in impactful and collaborative research on topics such as political violence, global inequality, natural resource extraction, the impact of natural disasters, and so much more. You’ll take courses in the anthropology of human rights, political and environmental anthropology, as well as special topics in refugees and displaced people and health and illness.
This certificate is a great fit for students who are passionate about humanitarianism and want to make a positive impact in their career or beyond.
Why Study Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights?
At UT, a graduate certificate in disasters, displacement, and human rights won’t just prepare you to have impactful conversations; you will directly address community needs by interacting with some of our expert faculty and guest lecturers.
With opportunities to submit your research to the Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights (DDHR) Working Paper Series, you will directly collaborate with faculty on transformative research related to human rights, social justice, and more.
This remarkably collaborative environment prepares you to critically and ethically analyze issues that impact humans around the globe, equipping you to pursue doctoral study or careers in emergency management, humanitarianism, and more.
What Can You Do with a Graduate Certificate in Disasters, Displacements, and Human Rights After Graduation?
In the Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights program at UT, students learn theoretical approaches, use innovative forensic approaches, and engage in collaborative research all while gaining a critical perspective on human rights. By working with global and local issues concerning communities, development, inequality, and climate change, students learn how to work across disciplines and become ready to take their skills into their next chapter. Students with this graduate certificate go on to work in human right investigations, policies, humanitarian work, and more.
In international fields, students work with organizations such as UNICEF and OHCHR as emergency response specialists, human rights officers, or refugee protection officers. Humanitarian law experts and diplomatic delegation officers also work in this field. For federal and regional government agencies, graduates can become foreign service officers, international relations specialists, or public health emergency preparedness coordinators. Nonprofits are other common employers, where students can work as human rights researchers, advocacy directors, or humanitarian programs managers. If you are more interested in the forensic anthropology side, you could become a forensic anthropologist for humanitarian missions or a human rights investigator. The unique experiences and opportunities this program provides gives students a step up as they head into their careers, no matter which direction they decide to go.
Featured Courses
ANTH 419 Anthropology of Human Rights
This course serves as an overview of the development and global spread of modern human rights concepts and instruments, with intensive focus on problems of universal rights, cultural relativism, and the anthropological study of specific human rights issues such as terror, torture, and violence against women.
ANTH 413 Dynamics of Health and Illness
In this course, students will learn socio-cultural dimensions of health, illness, health care systems, and the body, including an examination of global epidemics and health issues related to disasters. An overview of methods and theories in medical anthropology will also be covered. With a writing focus, this course requires a student to complete at least 2,000 words of writing during the semester.
ANTH 425 Humanitarianism
This course provides a critical survey of theoretical and ethnographic studies of modern humanitarianism, with particular emphasis on the relationship between humanitarianism and cultural, economic and political orders associated with global capitalism. It also explores critical questions around democracy, development, human rights, and social justice in relation to the ideologies and practices of humanitarianism.
ANTH 432 Anthropology of Warfare, Violence, and Peace
In this course, students will learn the origins and tactics of warfare; overview of cultural foundations and impacts of warfare and nonviolence; distinctions among aggression, conflict, violence, war; dynamics of militarization and peacebuilding.
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