Author Archives: Lee Smithey

Goodbye, Memphis. Medford, here we come.

The Peace and Justice Studies meetings in Memphis were a success, and Swarthmore was well represented. Ivan Boothe ’05 continues to serve on the organization’s board, and the Global Nonviolent Action database attracted considerable attention. Thanks to the PJSA organizers and Gandhi-King Conference for their hard work.

Next year’s meeting will be held October 4-6, 2012 at Tufts University in Medford, MA (Boston), and hopefully we will be able to take a van from Swarthmore. Stay tuned!

Here are a few pictures (click twice on pictures for full size):

Follow the Peace and Justice Studies Association conference online

The Peace and Justice Studies Association 2011 meeting is being held at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, TN, October 20-23.  The PJSA has partnered with the Gandhi King Youth Conference to design a joint conference this year.

You can follow the conference online. Follow and contribute to the #pjsa-gkc hashtag on Twitter, or watch the conference Livestream embedded on this page. The schedule for the conference is also available online.

Video streaming by Ustream

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

Announcing a new book by Lee Smithey on conflict transformation in Northern Ireland

Unionists Loyalists and Conflict Transformation in Northern IrelandThe Peace and Conflict Studies program announces the release of a new book by Prof. Lee Smithey. Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland is now available from Oxford University Press.

Drawing on almost twenty years of studying and traveling to Northern Ireland, including sustained periods of intensive fieldwork, Smithey focuses on the importance of collective identity change that is central to conflict transformation. He argues that it is important for ethnopolitical division to be addressed from within ideologically committed quarters of divided societies. In this case, he finds that many unionists and loyalists are modifying symbolic and often ritualistic expressions of collective identity that have often been considered divisive, such as parades, bonfires, and murals, and

Lee Smithey

are making them less polarizing. The development and modification of these activities provide opportunities for the incremental reframing of fundamental ethnopolitical ideas and narratives. If you are interested in studying peace processes from grassroots psychocultural angles, this book might appeal to you.

You can read more about the book and order copies at Oxford University Press and Amazon.com (where a Kindle version is available.) A pdf flyer and a mail-in order form are also available.

Here are full links for the U.S., U.K., and Ireland

Find other books by Peace and Conflict Studies faculty at Swarthmore here.

Conflict in the Congo

Congo

photo credit: Julien Harneis

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly 6 million people have died as a result of violent conflict since 1996, making it one of the deadliest and leastdiscussed humanitarian crises in human history.

Come see Kambale Musavuli

Spokesperson for “Friends of the Congo

Friday Oct. 21st, 4:15 pm

Science Center 128 (maps and directions)

Mr. Kambale Musavuli, will be speaking on the causes of the conflict, the environmental consequences, and the systematic violence against women. Mr. Musavuli is a well-known Congolese human rights activist and spokesperson for Friends of the Congo. His goal is to mobilize the global community to help bring an end to the conflict in the Congo and provide support to the people of Congo.

Kambale Musavuli

photo credit: Campus Progress

Sponsored by: Forum for Free Speech, Swarthmore STAND, Swarthmore Political Science Department, Swarthmore Gender and Sexuality Studies, Swarthmore Peace and Conflict Studies, and the Office of the President

Electronic Resources on Northern Ireland

Information Technology Services has installed two interactive resources on the PC in the Sociology and Anthropology lab in Kohlberg Hall. Both pertain to Northern Ireland, but have broader relevance to political contention (violent, nonviolent, and institutional), material culture, ethnicity, nationalism, propaganda, etc.

If you would like to access these resources, please contact Rose Maio in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology about lab hours and access to the lab.

On the PC’s desktop, you will find two icons:

One is for A State Apart an interactive history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland with video, audio interviews, timelines, journalism, and documents. It provides an excellent overview of the conflict in a very compelling way. (This would be an excellent primer for students planning to study in Northern Ireland.)

The second is for Troubled Images a resource produced by the Political Collection of the Linenhall Library in Belfast. They have scanned thousands of images and documents from the collection and organized them in a searchable database which is now in the SOAN lab. Here you will find posters, campaign leaflets, photographs, political cartoons, lapel pins, flags, stamps, etc. etc.

Many thanks to ITS for making this resource available to us and our students.

Women and peacebuilding prioritized in Nobel Peace Prize selection

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Tawakkul Karman (Yemen); President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia); and Leymah Gbowee (Liberia). Leymah Gbowee spoke here in Philadelphia at Villanova University, and several Swarthmore Peace and Conflict Studies students went to hear her speak with Prof. George Lakey. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee praised the women “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

New media technology brings nonviolent protest to our desktops

Llivestreaming technology allows protest movements to broadcast live news, providing new opportunities for activists to frame their concerns and raise the costs of repression by authorities. The broad availability of such technology raises interesting questions about the conceptual boundaries of journalism and freedom of the press. Here are several lives streams from the October 2011 and Occupy Wall Street movements.

October 2011

Live streaming by Ustream

Occupy Wall Street DC

 

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Occupy Wall Street NYC

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Watch live streaming video from occupywallstnyc at livestream.com

OccupyPhilly

Free live streaming by Ustream

Women, War, and Peace series premieres October 11

Watch the full episode. See more Women War and Peace.

[Check your local listings]

[from pbs.org]

Women, War & Peace is a bold new five-part PBS television series challenging the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain. The vast majority of today’s conflicts are not fought by nation states and their armies, but rather by informal entities: gangs and warlords using small arms and improvised weapons. The series reveals how the post-Cold War proliferation of small arms has changed the landscape of war, with women becoming primary targets and suffering unprecedented casualties. Yet they are simultaneously emerging as necessary partners in brokering lasting peace and as leaders in forging new international laws governing conflict. With depth and complexity, Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, placing women at the center of an urgent dialogue about conflict and security, and reframing our understanding of modern warfare.

Featuring narrators Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard, Women, War & Peace is the most comprehensive global media initiative ever mounted on the roles of women in war and peace. The series will present its groundbreaking message across the globe by utilizing all forms of media, including U.S. and international primetime television, radio, print, web, and worldwide community screenings, and will be accompanied by an educational and outreach initiative designed to advance international accountability in regard to women and security. Women, War & Peace is a co-production of THIRTEEN and Fork Films.

Women, War & Peace will premiere on your local PBS station Tuesday nights from Oct. 11 to Nov. 8, 2011. Check your local listings for air times, and click here to watch the trailer.

The five episodes in the series:

I Came to Testify is the moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law. Their remarkable courage resulted in a triumphant verdict that led to new international laws about sexual violence in war.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the astonishing story of the Liberian women who took on the warlords and regime of dictator Charles Taylor in the midst of a brutal civil war, and won a once unimaginable peace for their shattered country in 2003.

When the U.S. troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. Peace Unveiled follows three women in Afghanistan who are risking their lives to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal.

The War We Are Living travels to Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s Pacific southwest, where two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are braving a violent struggle over their gold-rich lands. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war.

War Redefined, the capstone of Women, War & Peace, challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making. Interviewees include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; and globalization expert Moisés Naím.

Looking for a career in the peace and justice field?

Peacemaker 101A recent thread on the Peace and Justice Studies Association listserv produced a number of resources for students exploring careers in the field.

We are also happy to announce that through a kind gift by the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr, each Peace and Conflict Studies student will receive a copy of Peacemaker 101: Careers Confronting Conflict. (You may also access the book online.) Stay tuned for information on obtaining your copy!

Strategic Peacebuilding Pathways

(pdf version)