Presentation Session II

This presentation examines how liberalism’s historically contingent assumptions about personhood continue to shape global Human Rights Education (HRE), often without being made explicit. Drawing on a genealogical analysis of liberal thought from classical, Christian, and Enlightenment traditions, it traces how the autonomous, bounded individual became the universal subject of rights and education. While liberalism has provided powerful commitments to dignity, equality, and conscience, its ontological starting point treats relationality as secondary, occurring between bounded individuals. Building on this philosophical groundwork and empirical insights from Japanese human rights education, the presentation contrasts liberal individualism with an interdependent ontology in which selfhood emerges through ongoing relations with others. Visual materials, public posters, and everyday pedagogical practices in Japan illustrate how human rights are learned not primarily as individual claims, but as cultivated responsibilities embedded in social life. By making alternative ontological starting points visible, this presentation argues for expanding HRE beyond liberal universality toward more plural, relational foundations for agency and ethical life.