Research Under Fire: Researcher Trauma and Conflict Studies

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Political scientists debate whether the world is getting more violent or less. Regardless of where you situate yourself in this discussion, it does seem that social scientists are putting themselves into more violent situations than ever before.

Researchers during an interview in Deheishe refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Benny Brunner

Especially within the field of political violence and conflict studies, students and scholars travel to active conflict and post-conflict areas, interview and interact with people who experienced high levels of violence, witness violence and potentially experience violence targeted at them. In addition to direct experiences with violence, many of us spend hours, often alone in our offices, reading genocide perpetrator testimonies, personal stories of sexual violence, or State Department reports cataloging years of crime and abuse.

These are all experiences capable of producing psychological trauma, yet as a field we rarely engage with the implications of this trauma for our work or ourselves. Many of us have preconceived ideas about what trauma is and remain doggedly convinced that what we study isn’t that bad, that what we’ve experienced isn’t as distressing as what others have, or that what we are feeling is nothing really. Yet, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Read more at Political Violence @ a Glance, where the full text was published 30 October 2014.

Global Aspects of Women’s Political Participation

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In the wake of World War II three major political trends have formed international development; the human rights revolution, the diffusion of democracy, and the growing acceptance of gender equality. All three trends have contributed to significant increases in women’s participation, representation and influence. Yet great contrasts persist in women’s ability to exercise the rights which the international community of states has bestowed upon them.

Women in Politics: Michelle Bachelet, H.E. Hillary Rodham Clinton, H.E. Dilma Rousseff,  Photo Credit: UN Women/Catianne Tijerina

  • Three global trends have formed international development since World War II: the human rights revolution, the diffusion of democracy, and the growing acceptance of gender equality.
  • These trends have proven to be of great benefit to women’s political advancement in many regions of the world.
  • Political systems which allow for civil society organizations’ participation, particularly women’s organizations, provide women with more influence.
  • Despite the fact that the idea of gender equality has won greater acceptance, there continue to be many obstacles to women’s participation and representation.

Read more in the PRIO Policy Brief Global Aspects of Women’s Political Participation.

Fake Syria Video

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Last week a video surfaced on YouTube which showed children being fired upon in a battleground in Syria. It shows a boy rescuing a girl from what looks like certain death. Dubbed the ‘hero boy’ video it was rapidly shared on social media and by the end of the week had been viewed millions of times. The film appeared to be a graphic depiction of a war crime – the deliberate attempt to kill non-combatant children.

VideoAs you may have seen from the news coverage, on Friday it was revealed to be a fake, shot in Malta by Norwegian director Lars Klevberg. The film project had been funded a total of  US$ 54 000 by the Norwegian Film Institute and the Audio and Visual Fund of the Arts Council Norway. Of course there is nothing remarkable in making a film about war. But deceiving millions of people by pretending that the footage is genuine is an act of, at best, gross stupidity.   Read More

Peace Processes Need Women

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International peace processes are dominated by men and men’s perspectives. In general the approaches used have changed little in many decades. The focus is invariably on bringing the conflicting parties to the negotiating table, where their claims to power and strategic positions are renegotiated and defined.

International women’s day demonstration in Monrovia, Liberia. Photo: UNMIL

Amnesties for brutal attacks on civilian populations have been the rule rather than the exception, conveying a message that the route to power is through the actual or threatened use of armed force. People who distance themselves from the use of violence and endeavour to find alternative approaches to conflict resolution are seldom invited to participate in formal peace negotiations. Currently however more and more people are calling for new thinking about approaches to international peacemaking. At a minimum we need seriously to consider the potential benefits of involving more women in peace processes.
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WWII Celebration Plans by Putin and Xi to Score Points

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Russian and Chinese presidents aim to divide US and allies, including Japan, with WWII celebration.

china-russia_2919509bWhen Chinese President Xi Jinping met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, he stated that “Japan must look at history squarely and more towards the future.” Xi’s carefully selected words were taken from a text agreed upon in advance by the two countries’ foreign ministries. Behind the words lurk an agreement Xi has made with Russian President Vladimir Putin to jointly use the 70th anniversary in 2015 to “safeguard the outcome of the victory of World War II and post-WWII order.” The joint celebration plan aims to warn Japan against historical revision and could create difficulties for the US-Japan alliance.

Putin and Xi had already made known at their Shanghai meeting in May that Russia and China would organize joint events in a 2015 commemoration of the victory over “German fascism and Japanese militarism” with a view to “counteracting the efforts at falsifying the history and undermining the post-war world.” Implicitly this was meant as an attack on Abe’s December 2013 visit to the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Putin spoke in Shanghai about the “great heroism of our peoples in World War II, “which brings Russia and China even closer.”

Read more at Yale Global, where the full text was published 13 November 2014.

This Week in South Sudan – Week 46, Part 2

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Friday 14 November UN OCHA multimedia presentation of the humanitarian aspects of the South Sudan crisis, A man-made catastrophe: A multimedia journey through South Sudan.  Officials have accused the Sudanese government of carrying out bombings in southern Blue Nile of Sudan and neighboring Maban County of South Sudan, the Sudanese army spokesman denied any involvement. Saturday… Read more »

Can Iraq be Fixed?

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Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, faces the enormous task of uniting the country. But whatever the outcome, Iraq cannot be restored to how it was before the summer.

There is broad agreement that the former Iraqi prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, was a part of the problem, and that his replacement by Haider al-Abadi is a positive development. But the attacks in August, on Shia and Sunni mosques respectively, show once again that Iraq’s problems are systemic.

Kurdish Peshmerga on a T-55-Tank outside Kirkuk in Iraq. Photo: Boris Niehaus. CC BY-SA 3.0

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This Week in South Sudan – Week 46, Part 1

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Monday 10 November First UN World Food Program trucks arrived in South Sudan, marking the opening of a much needed humanitarian corridor through Sudan. Violent clashes between government forces and the SPLA-in-Opposition continue in Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity state, despite last weekend’s rededication to the Cessation of Hostilities agreement. New report from the International… Read more »

Putin goes to China, but fails to turn his illusions into reality

Posted by & filed under Regions and Powers, Uncategorized

An odd man out in the APEC crowd

In a case of striking symbolism, President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as if seeking reassurance against the specter of a mass public uprising. The dismantling of that icon of the Cold War signified a breakthrough in finally achieving a Europe united by the vision of freedom and democracy. But for Putin, as his past remarks suggest, it was a painfully traumatic experience that left him forever in fear of a sudden explosion of popular discontent (Gazeta.ru, November 4). The Chinese leadership shares his deep hostility to revolutions and tends to see the recent protests in Hong Kong as a manifestation of malignant Western conspiracy—much the same way that Putin saw the EuroMaidan protests in Kyiv as a coup orchestrated by the West (Moscow Echo, October 20). That said, Putin’s agenda for his meeting with President Xi Jinping and for what he hoped to accomplish at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was neither convincing nor relevant.

Read more in Eurasia Daily Monitor, November 10

Humanitarian Innovation, Humanitarian Renewal?

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The continued evolution of the humanitarian innovation concept needs a critical engagement with how this agenda interacts with previous and contemporary attempts to improve humanitarian action.

Accountability and transparency have been central to discussions of humanitarian action over the past two decades. Yet these issues appear generally to be given scant attention in the discourse around humanitarian innovation. Read More