{"title":"A “Tick and Flick” Exercise: Movement and Form in Australian Parliamentary Human Rights Scrutiny","authors":"Sean Mulcahy, Kate Seear","doi":"10.1017/s0149767723000360","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Human rights scrutiny processes in some Australian parliaments require consideration of whether rights-limiting legislation is reasonable, justifiable, and proportionate. The Queensland Human Rights commissioner has raised concerns of this becoming a “perfunctory ‘tick and flick’ exercise” in which decision-makers perform the “dance steps to [rights] derogation”—a concern emulated by others. Taking this notion of “tick and flick” and “dance steps” literally, this article explores movement and form in the composition of parliamentary human rights scrutiny reports. Drawing from Marie Jacob and Anna Macdonald's notion of legal documents as material, somatic, and metaphorical forms, this article analyzes the choreographic and calligraphic forms in these reports. Through exploring the forms themselves alongside interview data about parliamentary human rights scrutiny practices, this article speculates on whether form has bearing on the process of parliamentary human rights scrutiny, and how form shapes the substance of both the reports and human rights themselves.","PeriodicalId":44926,"journal":{"name":"DANCE RESEARCH JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"DANCE RESEARCH JOURNAL","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0149767723000360","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"DANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Human rights scrutiny processes in some Australian parliaments require consideration of whether rights-limiting legislation is reasonable, justifiable, and proportionate. The Queensland Human Rights commissioner has raised concerns of this becoming a “perfunctory ‘tick and flick’ exercise” in which decision-makers perform the “dance steps to [rights] derogation”—a concern emulated by others. Taking this notion of “tick and flick” and “dance steps” literally, this article explores movement and form in the composition of parliamentary human rights scrutiny reports. Drawing from Marie Jacob and Anna Macdonald's notion of legal documents as material, somatic, and metaphorical forms, this article analyzes the choreographic and calligraphic forms in these reports. Through exploring the forms themselves alongside interview data about parliamentary human rights scrutiny practices, this article speculates on whether form has bearing on the process of parliamentary human rights scrutiny, and how form shapes the substance of both the reports and human rights themselves.
期刊介绍:
Dance Research Journal is the longest running, peer reviewed journal in its field, and has become one of the foremost international outlets for dance research scholarship. The journal carries scholarly articles, book reviews, and a list of books and journals received.