Monthly Archives: October 2011

Peace and Conflict Studies

Bahraini journalist, Nada Alwadi, to speak on nonviolent resistance and the media

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Bahrain: The Current Political and Communication Challenges, A View From the Inside

Nada Alwadi

Bahraini Journalist

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

4:30 p.m.

Science Center Room 101

Swarthmore College (maps and directions)

(view or download a flyer)

Nada AlwadiNada Alwadi was a reporter for Alwasat, the most popular newspaper in Bahrain, a monarchy on a small island in the Persian Gulf. Alwadi covered the pro-democracy protests this spring for several media outlets including USA Today Newspaper.

US backed Saudi Arabia sent troops to help shore up the Bahraini monarchy and suppress the popular uprising. Ms. Alwadi was detained in April while reporting on the pro-democracy movement and was forced to sign a statement saying that she would not write on or engage in any political activities, and was fired from her job.

In her presentation, Alwadi will discuss the Bahraini experience of strategic nonviolence and the importance of Bahrain in building a new Middle East. She will address the media blackout in Bahrain, and the current political and communication challenges facing the country as well as the region. She will relate the untold story of a struggle which was forgotten and abandoned by the world and the international media.

Ms. Alwadi is co-founder of the Bahrain Press Association which seeks to defend Bahraini journalists from government repression.

Sponsors: The President’s Office, Peace and Conflict Studies, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, History, Sociology and Anthropology, Political Science, Islamic Studies, the Intercultural Center, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Arabic Section of Modern Languages and Literatures

 

Peace and Conflict Studies

David Sanger of the New York Times to speak on Obama, war, and tech

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Obama in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan: How a Decade of War and New Technology Have Changed American Strategy

David SangerCome join us for a talk by David Sanger

New York Times

Chief Washington Correspondent

Author of The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power

Thursday, October 27, 2011

4:30 p.m.

Science Center 183

Swarthmore College (maps and directions)

Sponsored by the President’s Office, Peace and Conflict Studies, and War News Radio

Peace and Conflict Studies

Goodbye, Memphis. Medford, here we come.

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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):

Peace and Conflict Studies

Follow the Peace and Justice Studies Association conference online

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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

Peace and Conflict Studies

Atlas.ti training for student research in peace and conflict

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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

Peace and Conflict Studies

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

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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.

Peace and Conflict Studies

Conflict in the Congo

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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

Peace and Conflict Studies

Electronic Resources on Northern Ireland

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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.

Peace and Conflict Studies

Women and peacebuilding prioritized in Nobel Peace Prize selection

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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.”

Peace and Conflict Studies

New media technology brings nonviolent protest to our desktops

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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