Blog of the John Hume and Tip O'Neill Chair in Peace
Prof Brandon Hamber, John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair in Peace, was awarded the 2019 Faculty Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship Award in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS). The prize was awarded noting the Chair as one of the world’s leading scholars on peace and conflict.
More detail on the prize is available here.
On 10 and 11 December 2019 the Chair hosted Sumona Das Gupta and Nikhat Sattar from India and Pakistan respectively at the Magee Campus. The guests are both part of Women Mediators across the Commonwealth (WMC), which is an innovative new network of women mediators coming together to exchange and learn from each other, and to advocate for the increased representation of women in peace processes globally. The purpose of the visit was aimed at sharing global lessons on mediation. The visitors also met some local groups, and specifically shared experiences with Syrian women at the Derry Women’s Centre. The Chair is also involved in ongoing discussions about future collaborations.
On 8 November 2019, the Chair worked with the BBC Rewind team to launch on the Magee Campus the Ten Chapters Of The Northern Ireland Troubles’. The Ten Chapters, produced by the BBC Rewind editorial and technology team, is an online, multi-media series of episodes covering the conflict in Northern Ireland from the 1950s to the 1990s. As part of the launch a workshop was run with 14-22 year olds from the City.
The Ten Chapters of the Northern Ireland Troubles can be accessed here.
The BBC project came about as a result of discussions with the INCORE/CAIN project teams at Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast, and as part of the tripartite agreement between the BBC and the academic institutions. The CAIN team identified ten broad themes which the BBC’s Rewind team researched then curated and compiled videos and imagery from BBC News NI’s newly-digitised archive. Where appropriate, stills and video from other broadcasters have been incorporated. Designed primarily for those aged 14 and older, the resource can be used in addition to academic resources. It was created independently by the BBC in line with its editorial guidelines and was reviewed for historical accuracy by INCORE/Ulster University academics.
The Chair has continued work on AHRC Project “Screening Violence: A Transnational Study of Post-Conflict Imaginaries” with partners in Newcastle and Bristol University, and works with co-investigators and partners in Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Northern Ireland and Indonesia. The lastest screenings took place in Dungannon on 7 November 2019, with the support of the Dungannon Film Club, showing two Argentinian films followed by a discussion with participants.
The films shown were “Padre/Father” (Director Santiago Bou Grasso), a short stop motion animation piece that portrays the day-to-day life of a woman who looks after her bedridden military father. The second film was “Who am I?/Quién soy yo?”(Director Estela Bravo), a documentary about the stolen babies of the 1976-83 military dictatorship in Argentina who have recovered their true identity. Needless to say, the films provoked an interesting discussion.
The Argentinian animation can see below, and if you further questions on the project or want to participate contact Professor Brandon Hamber.
The Chair facilitated a discussion with Dr Wilhelm Verwoerd at the Belfast launch of “Verwoerd: My Journey through Family Betrayals” on 17 October 2019. The discussion focused on key aspects of the book, and particularly Dr Verwoerd’s challenges of coming to terms with the fact that HF Verwoerd, his grandfather, was the South African Prime Minister who is widely considered the architect of the apartheid system. Topics for discussion included key questions of the responsibilities of those who benefitted from the apartheid system, the question of “betrayal” when you take a different path to peacebuilding from those around you, as well as the relevance of the book to wider contexts.
The Chair, with the Transitional Justice Institute and INCORE, hosted a successful book launch of “Reconciliation and Building a Sustainable Peace: Competing Worldviews in South Africa and Beyond” by Dr Cathy Bollaert. The book, based on her PhD research at Ulster University (co-supervised by Brandon Hamber, Kris Brown and Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin), explores how competing worldviews impact on intergroup relations and building a sustainable peace in culturally diverse societies. It raises the question of what happens in a culturally diverse society when competing values and ways of interpreting reality collide and what this means for peace-building and the goal of reconciliation.
The Chair was delighted to serve as master of ceremonies for a Life Stories event as part Donegal County Council’s Tip O’Neill Irish Diaspora Awards on 26 September 2019. The event was part of the Life Stories series was hosted by Prof. Paul Moore. Professor Moore interviewed the four award recipients; Pat Doherty, Patrick C. Dunican Jr., Daniel J Hilferty and playwright Frank McGuinness at our Magee Campus.
