The following presentations were submitted or accepted as pre-recorded virtual content and will be available for participants to watch on their own schedule. In addition, during the meal breaks and the poster session we will stream them in one of the conference rooms, for your convenience.
If you register for the conference, you will receive the links to view the talks in the conference materials booklet. Please support these students by making time to watch their presentations!
Stream On Demand
Session V1. Short Lecture
“Community-Based Research: A Response to Epistemic Limits of the Local Turn”
Sannah Arvidson-Hicks – University of Notre Dame
The “local turn, ” a critique of the so-called “liberal peace,” calls into question peacebuilding practices by emphasizing local actors and contexts. Yet the local turn, from a critical angle, may fall short of its foundational critique of the liberal peace as its interpretations in research retain liberal assumptions of knowledge production and authority. This presentation will critically examine the local turns limits, and assert that Community- Based Research (CBR) methods provide a starting point to actualize the local turn’s unrealized potential. The short lecture will first describe the concept and context of the local turn, discuss scholarly debates of the local turn’s limitations with epistemic authority, and highlight methodological practices in CBR methods which provide practical starting principles for yielding epistemic authority to local actors, thus reimagining peace research practices in a shifting global order.
Session V2. Short Lecture
“Ludopedagogy: Playing for Conflict Transformation with Unaccompanied Minors and Young Refugees“
Carlos Eduardo Cubillos Pérez – Jaume I University
This lecture presents the experience of implementing Ludopedagogy as a peace education methodology with unaccompanied minors and young refugees. Ludopedagogy is based on the use of play as a learning mechanism and a tool for cooperative interaction to reconstruct social realities. This approach was put into practice to develop socio- emotional skills and competencies for conflict transformation through its implementation with young survivors of armed conflict or structural violence residing in Turin, Italy. The methodology is based on Action-Research. A research and preparation process was carried out with experts in ludopedagogy, followed by preliminary meetings with the young people and the facilitators at the reception center. Subsequently, ludopedagogical workshops were implemented, with a multi-stakeholder evaluation at each session. A doctoral thesis is currently being developed to evaluate Ludopedagogy as a pedagogical methodology for use in formal and informal contexts, facilitating the development of social, emotional, and peacebuilding competencies.
Session V3. Short Lecture
“Affective Polarization, Populist Leadership, and Democratic Erosion”
Clarice Silva – University of Notre Dame
This presentation examines the paradoxical relationship between political participation and democratic decline in the United States and Brazil in the context of rising affective polarization and populist presidential leadership. While polarization is often associated with democratic erosion, recent electoral cycles in both countries show that heightened polarization can also mobilize citizens and increase political engagement. Drawing on comparative analysis and existing empirical literature, the paper argues that affective polarization, when intensified by populist leaders, functions as a key mechanism linking increased political participation to declining democratic quality. Using secondary data and qualitative interpretation of survey-based measures of affective polarization, voter participation, and democratic indicators, the study demonstrates that polarization centered on political leaders, rather than parties alone, plays a central role in shaping citizen behavior. Although the mechanisms di4er across institutional contexts, both cases reveal that leader-centered a4ective polarization raises electoral stakes and motivates participation while simultaneously weakening democratic norms and tolerance for illiberal behavior. By comparing the U.S. and Brazil, this research contributes to debates on democratic backsliding, polarization, and participation, challenging the assumption that higher levels of citizen engagement necessarily strengthen democratic governance.