HMRT 286AMega Sports & Human Rights

Catalog

This course examines how mega sports events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup serve as both platforms for advancing human rights movements and sites of significant human rights violations. The course investigates recurrent human rights concerns, including forced evictions, labor exploitation of workers, surveillance and policing of dissent, and environmental impacts. At the same time, it analyzes how athletes, civil society groups, and global media leverage these events to spotlight racial justice, gender equality, sexual rights, and labor protections. Through case studies from Brazil, Qatar, China, South Africa, and the United States, students evaluate the conditions under which mega events advance social change or reproduce inequality and abuse. The course equips students to critically analyze global sport as a contested arena of rights, power, and political visibility.