Lena Zúñiga

A few (rather many) years ago, I started the Masters program in Human Rights at the National Distance University in Costa Rica. The program covered a lot: constitutional law, the international human rights system, and specific topics such as self-determination, women’s humans rights, indigenous peoples rights and bioethics, among others.

I had to interrupt my Masters back then because I got an scholarship for another program, and it was such a great opportunity I decided to put this one on hold. As these things happen, many years passed and I never submitted a final “tesina” (a shorter thesis, more oriented to professional goals). Back then, my topic was on the relationship between copyright and cultural rights. However, life happened, and I was never able to complete it.

I decided to submit my thesis this year, as in “now or never”. I changed my topic to study how projects and organizations are using digital storytelling and personal narratives to document (and sometimes intervene) in Human Rights cases.

For the past months I’ve been reviewing literature, writing, designing my study, writing, interviewing, writing, and writing some more. This is a relatively short study, compared to others I’ve done in the past, but it’s equally engaging and intense. This week I submitted my first draft and received a brief note from my thesis director saying “it looks good”, and to expect more feedback in the upcoming weeks. Yay! Look at that word cloud!

As part of the data gathering, I interviewed 5 different projects working with personal narratives in the context of Human Rights. I’ll hopefully be publishing more about those projects here on the blog.