The Chair began field work on AHRC Project “Screening Violence: A Transnational Study of Post-Conflict Imaginaries” with partners in Newcastle and Bristol Universities, and works with co-investigators and partners in Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Northern Ireland and Indonesia this month. Data collection was undertaken in partnership with the Nerve Centre which included the screening of the Colombian film “Falsos Positivos” (see details). A focus group discussion took place following the film to engage the “social imagination of violence”.
On 29 January 2019 the Chair hosted Dr Estrada-Fuentes from Universiteit van Amsterdam and University of Warwick for a seminar on the Magee Campus. Dr Estrada-Fuentes is an applied theatre practitioner and an academic. A seminar open to the public, staff and students discussed the challenging issue of victimhood in the Colombian peace process. The seminar was entitled “Restorative Reintegration: Complex-victimhood and Reparations in Transitional Societies”.
On 16 November 2018, the Chair hosted a seminar on the Magee Campus that focused on “Civil Rights: Lessons from Ireland and US”. It was a timely seminar in that it considered over 50 years on what had been achieved in since the civil rights movements in the US and also in Ireland.
Dr Andrew Williams, Director of HECUA, speaking on civil rights in the US
The main speaker at the seminar was Andrew Williams, Director of HECUA. HECUA (Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs) trace back to the 1968 unrest in North Minneapolis following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The urgency and turbulence of the situation prompted Ewald (Joe) Bash, National Youth Director of the American Lutheran Church, and Joel Torstenson, an Augsburg College sociology professor, to build a unique program for college students to understand the nature of the urban crisis. INCORE, under the management of the Chair, partners with HECUA each year to teach and place US students in Derry-Londonderry each year.
To this end, Andrew made the perfect speaker to reflect on the ongoing challenges, particularly in the US, with regard to race. A black person is killed by the state or state-sanctioned violence in the US every 28 hours noted Andrew. One of the most striking quotes Andrew spoke to and developed was ““…because white men can’t police their imagination, black men are dying” (Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric).
Professor Paul Arthur responding to Dr Andrew Williams
On the day Professor Paul Arthur, Professor Emeritus of INCORE and Ulster University, also shared his views and personal experience about the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. He responded to Andrew’s talk noting that rof Paul Arthur says three words that stuck out were “wounded justice”, “indifference” and “mid-wife”. The hope lies in the growth of civil society that can be the “mid-wife” entrenching civil rights.
Dr Wilhelm Verwoerd addressing the audience with the painting “The Black Christ” in the background
On November 2019 the Chair hosted an important civic lecture on the Magee Campus. The lecture was given by Dr Wilhelm Verwoerd, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa entitled “Beyond rainbow-ism in South Africa: a restitutional reading of the ‘Black Christ'”.
The intriguing title referred to a 1962 protest art work in which Albert Luthuli – then president of the African National Congress and Nobel Peace Prize winner – controversially replaces (a typically pale-skinned figure of) Jesus on the cross. The then Minister of Justice, John Vorster, is portrayed as the soldier in the background, with Prime Minister Verwoerd as the centurion-with-the-spear.
In the lecture, as South Africa’s post-1994 dream of a “rainbow nation” is increasingly being challenged, Wilhelm treated this painting as an icon to help explore some of the deep wounds of the past that have not been fully recognised, let alone addressed, especially within the white “beneficiary community”. Since the centurion-with-the-spear is also his grandfather he focused on the intergenerational challenge of restitutional shared responsibility with this relational dynamic in the foreground. The lecture was deeply moving and thought provoking, and is available online.
Each year Grand Valley State University sends students to Northern Ireland on a Peace, Conflict, and Reconciliation study abroad program. On 7 November 2018, The Chair addressed the group discussing a wide range of subjects including reconciliation and the current state of the peace process.
On 7 November 2018, The Chair, Dr Coyles and Dr Grant made a presentation entitled “Hidden Barriers and Divisive Architecture: The Case of Belfast” at the Pushing Boundaries Seminar hosted by the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences. To read more about “hidden barriers” research click here.
Ulster University partnered with Build Up and the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building to host the fifth international Build Peace Conference on 29-31 October 2018. The conference brought together practitioners, activists, academics, policy makers, artists and technologists from across the world to share experience and ideas on using technology, arts and other innovations for peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
The Chair helped organise a showcase event to highlight the work of Ulster staff in the important area of peace and technology. The event took place on 31 October and was entitled “Division. Data. Design. Debate”. This highly interactive session worked with the audience to solve the problems with Ulster University research teams relating to Wellbeing & Data, Societal Division, Social Media & Political Discourse, and Arts & Conflict. The session also included inputs from Ulster MSc and PhD researchers tackling subjects such as the use of memes in conflict, Twitter and its role in conflict, and Alt-right discourses on social media.
Alex Proudfoot, Cristal Palacios, Brandon Hamber and Gabriel Nuckhir
