Tag Archives: research

Prof. Amy Kapit Wins Research Grant To Study Student Activism

Let’s celebrate with Professor Amy Kapit, Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace & Conflict Studies! She has won the support of the Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund for her research into the suppression of university student activism and the development of a Student Rights Watch Report. This is important work that resonates strongly (especially with a long history of student activism at Swarthmore. Professor Lakey recently reminded us of his first arrest, with Swarthmore students, in the 1960s during civil rights actions in Chester.) If you see Prof. Kapit, offer her a high-five or elbow-bump! Congratulations!

Professor Amy Kapit; Visiting Assistant Professor Peace & Conflict Studies

The goal of this project is to help the granting organization, the Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH), to develop a methodology for tracking and analyzing the suppression of university student activism, including through acts that violate student activists’ rights. The project will support SAIH’s advocacy and campaigning to raise awareness of the role that students play as defenders of human rights and to increase protections for them. Kapit will work with student research assistants to carry out data collection to develop an initial methodology, code book, and preliminary set of indicators that SAIH can use to produce an annual Student Rights Watch Report.

“This is a really important and really neglected area of work,” says Kapit. “Many people who become human rights defenders become involved in activism as students. If student activists aren’t protected and the space for student activism isn’t allowed to flourish, that’s likely to also suppress future activism. What I’ve found so far through the research is that there’s a big gap in attention to student activists. Groups that support protections for human rights defenders don’t specifically focus on students. And groups that focus on issues like academic freedom tend to be more focused on the work of academics, rather than on students. I’m also really excited to be working with students here at Swarthmore on this project. This project is about students, and I feel strongly that it needs to be shaped by student perspectives.”

New cases added to the Global Nonviolent Action Database

Seventy-six new cases have been added to the Global Nonviolent Action Database by students in the spring semester Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle course at Swarthmore College.

The Global Nonviolent Action Database presents cases of nonviolent civil resistance from around the world, spanning decades and even hundreds of years. Data is provided in a narrative format, and each case is classified across a number of criteria to allow for comparisons and advanced searches.

A selection of the new cases include:

Glasgow rent strike 1915 BBC CC

Glasgow Rent Strike during World War I (BBC)

To view more than one thousand cases of nonviolent civil resistance in the database, visit http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu and follow on Twitter and Facebook.

 

For Fall 2015! Research Seminar: Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle

PEAC 071B. Research Seminar: Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle (Cross-listed as POLS 081 / SOCI 071B) will be offered during the Spring Semester 2015.

Global Nonviolent Action Database banner

 

This one-credit research seminar involves working and updating the Global Nonviolent Action Database which can be accessed by activists and scholars worldwide at http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu. The database was built at Swarthmore College and includes cases of “people power” drawn from dozens of countries. The database contains crucial information on campaigns for human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability, economic justice, national/ethnic identity, and peace.

Students will be expected to research a series of cases and write them up in two ways: within a template of fields (the database proper) and also as a 2-3 page narrative that describes the unfolding struggle.  In addition to research/writing methods, students will also draw on theories in the field.  Strategic implications for today will be drawn from theory and from what the group learns from the documented cases of wins and losses experienced by people’s struggles.

This writing (W) course has a limited enrollment of 12 students.

You can learn more by visiting a collection of posts about the database in the Peace and Conflict Studies blog.

In this video, Professor Lakey introduced the launch of the database in 2011.

 

Global Nonviolent Action Database research seminar offered Spring 2015

We are thrilled to celebrate the fact that the Global Nonviolent Action Database, housed here in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Swarthmore College, reached 1,000 cases this summer!

Even more, we can announce that PEAC 071B. Research Seminar: Strategy and Nonviolent Struggle (Cross-listed as SOAN 071B) will be offered during the Spring Semester 2015.

Professor Smithey will be instructing the course, and Professor Lakey will return in a supporting role during the beginning of the semester.  (Professor Smithey’s course, Gun Violence Prevention, will unfortunately not be offered in the spring).

Global Nonviolent Action Database banner

 

This one-credit research seminar involves working and updating the Global Nonviolent Action Database which can be accessed by activists and scholars worldwide at http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu. The database was built at Swarthmore College and includes cases of “people power” drawn from dozens of countries. The database contains crucial information on campaigns for human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability, economic justice, national/ethnic identity, and peace.

Students will be expected to research a series of cases and write them up in two ways: within a template of fields (the database proper) and also as a 2-3 page narrative that describes the unfolding struggle.  In addition to research/writing methods, students will also draw on theories in the field.  Strategic implications for today will be drawn from theory and from what the group learns from the documented cases of wins and losses experienced by people’s struggles.

This writing (W) course has a limited enrollment of 12 students.

You can learn more by visiting a collection of posts about the database in the Peace and Conflict Studies blog.

In this video, Professor Lakey introduced the launch of the database in 2011.

 

Quakers and Abolition

Quakers and Abolition, a book just released by the University of Illinois Press, includes essays by Ellen Ross (Religion), J. William Frost, (Professor Emeritus) and Christopher Densmore (Friends Historical Library). The book was edited by Geoffrey Planck (Swarthmore graduate) and Brycchan Carey, with an acknowledgement to the Cooper Foundation for its support of the 2010 Quakers and Slavery Conference.

Quakers_Abolition_cover


					

Atlas.ti orientation

You are welcome to attend an orientation to Atlas.ti data organization software on Monday, Sept. 24 at 3:00 p.m. in Kohlberg 228.  Anyone is welcome to attend.

Atlas.ti is software designed for organizing multiple forms of research data (e.g. text, video, audio, survey, and geo-spatial) to facilitate theorizing and smart retrieval of information. Atlas.ti is available in select computer labs on campus, and personal student copies (for PCs and Macs running Windows) can be purchased at 5% of the cost of a regular single user license. For more information, visit http://www.atlasti.com/

If you hope to attend, it would be helpful if you would register your interest in attending via this simple form at http://bit.ly/n0h9iq

Contact: lsmithe1

Atlas.ti training for student research in peace and conflict

atlas.ti

At a recent presentation on “Organizing your data” for senior sociology and anthropology students (including some Peace and Conflict Studies students) who are working on theses, a number of students expressed interest in a further information session / tutorial on using Atlas.ti

Atlas.ti is software designed for organizing multiple forms of research data (text, video, audio, survey, and geo-spatial) to facilitate theorizing and smart retrieval of information. Atlas.ti is available in select computer labs on campus, and personal student copies (for PCs and Macs running Windows) can be purchased at 5% of the cost of a regular single user license. For more information, visit http://www.atlasti.com/

Our next tutorial will be in the SOAN seminar room (Kohlberg 236) on Wed. October 26 at 4:00. Please feel welcome to attend.  It would be helpful if you would register your interest in attending via this simple form at http://bit.ly/n0h9iq