First stab at Thesis Blurb

I was nicely forced to come up with a blurb for a colloquium I am presenting at in a few weeks. This is the first bit of something I scribbled now that I have thought through my research a bit more. I am sure I will look back later and think this completely awful, but I have to start somewhere!

Erin Murphy, Public Affairs and International Studies
The Intersection of Visual Art and Human Rights in Kenya:
Artists have a critical role in the human rights movement as catalysts for change. The visual artists of the Ngecha Artists Association in Kenya, use their art to express human rights messages. From health to gender rights, the artists seek to foster dialogue leading to community social transformation through their art. (www.ngechaartist.org) This summer I will stay with the artist community for a few weeks and conduct ethnographic research using visual anthropology. Through observing their youth workshops and community mural paintings I hope to answer the following questions:

--how do the Kenyan artists understand human rights as communicated in their art?
--are there nuanced differences in their framework of human rights compared to a general Western understanding?
--if so, what are the implications for Western practitioners who rely on a framework of human rights for their work in Kenya?

My hypothesis is that there are differences in the normative human rights framework of Kenyans as compared to Westerners.With the growing popularity of framing development issues as human rights issues, this has important implications for Western NGO workers and others.There is a danger of imposing the rhetoric and framework of human rights in a similar way that other international development models were imposed.