Gabriela Mezzanotti

Associate Professor
Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science
Department of Culture, Religion and Social Studies
Campus Drammen (16011)
Dr Gabriela Mezzanotti is Associate Professor in Social Sciences at the University of South-Eastern Norway and a Lawyer. She is the co-leader of USN’s research group “Human Rights and Diversities”. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences and a MA degree in International Law. Her research addresses interdisciplinary studies on the intersections of culture, human rights and power relations in cross-cutting areas in Social Sciences, mostly related to critical discourse studies, critical decolonial and intersectional approaches to rights and policies. She has published on different facets of social justice in regional and global contexts.

Responsibilities

  • Course coordinator MHRMC610 International human rights protection and the role of international institutions, mechanisms and relations
  • Course coordinator MHRMC830 The Practice of Human Rights and Multiculturalism 
  • Course lecturer MHRMC810 Pluriversal approaches to social justice: current issues on emancipation, human rights and implementation policies (15 ECTS)
  • Course coordinator MHRMC704 Research tutorial
  • Supervision of Master theses related to my competences and fields of interest
  • PhD supervisor: Sivakumar Navarathnam: "International Human Rights Agencies in Shaping the Local Cultures in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka: A Critical Discourse Analysis" 
  • Co-leader of the Research Group in Human Rights and Diversities – USN https://www.usn.no/research/our-research/humanities/human-rights-and-diversities/
  • Member of the Research Group in Human Rights and Vulnerabilities (Direitos Humanos e Vulnerabilidades). Catholic University of Santos, Brazil.

Competences

  • National policies in Migration and Multiculturalism
  • Critical Human Rights Education
  • Critical Theories in International Relations 
  • Critical Discourse Studies
  • Critical Feminism and Intersectionality
  • Decolonial Perspectives
  • International Human Rights Law
  • International Humanitarian Law and Aid
  • International Refugee Law
  • Migration and Refugee Law
  • Indigenous Rights
  • Regional architectures of Refugees' protection

CV

Dr Gabriela Mezzanotti is Associate Professor in Social Sciences at the University of South-Eastern Norway and a Lawyer. She is the co-leader of USN’s research group “Human Rights and Diversities”. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences and a MA degree in International Law. She chaired the UNHCR Sergio Vieira de Mello Chair at Unisinos University (Brazil) for 8 years. Her research addresses critical discourse studies, critical decolonial and intersectional approaches to rights and policies related to power, human rights, and migration. She is a human rights activist and has a wide range of policy and practice-based experiences within migration and minorities contexts with intergovernmental bodies and NGOs in Latin America. She is also the former coordinator of the International Relations BA Program and the Executive Graduate Program in International Relations and Diplomacy at Unisinos University in Brazil. She is a former representative member of COMIRAT (Rio Grande do Sul State Committee for Migrants, Refugees, Stateless Persons, and Human Trafficking Survivors) and COMIRAT/POA (The city of Porto Alegre Committee for Migrants, Refugees, Stateless Persons, and Human Trafficking Survivors). She is a former member of NEABI (Afro descendants and Indigenous studies centre at Unisinos University) and a former member of its United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent Internal Commission. Mezzanotti is a former Associate Editor for the Human Rights Education Review (HRER/USN). She was a visiting faculty at the Federal Judges Superior School, Brazil, and, more recently, at the Institute of Regional Studies, Visiting Professors Programme at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, and at the Visiting Professors Program at the PhD Program in Society, Culture, and Borders, State University of West Parana, Brazil. Her most recent publications address critical and decolonial views on the racialization of Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples on the move, the criminalization of humanitarian aid, migrant detention, and urban violence in Brazil. 

 

Current Projects:

Indigenous migration in Latin America.

Decolonization of Refugee Law.