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)