11:00 AM – 01:00 PM
Check-In
Participants and presenters should check-in at the Hospitality Desk in the Great Hall to receive name badges and conference materials.
Free Time
Volunteers will be available to answer questions about campus or nearby eateries for those wishing to explore before the conference begins.
12:00 PM – 05:00 PM
Art Exhibits
The main exhibits of these two projects are currently at the South Bend Museum of Art, located at 120 South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in downtown South Bend. Admission is free. Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 12 pm to 5 pm.
In addition, a digital version of each project is available here in the conference app and samples of artist work will be on display in the Hesburgh Center for International Studies.
Exhibit 1. “Design is Not Neutral: A Feminist Approach to Design Pedagogy” (South Bend Museum of Art + Great Hall)
Grace Hamilton / University of Notre Dame
Historically, the field of design is exclusionary. Classrooms are often led by professors who are overwhelmingly white and male, which can perpetuate the same oppressive perspective of white patriarchy entrenched in the broader visual culture. This project began with Design is Not Neutral, a podcast that investigates how a feminist approach can be used to develop anti-patriarchal and anti-capitalist design pedagogy. From the podcast, a poster series was designed that highlights the experiences of featured guests, followed by a website and social media. The project thus aims to create a more accessible and diverse repository of resources on design pedagogy for individual educators, which benefits design education by disrupting the dominant ideologies that promote gendered inequalities.
Exhibit 2. “RESTORE/RECLAIM” (South Bend Museum of Art + Great Hall)
Geneva Hutchinson / University of Notre Dame
RESTORE/RECLAIM is the presenter’s response to their upbringing as a southern, Christian, pastor’s daughter. The work navigates the complexities of being raised within purity culture, healing from sexual trauma, and responding to spiritual and physical abuse within the church. Through frameworks provided by trauma theorists and feminist artists, the presenter is working towards reclaiming their own power through artistic creation.
01:00 PM – 01:15 PM
Session 1. Welcoming Remarks (Auditorium)
Allison Doctor & Jennifer Eburuoh / University of Notre Dame
The 2023 Conference Chairs will welcome participants, share announcements, and provide tips and best practices for a successful conference experience.
01:30 PM – 02:45 PM
Session 2. Workshop: “Crafting Community Restorative Justice Interventions” (Room C103)
Dania Maria Straughan / Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Restorative justice (RJ) interventions in the United States are almost always implemented from the top and from within the existing offender-focused criminal legal system. What would it look like to instead ask a neighborhood struggling with gun violence, drugs, and/or slum landlordism, among other challenges, to articulate repair of harm needs and solutions? This workshop seeks to guide students through a consideration of the components and challenges of a grassroots justice needs assessment before asking them to workshop a proposal for community repair of harm.
03:00 PM – 03:45 PM
Session 3. Talk: “Abstraction of Territorial Peace in Colombia from the Capability Approach” (Virtual + Stream in Room C102)
Federico Duarte / Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
How are dimensions and levels combined to build a concept? This is the question made by Dr. Gary Goertz, whose methodology of necessary conditions for the construction of concepts guides this paper on the concept of territorial peace as viewed through the lens of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. What are the central attributes of territorial peace? This session will explore the meanings of communities settled in some of the areas most affected by the internal conflict in Colombia, based on interviews conducted from January 2016, the year the peace agreement was signed, until January 2023.
Session 4. Talk: “For the Soul of Ukraine: Orthodox Peace Theory and Praxis in the Current Russia-Ukraine Conflict” (Virtual + Stream in Room C103)
Mykan Zlipko / University of Saskatchewan
One effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that it drew attention to the role of religion in peace and conflict. While many statements from the global community condemned the Russian Federation for inflicting violence while calling for peace, the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for the war in Ukraine highlighted existing canonical and jurisdictional schisms between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and Moscow Patriarchate. The current struggle for peace in Ukrainian Orthodox communities centers on countering what has been identified by Orthodox theologians as the “Russian world ideology,” where a somewhat paradoxical narrative relies on Ukrainians and Russians as fraternal brothers. As part of an antidote to the present violence, this presentation names an understanding of the theo-political drivers for peace and justice in Ukraine by unfolding the Orthodox dimension to the Russian world ideology, requiring critical engagement in discerning possibilities for Orthodox contributions to peace and justice.
Session 5. Talk: “Accompaniment and Truth-telling to Dispel Misconceptions: A Way to Peacebuilding” (Virtual + Stream in Room C104/105)
Susan Nchubiri / Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns & Anthony Khair / Mennonite Central Committee
This session will share the importance of accompaniment (an intentional empowering presence with and alongside another, especially one who is hurting or harmed) in order to understand, to empathize, and to be in solidarity in challenging that which is causing the hurt or harm. In the context of this presentation, the presenter will seek to expose the unjust status quo that impedes justice and peace. In particular, she will share her experience of accompanying Palestinians and the Israeli nonviolent peace activists in the Holy Land and the role advocacy for human rights plays in peacebuilding. The presentation will incorporate voices from Palestine / Israel. Advocacy requires truth-telling and a call to action.
Session 6. Talk: “Indigenous Peacebuilding: Approaches for Peacebuilding, Social Cohesion and Reconciliation” (Virtual + Stream in Auditorium)
Noman Sajjad / University of Waterloo
As a peace practitioner, a student of peace and conflict studies, and an alumnus of Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute-Philippines, the presenter intends to discuss the experiential learning, outcomes, and findings of grassroots movements of strategic peacebuilding in the context of Pakistan, where ethnic and religious conflicts have been at the core of social divide. The session will describe the impact of ethnic and religious differences and how they have shrunk spaces and widened the gaps among communities. Second, it will showcase how peacebuilders created and implemented peace interventions, theories of change, and approaches to establishing a peace narrative among communities for social cohesion. Finally, it will explore how youth and women were trained on conflict resolution transformation in order to bring about positive change and sustain peace initiatives in Pakistan.
04:00 PM – 05:00 PM
Session 7. Keynote Lecture
Dr. Sara Cobb / Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
05:15 PM – 06:00 PM
Session 8. Talk: “Implementing Participatory Development: State Officers and Inclusion in Post-Agreement Colombia” (Room C102)
Theresa Bachmann / University of Kent
This research empirically engages with state officials’ expectations, wishes, and experiences of inclusion in the implementation of participatory development programs (PDETs) anchored in the Colombian 2016 peace agreement. Based on qualitative and original survey data from one PDET region, it finds that regional ART officers’ very high overall satisfaction with the PDETs’ inclusivity originates from perceptions of being receptive to the communities’ wishes, needs, and knowledge. However, considerable variation exists in terms of their understandings of inclusion, their own and the community representatives’ role in its promotion, and their interpretations of (shortcomings of) the PDET process. Personal wishes and proposals to enhance the PDETs’ inclusivity thus vary significantly and translate into different behavioral responses, ranging from open complaints about community representatives to bureaucratic activism in their favor. Given the inexistence of an institutional inclusion approach, these affect all the more daily PDET management on the ground.
Session 9. Talk: “From the Margins to the Center: The Settler Colonial Paradigm and Politics of Palestinian Liberation Theology” (Room C103)
Thanh Nguyen / University of Notre Dame
My presentation focuses on the return of the settler-colonial paradigm in the context of Palestine/Israel. In the 1950s, Palestinian scholars adopted a clear settler-colonial analysis by which to discuss the conflict. Despite the political momentum influenced by the paradigm in the 1960s and 1970s, it became obscured. This had severe consequences for the reality of Palestinians in the wake of the Oslo Accords. Yet in 2021, we saw unprecedented use of the term “settler-colonialism” not only from academic circles in which it emerged but among young Palestinians on the ground. This re-centering is momentous in recovering the idea of liberation once lost due to the “false decolonization” of the Oslo Accords. A re-centering of Palestine within settler colonial studies has allowed scholars to challenge the two-state “conflict” lens that has permeated scholarship on development and peacebuilding concerning Palestine/Israel. This session will investigate this significance and its current manifestations in civil society peace work amidst rising Israeli extremism.
Session 10. Talk: “Peacebuilding through Information Literacy in Libraries” (Room C104/105)
Taylor Strong / Indiana University
In an age where misinformation and disinformation is rampant, it is difficult to know what information is accurate and unbiased. Conflict feeds from misinformation and turns people against each other. Most recently, in Brazil, an insurrection occurred because of disinformation about the election. Stereotypes, hate speech, and other harmful rhetoric will continue to be pervasive until people are taught to think critically about the information they are consuming. In an academic setting, students learn how to identify reliable sources to use for their research. However, students may forget the information literacy tools they are taught once they leave school. As promoters of peace, librarians should discover ways to promote peace through information and media literacy. Librarians should incorporate critical pedagogy and peace education theory into their teaching styles, so that students will be able to apply their information literacy skills from instruction to real world situations and spread peace.