Return, Responsibility and Reintegration in Central Africa: A multi-disciplinary exploration into endemic violence and social repair
Lead Research Organisation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Department Name: Department of International Development
Abstract
In 2015, the United Nations Refugee agency (UNCHR) reported that world-wide displacement hit an 'all time high' as conflict related violence and persecution increase and threat environments become more diffuse and complex. Quite shockingly, it was calculated that today, one in every 122 people is either a refugee, displaced or seeking asylum. Across huge swathes of the globe, people are uprooted as they try to negotiate profoundly difficult conflict circumstances, involving not only state armies, but non-state armed groups, criminal gangs, drug traffickers, and jihadists. To make matters more complex, individuals often occupy ambiguous victim-perpetrator statuses, moving between combatant and civilian roles, either through coercion or through choice.
Central Africa has witnessed prolonged and repetitive forms of displacement for many, many years. In 2015, the UNHCR described forced displacement figures related to this region as 'immense'. To date, international organisations have prioritized 'going home' as the most durable solution to this crisis. Processes of 'return and reintegration' represent a huge practical and policy challenge for world governments and are therefore a critical international policy issue. This research project aims to study precisely these dynamics in the central and eastern African countries of Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan through an inter-disciplinary, multi-sited ethnography of 'return'. By analyzing how refugees, internally displaced persons and former combatants negotiate and experience 'return' we aim to fill a large gap in current knowledge on the 'lifecycle' of conflicts in some of the world's most difficult places. Drawing on anthropology, comic journalism, history, heritage studies and political science we will focus on the everyday experiences of those attempting to build or re-build communities in central Africa, contributing to a better understanding of how conflict-affected societies constitute or re-constitute themselves.
Our research will explore the relationships of returnees with each other, with the 'stayee' population and their engagement with national governments and international peacebuilding actors. We will examine if and how standardized peacebuilding approaches to return - such as Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR); transitional justice (TJ); and psycho-social support (PSS) are relevant to people on the ground who negotiate conflict realities and their legacies on a daily basis. We will also investigate those ubiquitous processes that are persistently set aside by international actors, including customary spiritual practices of individual and collective healing and ideas associated with religious belief. We will go beyond merely documenting the manner of return to focus specifically on how processes of return shape and reshape public authority across our research sites, questioning any assumed linear transition to 'civilian life' and to 'peace'. Our in-depth, inter-discipinary study of return across the Central African region will help us better understand the conditions under which conflict-affected societies are able to move on peacefully and/or live productively in situations of acute social stress and also the conditions under which mutuality is simply not possible and violence becomes endemic and seemingly inescapable. We also hope to place current central African experience in wider comparative and historical contexts giving fellow scholars and policy makers a much clearer picture of how and when social repair becomes possible in situations characterized by such staggering levels of upheaval and suffering.
Central Africa has witnessed prolonged and repetitive forms of displacement for many, many years. In 2015, the UNHCR described forced displacement figures related to this region as 'immense'. To date, international organisations have prioritized 'going home' as the most durable solution to this crisis. Processes of 'return and reintegration' represent a huge practical and policy challenge for world governments and are therefore a critical international policy issue. This research project aims to study precisely these dynamics in the central and eastern African countries of Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan through an inter-disciplinary, multi-sited ethnography of 'return'. By analyzing how refugees, internally displaced persons and former combatants negotiate and experience 'return' we aim to fill a large gap in current knowledge on the 'lifecycle' of conflicts in some of the world's most difficult places. Drawing on anthropology, comic journalism, history, heritage studies and political science we will focus on the everyday experiences of those attempting to build or re-build communities in central Africa, contributing to a better understanding of how conflict-affected societies constitute or re-constitute themselves.
Our research will explore the relationships of returnees with each other, with the 'stayee' population and their engagement with national governments and international peacebuilding actors. We will examine if and how standardized peacebuilding approaches to return - such as Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR); transitional justice (TJ); and psycho-social support (PSS) are relevant to people on the ground who negotiate conflict realities and their legacies on a daily basis. We will also investigate those ubiquitous processes that are persistently set aside by international actors, including customary spiritual practices of individual and collective healing and ideas associated with religious belief. We will go beyond merely documenting the manner of return to focus specifically on how processes of return shape and reshape public authority across our research sites, questioning any assumed linear transition to 'civilian life' and to 'peace'. Our in-depth, inter-discipinary study of return across the Central African region will help us better understand the conditions under which conflict-affected societies are able to move on peacefully and/or live productively in situations of acute social stress and also the conditions under which mutuality is simply not possible and violence becomes endemic and seemingly inescapable. We also hope to place current central African experience in wider comparative and historical contexts giving fellow scholars and policy makers a much clearer picture of how and when social repair becomes possible in situations characterized by such staggering levels of upheaval and suffering.
Planned Impact
Our overall impact goal is to produce high quality evidence-based research to inform national and international policies and practices to mitigate cycles of violence in sites of widespread displacement and return in Central Africa and potentially further afield. The research will benefit four main groups:
1. Local populations in conflict affected places who desire human security, peace and poverty alleviation. We believe that the everyday experiences of local populations in conflict-affected situations ought to drive both policy and research agendas. The research project will have an impact on local populations in conflict-affected places by assisting the development of policies based on the full set of functioning regulatory structures and norms used by local populations in sites of mass displacement and return, rather than merely those that have been defined for them. Thus we recognize the urgent need, working through our strong local networks of researchers, civil society leaders and customary authorities to involve returnee populations in the research process and to draw local researchers and research assistants into all aspects of research design. We also recognize the need to involve local collaborators in dissemination and will establish innovative communication channels - including comic journalism and a curated exhibition - that are co-produced with local populations and accessible.
2. Policy makers -by generating recommendations and strategies to strengthen current approaches and interventions related to persistent conflict and endemic violence in our research sites. Policy that delivers real human security in conflict-affected areas must be designed to work effectively in complex and contested local environments, characterized by competing interests and hybrid public authority structures. Central Africa today is witnessing what the UNHCR has termed 'immense forced displacement totals' but is also a region witnessing large scale 'returns'. These return processes - which include both civilians and former combatants - are dynamic, contingent and fragile. They are also under-researched. Our evidence-based findings will be translated into succinct policy briefings containing infographics and actionable recommendations. These will be disseminated widely through our website and via twitter and will provide opportunities for knowledge exchange at annual stakeholder meetings in our research countries and at policy round-tables in London, Brussels and New York, the home cities of our institutions.
3. Publics - by promoting engagement with scientific evidence on how viable ways of life are constituted post return and/or how certain dynamics can lead to endemic and persistent conflict. Our stakeholder meetings and policy roundtables will strengthen networks among teaching and research institutions as well as the media in our home countries and research countries to help disseminate accessible research material, in the form of journalistic articles, blog discussion forums and comics.
4. The next generation of development practitioners and Central African leaders. We see the training of a cadre of young development professionals as a key instrument in changing thinking and practice over the longer term. We will ensure access to improved educational opportunities for local researchers in researched countries, recognising the need to work with individuals to help foster a new generation of African leaders who can take our research findings forward. We can now do this systematically as part of the ground-breaking Programme for African Leadership (PfAL) scheme based at the LSE and the SSRC's African Peacebuilding Network and NExtGen African Social Science program. These programs provide prestigious graduate scholarships in an effort to foster a new generation of African leaders who will promote the best practices of economic and social development in their respective organisations and countries.
1. Local populations in conflict affected places who desire human security, peace and poverty alleviation. We believe that the everyday experiences of local populations in conflict-affected situations ought to drive both policy and research agendas. The research project will have an impact on local populations in conflict-affected places by assisting the development of policies based on the full set of functioning regulatory structures and norms used by local populations in sites of mass displacement and return, rather than merely those that have been defined for them. Thus we recognize the urgent need, working through our strong local networks of researchers, civil society leaders and customary authorities to involve returnee populations in the research process and to draw local researchers and research assistants into all aspects of research design. We also recognize the need to involve local collaborators in dissemination and will establish innovative communication channels - including comic journalism and a curated exhibition - that are co-produced with local populations and accessible.
2. Policy makers -by generating recommendations and strategies to strengthen current approaches and interventions related to persistent conflict and endemic violence in our research sites. Policy that delivers real human security in conflict-affected areas must be designed to work effectively in complex and contested local environments, characterized by competing interests and hybrid public authority structures. Central Africa today is witnessing what the UNHCR has termed 'immense forced displacement totals' but is also a region witnessing large scale 'returns'. These return processes - which include both civilians and former combatants - are dynamic, contingent and fragile. They are also under-researched. Our evidence-based findings will be translated into succinct policy briefings containing infographics and actionable recommendations. These will be disseminated widely through our website and via twitter and will provide opportunities for knowledge exchange at annual stakeholder meetings in our research countries and at policy round-tables in London, Brussels and New York, the home cities of our institutions.
3. Publics - by promoting engagement with scientific evidence on how viable ways of life are constituted post return and/or how certain dynamics can lead to endemic and persistent conflict. Our stakeholder meetings and policy roundtables will strengthen networks among teaching and research institutions as well as the media in our home countries and research countries to help disseminate accessible research material, in the form of journalistic articles, blog discussion forums and comics.
4. The next generation of development practitioners and Central African leaders. We see the training of a cadre of young development professionals as a key instrument in changing thinking and practice over the longer term. We will ensure access to improved educational opportunities for local researchers in researched countries, recognising the need to work with individuals to help foster a new generation of African leaders who can take our research findings forward. We can now do this systematically as part of the ground-breaking Programme for African Leadership (PfAL) scheme based at the LSE and the SSRC's African Peacebuilding Network and NExtGen African Social Science program. These programs provide prestigious graduate scholarships in an effort to foster a new generation of African leaders who will promote the best practices of economic and social development in their respective organisations and countries.
Organisations
- London School of Economics and Political Science (Lead Research Organisation)
- Economic and Social Research Council (Co-funder)
- 32 Degrees East Ugandan Arts Trust (Collaboration)
- Centre for African Research-Northern Uganda Research Centre (Collaboration)
- London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) (Collaboration)
- United Nations (UN) (Collaboration)
- University of Juba (Collaboration)
- Green Economy Coalition (Collaboration)
- Gulu University (Collaboration)
- Uganda Museum (Collaboration)
- African Youth Initiative Network (Collaboration)
- University of Kinshasa (Collaboration)
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) (Collaboration)
- University of Ghent (Collaboration)
- University of Gbadolite (Collaboration)
Publications
Hopwood J
(2018)
Resilient patriarchy: public authority and women's (in)security in Karamoja, Uganda.
in Disasters
Jacobs C
(2017)
Justice pour les personnes déplacées en RDC : Introduction.
in Cahier du CERPRU
Kara Blackmore
(2019)
When We Return: Connecting Visual Art and Research
in Something We Africans Got
Lombard L
(2021)
Distributive Justice at War: Displacement and Its Afterlives in the Central African Republic
in Journal of Refugee Studies
Lombard, L
(2019)
Distributive Justice at War: Displacement and Its Afterlives in the Central African Republic
in Journal of Refugee Studies
Macdonald A
(2018)
Humanitarianism - A Dictionary of Concepts
Macdonald A
(2019)
'Somehow This Whole Process Became so Artificial': Exploring the Transitional Justice Implementation Gap in Uganda
in International Journal of Transitional Justice
Macdonald A
(2020)
Being Normal: Stigmatization of Lord's Resistance Army Returnees as 'Moral Experience' in Post-war Northern Uganda
in Journal of Refugee Studies
Macdonald A
(2022)
"Maybe we should take the legal ways": Citizen engagement with lower state courts in post-war northern Uganda
in Law & Society Review
Macdonald A
(2016)
THE TRIAL OF THOMAS KWOYELO: OPPORTUNITY OR SPECTRE? REFLECTIONS FROM THE GROUND ON THE FIRST LRA PROSECUTION
in Africa
| Title | Between Two Spaces |
| Description | The Cartoon Movement commissioned Victor Ndula, who lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya, to work with Koen Vlassenroot, Emery Mudinga and Josaphat Musamb to produce the cartoon. The research explores how combatants in conflict-torn eastern Congo (DRC) decide to live as a soldier or as civilian |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The cartoons were shown at the When We Return exhibition in Gulu on the 25th July- 15th August 2019 |
| URL | https://www.cartoonmovement.com/icomic/99 |
| Title | Beyond the Statistics, May 26-June 30 Uganda Museum showing of Enduring Exile, Kampala Uganda |
| Description | Beyond the Statistics' workshop was hosted on the 26th May at the National Museum of Uganda. The primary aim of the workshop was to present some diverse commentaries - visual, textual and oral - on the historical and present dynamics of conflict, and create a space for South Sudanese citizens to present papers and debate. The event brought together an audience of over 80 members of South Sudanese communities, academics, and regional activists to discuss various ways of seeing the long history of violence and displacement. n two panel discussions, scholars explored the practical, intellectual and emotional politics and history of displacement. Panel One, 'Reflections on Long-term and historic displacement,' featured presentations from Dr Mohamed A.G. Bakhit, Atem Elfatih, and Dr Nicki Kindersley. The second panel focused on the contemporary displacement experience, and hosted Peter Justin, Clement Samuel, Ogeno Charles, and Bashir Ahmed Mohammed Babikir.South Sudanese United Student Association, young people within the Zande Community in Arua, West Nile have channelled their experiences of dislocation and exile into creative production. During this workshop, the theatre group offered a ten minute theatrical interlude from their play 'Healing through God's Power'. Enduring Exile, the exhibition on display, explores the spiritual and material logics through which South Sudanese citizens endure exile, on an individual and communal basis. Deploying a visual narrative approach, in keeping with the theme of this workshop, this photo series aims to challenge commonplace, repetitive representations which equate the refugee experience to one of near total victimhood. https://nickikindersleycom.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/final-workshop-report-beyond-the-statistics.pdf |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | This event instigated the event in London on the 30 November, bringing forward many of the questions and artworks. It also brought many of the respondents from South Sudanese communities into the venue where their issues were being addressed. |
| URL | https://www.enduringexile.com/ |
| Title | Cartoon Movement - DRC/CAR Cartoon from Tjeerd Royaards and Didier Kassai |
| Description | SSRC has contracted with Cartoon Movement, a global collaborative platform for editorial cartoons and comics journalism, to commission artist Didier Kassai to produce a comic to accompany the publication of Enrica Picco and Louisa Lombard's journal article "Distributive Justice at War: Displacement and Its Afterlives in the Central African Republic." The comic story details the ways in which conflict and its aftermath are experienced differently by the people and that issues of belonging, material distribution, and justice are not always nearly addressed through reconciliation talks and a focus on punitive justice. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The comic story is currently in publication. |
| URL | https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/fez012/5369187 |
| Title | Cartoon production - Kash and SSRC |
| Description | SSRC has contracted with Thembo Kashura ('Kash') to produce five cartoons. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | The cartoons will accompany our research outputs and some of the key conclusions. |
| Title | Conflict Art in the Congo: Rebellion, Occupation, and Return - A Photo Collection of Gbadolite Airport |
| Description | Photographed between 2015 and 2017, the 40+ images in this collection illustrate the conflicts that have passed through and transformed the country. These etchings, proverbs, and personal testimonies reveal the individuality of the combatants; together, the layers of graffiti show the human elements-and human toll-of war. The collection is being curated for an exhibition that will consist of 20 photographs from the collection. The graffiti appears in French, Lingala, English, Sango, Arabic, and Swahili, with translations provided in the accompanying interpretive text. |
| Type Of Art | Image |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | The photographs tell a story of violent conflict over time and as experienced by members of different armed groups and nationalities-Congolese, Ugandan, Central African, Rwandan, Chadian-as they passed through Gbadolite. The very personal inscriptions both speak to individual experience and testify to war, power, subversion, and memory. |
| Title | Conflict Art in the Congo: Rebellion, Occupation, and Return, Gbadolite Airport |
| Description | Audio recording of testimonies at community conference in Gbadolite on the experience of the Congo wars, return, and memory |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | DRC team organized a restitution conference the conference, during which 20-25 photographs of war graffiti at the Gbadolite Airport in northwestern Congo were projected, and in which all sectors of the Gbadolite community participated, led to a discussion about violence, reconciliation, forgiveness and memory. The conference gathered community feedback on the meaning of the graffiti photographs and their historical significance to the people of Gbadolite. Participation was inclusive and widespread, as approximately 100 representatives from the mayor's office, bourgmestre, provincial assembly, the bishop and other religious civil society and the University of Gbadolite packed into the reception hall. Tatiana and José Ndala (UNIGBA) led the PowerPoint presentation of a number of images, and concluded with a photo of the one remaining mural in the airport that was left untouched, and questioned whether this could be a symbol for the rebirth and revitalization of the city. It led to a conversation about memory and how a post-conflict society moves on. Community leaders debated whether the images should be painted over and removed, or memorialized in the form of a permanent exposition and remembered as part of the city's history. Feedback from participants was universally positive, and even the Catholic Bishop Dominique Bulamatari thanked us for starting a conversation about reconciliation, which he had been trying to broach for quite some time. |
| Title | Dark Pasts - Optimistic Futures, March 2019, The Africa Summit, London School of Economics and Political Science |
| Description | By hosting the Dark Pasts- Optimistic Futures exhibition during the 2019 LSE Africa Summit, the Politics of Return project facilitated the interaction and exposure of an exciting new generation of African and development leaders in attendance of the summit. The summit status as one of the UK's foremost academic events focused exclusively on Africa, means that it attracts some of the brightest young talent from the African diaspora and the rest of the world. Their exposure to the Politics of Return was thus an important achievement of the project. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Supported young academics to work with artworks in their annual summit. |
| Title | Enduring Exile Ethnographic Photography Project |
| Description | 1. In late 2016, LSE PhD student Liz Storer, worked alongside a photographer (Katie Nelson) to produce the ethnographic photo project Enduring Exile, which documents the lives of South Sudanese citizens displaced in Arua Town, West Nile. This has been supported by POR grant funded by AHRC to increase the reach, impact and longevity of this project through the creation of a website that displays the photography and information about the project. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | Led to a workshop hosted in May 2017 at the National Museum of Uganda.With support from PoR the domain space for Enduring Exile (www.enduringexile.com) will exist until 2019. |
| URL | http://www.enduringexile.com |
| Title | Gang Kikome and Other Things We Left Behind - Bathsheba Okwenje |
| Description | Gang Kikome is the Acholi phrase for ancestral home. The Acholi people (and other people of Northern Uganda) endured 20+ years of conflict. This resulted in millions of people displaced from their ancestral homes and living in settlement camps for years and years, in many cases for over a generation. The objects in the work are items that had been used by the inhabitants of the settlement camps but were left behind once the camps were disbanded. They are artefacts of war and displacement. The ongoing series is a collective social portrait of Uganda's recent history that is not often told. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | The artwork was donated to TAKS centre as a permanent installation. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Grammar of Images Symposium |
| Description | One day symposium on arts, research and representation. We invited the Politics of Return Artists in Residence as well as other photographers and collaborators to discuss issues of research engagement and how to represent beyond suffering. This brought in 80 participants for the day with a range of backgrounds, including photographers from five different African countries. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Photographers were able to understand their practice outside NGO and aid work-for-hire and think more deeply about the artistic scope of engagement. The event was so successful that the Uganda Museum asked to keep the artwork on display for two weeks. It was also shown for KLA ART 18 public art festival seen by several hundred viewers. |
| URL | https://klaart.org/ |
| Title | Home Bush Camp - Ben Mergelsberg |
| Description | Two Screen Video The video installation focusses on different moral spaces in the daily lives of the Acholi people of northern Uganda and how they have shifted in the past decades marked by war, displacement and return, after the LRA rebels disappeared from northern Uganda. The Acholi home is a place of order and protection that has to be defended against the surroundings of wild nature and disorderly relations. During the period of the war, people in Northern Uganda were forced to leave their homes and had to move into IDP camps. The bush, that has always been associated with powerful spirits and wild animals, became also the place of the rebels. They, too, were seen as powerful and unpredictable. When people had to leave their villages, nature could creep back into what was previously the protected home. Moving to the IDP camps confronted people with new life styles and outside influences, and this was almost entirely experienced in terms of its negative aspects: loss of control and autonomy, poverty and suffering due to disruption in the traditional ways of doing things, fear of witchcraft and being a victim of a hostile government. When the camps began to be dismantled and people had to return to their former homes, these categories shifted again. Many people had gotten used to the way of life in the camps after years of staying there. They were no longer used to the hard peasant existence in remote villages. They had to claim back their home from the wilderness. Others saw that the former camps and now busy trading centres were the origin of immoral life and felt that the only way to go back to the Acholi cultural values was by returning home. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The process encouraged the creator to make more artistic work and to return to Uganda. It also gave a visible outcome from his time and research. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Image of Memory, Lost Identity - Willy Karekezi |
| Description | Acrylic on Canvas, 50x70 cm This diptych was developed over a three-month residency around displacement and return. Image of Memory is an exploration into the ideas of home, employing symbols of Rwandese imigongo patterning. Karekezi imagines what home looks like during displacement and the ideal of return. After months of engaging with research the work Lost Identity emerged. It is both a palate for developing the other artworks and a commentary on the messiness of displacement. Through the two works he asks what both home and self can look like. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Raised artist visibility and artistic expression. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Kanyo, Love - Bathsheba Okwenje |
| Description | Multi-Part Installation This installation is a series of artworks that come together. Can Agura, Cuna and Transitional Justice are all aspects of a lived reality that Okwenje is trying to understand through her artistic process. To return is not simple, to legislate is imperfect, and finding home is often a compromise. The women featured in this work are all attempting to remake their lives after being wives in the bush. The sound is a reflection of displacement. The documents are a union between what can and can't be said. You are invited to interact with the artwork and listen to the testimonials. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Okwenje is now a visiting fellow at FLCA and continuing to work with the women in the artwork. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Off the Record - Article in December issue of Art Africa Magazine |
| Description | Feature Article in Art Africa Magazine about KLA ART festival that features the Politics of Return residency and the Grammar of Images Symposium. |
| Type Of Art | Creative Writing |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Given visibility of the work that FLCA is doing with arts. Raised the profile of the artists and collaborating institution. |
| URL | https://en.calameo.com/read/0048361918f10bf9bec68 |
| Title | Politics of Retun Artist Residency |
| Description | Three artists came from June-September to engage with the research from the four country study. I curated the residency and mediated between the artists and the researchers. In the end Bathsheba Okwenje, Willy Karekezi and Kusa Kusa Maski Gael produced instillation arts, paintings and a collage respectively. These were shown during KLA ART a public art festival in Kampala and will be shown in London for the LSE Africa Summit as well as in Gulu in July 2019. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | People who view the artwork get a sense for the research and are able to access the information easily. It also shows that the artists wanted to make their own research and interpret academic findings beyond the intentions of the publications. We also found that there is little engagement of conceptual or socially engaged art in Uganda so resident artists found the residency inspiring for their own practice and how they can engage research. |
| Title | Politics of Return (PoR) - Politique de Retour (PDR) |
| Description | Thembo Kash illustrates the essence of the Politics of Return project by creating a circular picture of how demobilised combatants and displaced civilians embark on the difficult journey of return. By connecting the two communities through a water reflection, the artist emphasizes that they mirror one another and they often experience similar challenges as they return to everyday life after episodes of prolonged displacement. SSRC has also already contracted with Thembo Kashura ('Kash') to produce five cartoons to accompany our research outputs and some of the key conclusions. These will be produced on a rolling basis. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | The cartoon and logo is the face of the Politics of Return project, and serves as the centrepiece of the website. It provides an easy entry point for all external observers to understand the scope of the project. |
| URL | http://www.lse.ac.uk/africa/research/politics-of-return |
| Title | South Sudan Cartoon - 'He cannot marry her' - by Tom Dai |
| Description | The Cartoon Movement, a global collaborative platform for editorial cartoons and comics journalism, was contracted to produce a cartoon that developed and disseminated research on identity and the law courts among South Sudanese refugees in Sudan. The Cartoon Movement commissioned Tom Dai to work with Naomi Pendle to produce the cartoon. Tom Dai lives and works in South Sudan, and has himself lived in the South Sudanese communities of Sudan. The comic details how the chiefs' courts in refugee camps during exile remake and entrench certain norms of identity. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The cartoon was presented and disseminated to policy makers in Juba in September 2019. This included to people working for NNGOs, INGOs and various UN agencies or the UNMISS. The cartoon and Tom Dai's presentation of this work furthered important debates in Juba at the time about the politics of supporting returns and their relationship to conflict. |
| URL | https://www.cartoonmovement.com/icomic/100 |
| Title | State of Agony - Willy Karekezi |
| Description | Acrylic on Canvas This painting shows the numbers of displaced people, unknown, still moving. Individuals featured in this work represent a collective blurring of displacement narratives, where the everyday gets wrapped up in the collective. The sound gives a more personal texture to tell stories and understand experiences of people who live multiple displacements and who are working to return or build a new life elsewhere. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | The process raised the artistic visibility of the creator. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Three Women on the Lake - Kusa Kusa Maski Gael |
| Description | Collage on Canvas, 245 x 170 cm This collage takes on the ideas of departure and return. The woman featured is a South Sudanese silhouette. She is pasted with portraits from Pabbo and Internally Displaced Persons Camp in northern Uganda. The faces show a trans-generational scar that covers her skin. The water mimics a memory of the artist, during his own departure from Kalime in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The fabrics are floating, discarded from the haste of leaving. She is also suffocating from the flight, yet holding dreams and aspirations. In the returning figure are letters sent between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. Maski doesn't just want to show the suffering, he offers hope and a beacon of light for the women of displacement to follow. Perhaps the children's faces will be an emotional guide to keep moving? |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Raised visibility of the artist. New commissions and connections. First collections of the FLCA. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Title | Uganda's Forgotten Children |
| Description | The Cartoon Movement commissioned Charity Atukunda, who lives in Kampala, Uganda, to work with Tim Allen, Melissa Parker, Dorothy Atim and Jacky Atingo to produce the cartoon. The cartoon looks at "accountability and social torture: What happened to the children who returned from the Lord's Resistance Army" |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | A key point made through the research is that implementing best practice guidelines for relocating displaced children with their immediate relatives in northern Uganda had negative consequences. The cartoons were shown at the When We Return exhibition in Gulu on the 25th July- 15th August 2019 |
| URL | https://www.cartoonmovement.com/icomic/96 |
| Title | Understanding South Sudan, exhibition of Enduring Exile and South Sudan: The Price of War, the Price of Peace, 30 November, London, UK |
| Description | The exhibition and panel discussio take these concerns to the public and expand the space for dialogue. The audience is therefore invited to participate along with the speakers in asking: Who are the authorities of knowledge that address the concerns of everyday South Sudanese? How do we make sense of the lived realities of displacement and return over long periods of conflict? Can arts and heritage offer inroads to understanding such crises when discourse is dominated by security and high-level politics?The photography exhibition was created from a project undertaken by Liz Storer and Katie G Nelson to illustrate the lived realities of South Sudanese women living in exile. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | Feedback from UK Parliamentary representative on South Sudan that they are inspired to share creative and alternative avenues of dealing with the crisis. Received feedback from Jok Madut Jok of the Sudd Institute about integrating arts and culture into research formats. |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/11/23/understanding-south-sudan-questions-of-knowledge-and-r... |
| Title | When We Return - Geopolitics installation, Makerere University |
| Description | After hearing about the When We Return exhibition in Gulu, the German and French Embassies, alongside Alliance Francais, organised for the works to feature in a new exhibition titled, Geopolitics, which took place in October 2019 at Makerere University. The exhibition has been publicised on social media and has had 3000 visitors, and 50 When We Return catalogues have been disseminated at the exhibition. The exhibition received 3 million Ugandan Shillings in funding from Alliance Francais. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | This was a re-installation of the exhibition, curated by Nikissi Serumaga, that we did not instigate thus it demonstrates the success of the creative pathway to impact to be sustained outside the oversight of the research team. |
| URL | https://ug.ambafrance.org/The-second-Kampala-Geopolitics-conference-is-set-for-October-17-18-at-Make... |
| Title | When We Return: Art, Exile and the Remaking of Home |
| Description | An exhibition with eight artists including cartoon illustrations of research papers and conceptual artworks. Gulu, Uganda July 25-August 15, 2019 This undertaking invited artists to reflect on research related to forced migration and displacement. Blackmore created a process to trigger dialogue and deep thinking around how arts and research intersect. Having artists from within the region of research was an important opportunity to both illustrate research findings and abstract complex realities in such a way that it offered both literal and figurative interpretations. While the cartoons serve to mirror the research, the conceptual artworks form a space to push beyond the narrative forms of academic papers and policy briefs. Over the three years of the research project we have been able to activate conversations in Kampala and London to see how different audiences react to the research in an aesthetic space.The curatorial process was about caring for knowledge, artworks and artistic processes, while innovating to make research more accessible and understood across audiences ranging from war-affected persons in Uganda to policy professionals in London. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The conference also featured a speech from MP Hon. Lyandro Komakech who launched the When We Return exhibition at the conference. It gained visibility for vulnerable populations by UN women and UNHCR who have followed up with programming and support. |
| URL | https://issuu.com/lseflca/docs/new_por_catalogue_print_final_sept_2019-digital-is |
| Description | Key findings 1. The 'return' of displaced populations and former combatants can lead to renewed tensions and, potentially, further cycles of violence. Research underscores the need to consider the political and social, not just humanitarian and logistical dimensions of return. Return is an inherently political process, affecting the legitimacy of public authorities and power relations. This research makes the case for more conflict-sensitive approaches to return. In eastern DRC, a process of 'circular return' was identified, in which combatants moved between armed and civilian life. Individual incentives to join and re-join armed groups go beyond the search for economic opportunity. Previous experience in armed groups and the socialization process and shared identities that emerge is a decisive factor, and many individuals return to combat having already gone through civilian re-integration programmes. This research calls for new approaches to DDR, building on community-based processes and moving away from looking at armed mobilization and de-mobilization from a purely security perspective. In Central African Republic, research revealed that displaced and formerly displaced communities emphasize that the persistence of the war and ongoing violence is due to disputes about material entitlements and distribution, and how those factor into who belongs, and against whom people feel it is acceptable or even moral to commit violence. Building on their experiences as individuals, family and community members, and on the state of permanent instability they have lived in for years, refugees, returnees, and stayees have identified important causes and solutions for the conflict. However, so far, they have not had a chance to express these causes or solutions in official forums that discuss the war and its effects. In Uganda, research has underscored the importance of paying attention to what happens in gender relationships and the risks of violence as people re-establish homes after decades of upheaval. The nature of gendered violence upon return is different than it was in the context of IDP camps, or for those in the LRA. The research has highlighted in particular some of the spatial dynamics of gender that came to the fore because of displacement. For instance, research shows some of the key considerations which lead to the prevalence of certain forms of sexual violence in the context of return, as well as the protection against others. It shows how many of the services available for women are for the least common forms of violence they actually endure and how little responds to what would be most relevant to them. Beyond violence, our research points to a number of dynamics that have that have broad reaching implications for people's everyday lives, including for public authorities, and how social disputes are mediated. One of the most significant of these is the fact that virtually no formal marriages were possible during the time of displacement. The drastic reduction of formal marriages, among other things, have entailed profound disruptions to 'normal' gendered orderings of life. These dynamics pose both challenges and opportunities for more just gender relationships. In South Sudan, research on returnees after the CPA highlighted that some returnees sought to build their own social capital at 'home' through demonstrations of their own militarization. This was especially the case as authority and status in South Sudan was often linked to military service. This prompted some returnees to engaged in armed conflict or join the armed forces that have been active in the recent civil war. 2. In Uganda, those formerly abducted by the rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army have been largely ignored, including vulnerable children This has built upon long term research on the those forcibly recruited by the LRA, and specifically the thousands of children and infants who returned ten or more years ago. Around 600 have been located and interviewed. The majority were found not to have been contacted by any researchers, aid agencies or government officials since their return. Interviews have been coded on MAXQDA, and analysis is ongoing. Several articles have been drafted. One has just been published and another just submitted. The work is almost unique, because there have been remarkably few long-term follow up studies of children returning from war in Africa. Most of the returned children are facing acute difficulties, and their experiences are, in general, marginally worse than for their peers who were not recruited (although those not recruited may also face acute difficulties too). Those who are often doing better are likely to be those who had obtained a rank in the LRA or were the senior wife of a commander. The latter are also less likely to be affected by spiritual or mental afflictions associated with their exposure to violence (including perpetration of violent acts). 3. Ex-combatants 'return' to where they have support systems In DRC, we discovered that ex-combatants 'return' to where they have support systems. These support systems may be a spouse and children, or fellow fighters. Ex-combatants do not necessarily return to where they grew up, or were recruited from, or to their province or town of origin. In Uganda, however, most people traced are living on ancestral farms or in nearby towns. This again is explained by support systems - although those systems are not necessarily benign and may involve stigmatisation. People living in towns seem to be doing a bit better. Relatively few have the option of moving away to other parts of the country. 4. Social (re)integration and social repair after war and displacement is related to highly context specific socio-economic and political dynamics. In DRC, research showed that social support structures and the solidarity provided by fellow ex-fighters through, in tone one case, a bicycle taxi union, provided the best chance of social integration after war. At the same time, research showed that a strong, locally owned, support and reintegration network like the Toleka union can only be as successful as the conditions around it will permit. If the nature of public authority remains fundamentally the same as it was when they were mobilized, and ex-fighters return to the same modes of corrupt, exclusionary, or predatory governance that created the conditions that permitted them to pick up arms in the first place, integration will fail in the long term. Meanwhile, research on the social function of stigmatization of former LRA combatants in northern Uganda found - through interview-based and ethnographic methods - that stigmatisation of former LRA returnees takes many forms and serves multiple functions, calling into question whether this catch-all term actually obscures more than it illuminates. While stigmatisation is usually practised as a form of 'social control', its function can be 're-integrative' rather than purely exclusionary. Through the northern Ugandan case study, this research advances conceptual and empirical understanding of the manifestations and functions of stigmatisation in spaces of post-war return, challenging the logic underpinning those interventions which seek to reduce it. 5. Identity norms created by courts during periods of displacement can shape post-conflict identities Research in Sudan among South Sudanese refugees highlighted that courts set up to govern refugees can rule on the most intimate relationships, such as marriage, and through these rules reshape norms of identity. This can include legally entrenching politicized, identity-based divisions. It can also include maintaining a social role for the dead including wartime dead. This has implications both for how identity and long-term divisions are made, but also what is necessary to reconcile and bring a meaningful peace. 6. Refugees and displaced people can use their material worlds to recreate dignity Research in South Sudan highlighted how South Sudanese in some of the most difficult sites and under UN governance had built and decorated elaborate shelters in order to preserve dignity and create varied social status. Therefore, shelters and material realities do not only impact comfort but can be crucial for people's own construction of dignity, certainty and hopes for the future. 7. Conventional, internationally sponsored approaches to resettlement, re-integration and re-conciliation are not having their intended effects. Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR): DDR approaches in eastern DRC have ignored the propensity of combatants and former combatants to move between civilian and combat spaces. As a consequence, rather than contributing to a reduction of the number of armed groups, these approaches tend to contribute to the circular return of their members. In Western DRC, conventional approaches to DDR programming of providing vocational training and material kits to ex-combatants are insufficient to sustain them in civilian life, and often fail. In northern Uganda, research findings question the merits of post conflict integration programmes emphasising immediate family reunifications, without social protection, education and skills training. In terms of gender-based violence, our research suggests that the most common form of sexual violence women experience is marital rape yet the causes of and responses to this are largely neglected. In South Sudan they have ignored the realities that after big peace agreements South Sudan has repeatedly remained a heavily militarised society with incentives to rearm and not demobilise. Transitional justice (TJ): This research in northern Uganda found that while a transitional justice framework exists to deal with the legacy of the conflict, there exists a significant 'implementation gap' in practice. Despite donor funding since 2008, very few people in northern Uganda, affected by the war between the Lords Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have experienced any form of transitional justice, creating feelings of frustration and antipathy. Through interviews with donors, government officials, CSOs and local leaders (cultural, religious and political), this research finds that the transitional justice 'implementation gap' is co-constituted by technocratic donor approaches towards transitional justice support and programming, and elite political manoeuvring in Uganda's semi-authoritarian regime. Findings indicate that promoting transitional justice in post-conflict countries not undergoing political transition will not result in any substantive reform, particularly not when it comes to state accountability for war crimes or crimes against humanity. These findings are relevant to the wide range of post-conflict contexts where transitional justice is promoted by international donors and have important implications for its claimed potential to catalyze or restore civil trust in political systems in the aftermath of massive human rights violations. Research in South Sudan has highlighted that the complex expectations of peacetime, including compensation for those killed during the conflict, mean that many South Sudanese have a very different vision of justice from that imagined in the long 2018 peace agreement and its proposed hybrid court. Reconciliation and 'anti-stigma campaigns': Whether through the Amnesty Law, NGO 'sensitisation' campaigns or the promotion of forgiveness through the religious leaderships, the focus of anti-stigma efforts in the northern Ugandan context has been on programming or preaching the stigmatization of LRA returnees out of existence. Interventions have been based on individualized notions of stigmatization as a form of unreasonable, untenable behaviour that can be addressed through discrete policy interventions. Programming has focused on 'educating' communities about the innocence of returnees, and disciplining communities through attempts to suppress stigmatizing behaviour. As evidence-based studies elsewhere have shown, there is no empirical link between increased 'knowledge' and a reduction in stigmatization (Gronholm et. al 2017). Meanwhile disciplinary techniques server to intensify people's feelings of disenfranchisement and powerlessness in negotiating the re-integration of returnees. Psycho-social support (PSS): A review was carried out on literature about psychosocial assistance in war zones, which raised many questions about how mental health has been analysed, and also about the merits or otherwise of providing psychosocial assistance to those caught up in war and protracted conflict in Central Africa. This usefully informed research carried out in northern Uganda. Here, a particular focus was on the way in which mental health and well-being is understood in northern Uganda, and how this may or may not relate to external diagnostic categories such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression etc. During the course of this research, the WHO published a meta review of the literature on mental health in conflict settings, which came to very different conclusions to our own. We have responded with articles in Anthropology Today and a letter in the Lancet. Other reflections discussing the differences in our findings are being prepared for publication. Ideas and arguments relating to trauma and psycho-social support were further interrogated and historicised during a closed workshop involving three eminent UK based historians and the PoR Uganda team in September 2019, at the LSE. The findings from those discussions were published in a report on the PoR website. |
| Exploitation Route | Outcomes are having influence on justice institutions, notably the International Criminal Court. They have contributed to the Prosecution case made in The Hague in the trial of Dominic Ogwen. Findings are also being used to provide more protection to children recruited to the Lord's Resistance Army. The exhibitions and artwork produced through the programme may influence public perceptions. In all research sites, there have been significant contributions to assessing the needs of former combatants, and displaced persons. This information may be of value to policy makers and practitioners dealing with political transitions in east and central Africa. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
| URL | http://www.lse.ac.uk/africa/research/politics-of-return |
| Description | The PoR project has produced a special issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies, three evidence reviews, multiple peer-reviewed academic articles, book chapters, a book, an edited volume, event reports, and an active and lively blog site. In addition to academic outputs, the project has produced extensive artistic outputs, which are discussed in more detail below. Presentations of academic research have been made at PoR organized events in London, Gulu, Kinshasa, and Juba. They have also been made at international conferences, including the American Anthropological Association, the African Studies Association of Africa and the African Studies Association UK, as well as at academic workshops across Africa (e.g. in Khartoum in 2018 and at the ASAA conference in Nairobi in 2019), Europe, and the United States. As well as using the workshops to present and share research findings, PoR researchers have sought to develop further research agendas and grant applications. For example, members of the team have recently been awarded an AHRC-DFID grant to continue cross-disciplinary work on displaced populations in northern Uganda and South Sudan. Also, in September 2019, a workshop was held at the LSE with three eminent UK-based historians and the PoR Uganda team, including three researchers who travelled from northern Uganda. This examined contemporary conceptions of trauma in northern Uganda and historical conceptions of trauma in early modern and modern Europe to evaluate historical developments in cross-cultural psychiatry and mental health in conflict affected places. This resulted in a report on contemporary and historical understandings of trauma in war-zones, which was published on the website. Workshops have also occurred at Exeter University and at the Tavistock Institute, to discuss our findings from our research in Uganda in comparison with findings emerging from working with people in the UK returning from war. Recent publications in Anthropology Today and The Lancet have drawn on these exchanges. It also led to collaborative grant writing on the topic of cross-cultural trauma. Social and Economic Impact Through the artistic component of the PoR research programme, we have worked with local populations in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan who have experienced forced displacement and difficulty in returning 'home'. In doing so, the research and its creative impact has challenged traditional representations of the refugee and internally displaced person's experiences that are often shown as people with assumed and imposed victimhood. Through interactions with the Politics of Return project's events, communities affected by conflict and displacement revealed that the creative outputs aided in a type of memorialisation of their experiences. The PoR project curator was responsible for developing exhibitions, a catalogue and a series of events that shared the research through paintings, cartoon illustrations, collage, photography, film and sound installation. Of particular note was an Artists in Residency Programme in Kampala, organised in collaboration with 32 degrees East/Ugandan Arts Trust, as a curatorial method to bring together conceptual artists from the region with the academic research. Over three months (June-September 2018) three artists responded to academic research on displacement, migration and return in the region and their artworks were first exhibited in Gulu, northern Uganda in July 2019. The exhibition continued until 14th August and had an estimated 500+ visitors from Uganda, the USA, UK and other European countries. Over the course of seven different exhibitions and dialogues, we were able to share the research across the regions of research as well as within the UK academy. The team has produced a separate report that details and evaluates the impact of these artistic outputs and processes. In related work, an experienced creative writer then based at the FLIA travelled to South Sudan to support a creative writing workshop at the University of Juba. The workshop focused on stories of journeys and made space for authors to critically challenge assumptions of passive victimhood, as well as to highlight examples of how people have actively remade their social belonging even during periods of displacement and return. These stories have also been reinterpreted by a South Sudanese cartoonist and his own experiences of displacement and movement. Central issues arising from the research have also been discussed on local radio stations (e.g. Mega Radio, August 2019) and in national newspapers (New Vision and Daily Monitor, Uganda, July 2019). The MP for Gulu, Uganda, has been informed of the findings and is currently trying to pass legislation through the Ugandan parliament to reverse years of neglect for children returning from the Lord's Resistance Army. The research has also been shared with the International Criminal Court (on request), specifically with staff responsible for reparations. In addition, PoR researchers held ongoing consultations with the United Nations Secretariat's Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Section in the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO) on the PoR research agenda and the implications of our research findings in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for DDR programming. In May 2018, the researchers co-hosted a panel discussion with the DDR Section and the World Bank on the "Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing DDR in New Concepts," which led to the publication of a policy report that highlighted the political nature of DDR and the need for this to be reflected in DDR planning. Shifting the approach to DDR from a discrete programme to a process embedded in wider political and peacebuilding strategies is one way for this to be achieved. The event also show-cased the importance of solidifying international, regional, and national partnerships to achieve a longer-term and sustained focus on DDR. In the Central African Republic (CAR), researchers used their findings from their PoR research to promote a few important policy processes with the Central African government and United Nations policymakers: • Informing the ongoing creation of the truth and reconciliation commission in CAR; • The inclusion of CAR refugee voices in ongoing peace initiatives, and highlighting the crucial role of returnees as stakeholders for the country's long-term stability. In January 2019, PoR researchers were invited as experts to brief the OECD's States of Fragility Expert Group on their approach towards conflict prevention and peacebuilding. In South Sudan, during the POR research, the UN and humanitarians were actively debating the likelihood of return post the 2018 peace deal, as well as their own impact on these patterns of return. Findings of the POR research was able to emphasise both the political histories and historic patterns of return, highlighting that rapid returns are often forced by aid and are of high risk to returnees. Our research also highlighted the diverse range of strategies South Sudanese have used over time to return and cope with shifts in aid and UN policy. In addition, in South Sudan, the POCS have been a particular focus of policy discussions since their formation in 2013. Since the first months of their existence, the UN have been openly debating how to close the POCS and to get people to return home. POR research in Malakal used a combination of photography and qualitative interviews to explore how POCS residents were contesting UN-created uncertainties through the construction and decoration of their homes. This research was presented in London and Juba, and challenged policy makers assumptions that portrayed POCS residents as homogenous. More broadly, through the Project's collaborations with organisations such as African Youth Initiative Network (AIYNET), and support of initiatives such as Programme for African Leadership and its contribution to the LSE's annual Africa summit, it has supported the next generation of development practitioners and Central African leaders which is a key instrument in changing thinking and practice over the longer term. Since the last update, evidence from the project has be used in the trial of Dominic Onywen at the ICC. The research on LRA returnees and their children is ongoing and will continue under the CPAID Transition Phase. |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Advisor, Ebola in the DRC |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Impact | Throughout the quarter, Carayannis has been advising the Social Science in Humanitarian Action, in support of the response to the recent Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Equateur province. The platform will produce a series of briefs focusing on the population in the affected areas, leadership structures, and local economies, as well as recommendations for context-sensitive responses by international and national health-care agencies. |
| URL | https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/13826 |
| Description | Briefing of the Belgian Special Envoy to DRC |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | On September 25, 2019, Tatiana briefed Ambassador Renier Nijskens, Belgian Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa, in the margins of the UN General Assembly. |
| Description | DRC Kinshasa Stakeholder Briefings |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | In May 2019, Tatiana was in the DRC, where she met with Ambassador Mike Hammer, the US ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Leila Zerrougui, the special representative of the UN secretary-general and head of the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO); and Charlotte Scawen, the Conflict Advisor for the UK Department for International Development in Kinshasa. |
| Description | Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Tatiana and Aaron participating in the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network seminar at the UN Secretariat to present the findings of the 2018 pilot research study of MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC. Aaron is one of the authors of the MONUSCO study and Tatiana serves as a member of the study's external reference group. |
| URL | https://effectivepeaceops.net/ |
| Description | Faith based Conflict Resolution in Nord - Ubangi to improve relations with Central African refugees and host populations |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | During a recent research visit to Gemena, the SSRC research team interviewed Père Gilbert Kambo, founder of the NGO "Droit pour tous obligatoires". The NGO specializes in management, mediation and conflict resolution training in the Gemena, and during our conversation, our local coordinator in Gbadolite José Ndala and Père Gilbert decided to establish a partnership and expand some of his programming to Nord-Ubangi. In particular, we identified the need for conflict resolution support in order to better manage the tension between the Central African Refugees community in and around Inke Camp, and the Congolese host population. Plans are underway to establish a training programme for Gbadolite local leaders in the skills of conflict resolution and mediation. |
| Description | Governance-In-Conflict Network Annual Meeting |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Led by the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University, the GIC Network is an international research network bringing together relevant disciplinary knowledge at Ghent University in a thematic interdisciplinary approach through cooperation with 28 international research institutes in 16 countries. Understanding everyday governance and development in fragile and conflict-affected situations remains a challenge for both policymakers and development practitioners. The network's aim is to enhance understandings of governance and development in conflict situations by combining an empirical field perspective with a thematic multi-disciplinary approach. |
| URL | https://www.gicnetwork.be/ |
| Description | Great Lakes Special Envoys Retreat |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | On February 27-28, 2019, Tatiana organized and facilitated the 4th Annual Great Lakes Stakeholders and Experts Retreat, in partnership with the UN special envoy to the secretary-general for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and the government of Switzerland. The retreat examined the role of the private sector as a public authority, as well as regional mechanisms, in conflict prevention for the region. |
| Description | International Advisory Board, Ghent Centre for Global Studies |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | The Ghent Centre for Global Studies is one of 5 research platforms in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, launched at Ghent University. This interdisciplinary research centre unites scholars from Social and Economic Geography; International, EU and Conflict & Development Studies; Economics, Sociology, Global History and Ethics; Human Rights Law and Intercultural Pedagogy - a total of 11 research groups from 6 different faculties - around the critical study of global processes. In keeping with the spatial turn in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, the centre aims to question the boundaries and scales of space and place, focusing on the co-construction of the local and the global, with special attention to the historical and ethical dimensions of economic, political, social and cultural globalisation, and to (local) agency in global processes and world-making projects. Tatiana Carayannis serves on the Advisory Board for this Centre and last attended an advisory board meeting in September 2018. |
| Description | International Criminal Court Trial - expert witness at the trial of LRA Commander |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Impact | In 2017 Tim was the expert witness at the trial of LRA Commander, Dominic Ogwen at the International Criminal Court at The Hague |
| Description | Looking Ahead at Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo with CENCO |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Tatiana Carayannis hosted a session of the Central Africa Policy Forum (CAPF) with ICG Senior Analyst, Hans Hoebeke. Titled, "Looking Ahead at Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo" at the Security Council Report in New York. Hans Hoebeke focused his discussion on the current challenges to a free and fair election process in the DRC by framing discussion within the context of previously held elections in 2006 and 2011. After the discussion, Mr. Hoebeke and Tatiana fielded questions and comments from an audience of UN member states and NGO representatives concerning whether the opposition would boycott the election and the extent to which the election results are expected to cause instability both in the country and the region. Audience members also asked questions regarding the UN's role in the region and the approach it should take in the follow-up to the election and the future of MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission. |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/a-central-africa-policy-forum-discussion-looking-ahead-at-elections... |
| Description | Red Team Exercise to test the Risk Assessment Models of the UN's Regional Monthly Review Mechanism |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Tatiana Carayannis participated in a Red Team exercise with the United Nation's Executive Office of the Secretary-General to stress test the new Regional Monthly Review (RMR) conflict analysis methodology they have developed to assess the risk of deterioration of political, human rights and development situations around the world. |
| Description | Tatiana Carayannis, Membership in the Hellenic Network of African Studies |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | The Hellenic Network of African Studies aims at linking up Greek-speaking scholars with considerable interests and research experience on the African continent. The Network's principal functions are to promote research on Africa, to develop an interdisciplinary community of Africa-oriented scholars in Greece and Cyprus, to strengthen international links and networks and to offer consultative services to government and Civil Society organizations by pooling together the expertise of its members. The Network was initiated by the University of the Peloponnese and the University of the Aegean but now includes Africanists from several Greek and Cypriot universities and prides itself as the only Africa-focused academic network in the region. The Hellenic Network of African Studies is an affiliate member of AEGIS - African Studies in Europe - A Network in Excellence. |
| Description | Transportation Unions as a Model of Reintegration and Return in DRC |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | After discovering multiple examples of transportation unions in Sub-Ubangi and Equateur provinces that are made up of a large majority of ex-combatants, SSRC has engaged with MONUSCO and DFID representatives and highlighted these examples as possible successes to integrate in the reform of ex-combatant reintegration and return programming. Given the ongoing government-led reintegration process in the DRC, the advancement of these models, with possible external funding, might be able to improve livelihoods and the effective reintegration of ex-combatants back into civilian life. |
| Description | UK Stabilisation Unit |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | On 12 February 2019, Tatiana met with members of the UK Government's Stabilisation Unit to discuss how their work might support the outcomes of the UN Peace and Security Architecture review and the future of UN conflict prevention and stabilization policy in the DRC. |
| Description | UN/World Bank: Doing DDR in New Contexts |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | In May 2018, the SSRC co-hosted a panel discussion with the DDR Section and the World Bank on the "Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing DDR in New Concepts," which led to the publication of a policy report that highlighted the political nature of DDR and the need for this to be reflected in DDR planning. Shifting the approach to DDR from a discrete programme to a process embedded in wider political and peacebuilding strategies is one way for this to be achieved. The event also showcased the importance of solidifying international, regional, and national partnerships to achieve a longer-term and sustained focus on DDR. |
| Description | United Nations Summer Study, Tatiana Carayannis |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The United Nations Summer Study (UNSS) program, offered by The New School's Julien J. Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs, puts graduate, undergraduate, and PhD students on the ground in the United Nations and in New York City. Unlike other UN study programs, UNSS takes you beyond a narrow focus on security and diplomacy to investigate development, human rights, humanitarian action, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and environmental and reform issues. |
| Description | Youth and the Rule of Law in Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Geographic Reach | Africa |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Roundtable symposium that worked to examine issues that relate to youth and the rule of law by bringing together thought leaders and stakeholders from across the region and beyond. Participants included representatives from regional governments, multilateral organizations, NGOs, academia, the private sector, and the U.S. Government, to focus on the specific nexus between youth and the rule of law in Sub-Saharan Africa. The symposium was organized by the Rule of Law Collaborative under the auspices of the JUSTRAC cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of State. The outcome was a policy brief to look at indicators for SDGS. Kara Blackmore provided insights on arts and culture as useful inclusions. |
| URL | http://justrac.org/training-symposia/youth-and-the-rule-of-law-in-sub-saharan-africa/ |
| Description | British Academy Haycock Fund |
| Amount | £3,700 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Institute in Eastern Africa |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Kenya |
| Start | 03/2016 |
| End | 03/2017 |
| Description | British Academy Writing Workshops 2019 with LSE, University of Gulu and University of Juba |
| Amount | £19,975 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | ESRC Multidisciplinary Fund |
| Amount | £800 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2017 |
| End | 11/2017 |
| Description | Haycock Grant |
| Amount | £1,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | British Institute in Eastern Africa |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Kenya |
| Start | 12/2016 |
| End | 07/2017 |
| Description | Writing Workshops 2018 |
| Amount | £19,880 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2018 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Title | Semi-Structured Questionnaire |
| Description | This semi-structured questionnaire has been developed with our Congolese partners and the will focus on a few key questions: How were the communities in which they returned affected? How was public authority in these communities affected? What does return mean to them? What is the link between return and re-mobilization? Is there a connection between recruitment (ie why they joined armed group) and where they return to? And finally, do we have a few small case studies of effective reintegration in DRC (i.e. the Toleka Bicycle Union in Gemena), and what is distinct/replicable about these examples? |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Key issues in all cases will include how ex-combatants have experienced DDR and return programs; where have they returned to; the meaning of return and what happened to communities receiving returnees. We will document trajectories demobilized combatants follow after being demobilized and challenges they face in terms of their return, and introduce the notion of 'circular return.' Several strategies are identified for further analysis: voluntary settlement in displacement camps in order to get access to humanitarian aid, settlement in other areas than their homes, return home and, finally, return to armed groups. Looking into these processes guiding return, the comparative studies aim at deconstructing popular discourses on DDR. Data collected through semi-structured interviews across all the sites in the west and in the east will also be developed into a data set that can be further analyzed. |
| Title | Semi-structured questionnaire and dataset on the effectiveness of ex-combatant reintegration in the Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Description | A semi-structured questionnaire and dataset of 200 interviews on the effectiveness of ex-combatant reintegration was developed and deployed across the Democratic Republic of Congo. The research tool covers the respondents' history of displacement, life in armed groups, their process of demobilization and reintegration, and investigates the link between social capital and mental health and the effective return to civilian life. The questionnaire was rolled out in Equateur and Sud-Ubangi provinces in Summer/Fall 2018. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Key issues in all cases will include how ex-combatants have experienced DDR and return programs; where have they returned to; the meaning of return and what happened to communities receiving returnees. We will document trajectories demobilized combatants follow after being demobilized and challenges they face in terms of their return, and introduce the notion of 'circular return.' Several strategies are identified for further analysis: voluntary settlement in displacement camps in order to get access to humanitarian aid, settlement in other areas other than their homes, return home and, finally, return to armed groups. Looking into these processes guiding return, the comparative studies aim at deconstructing popular discourses on DDR. Data collected through semi-structured interviews across all the sites in the west and in the east will also be developed into a data set that can be further analyzed. |
| Description | 32º East | Ugandan Arts Trust |
| Organisation | 32 Degrees East Ugandan Arts Trust |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Developed an artist residency to create conceptual artworks that reflect the research from various sites. Three artists will have studios at 32º East from June-September 2018. Researchers will provide information to artists as material for their artworks. From June-September we had Kusa Kusa Maski Gael, Bathsheba Okwenje and Willy Karekezi in residence for three months. We supported a KLA ART 18 conversation called The Grammar of Images. The artwork produced during the residence work was exhibited in Gulu in July/August 2019. We also hosted 15 KLA ART 20 participants to come to Gulu and see the exhibition and participate in the two-day conference. |
| Collaborator Contribution | 32º East has helped to develop the residency, advertise the call, process the applications and design this residency. It is a first of it's kind for the space and a pilot for a residency of social practice in Kampala. 32º East provided the residency spaces, administrative support, and ongoing advice for the project. |
| Impact | We have selected three artists for the residency: Willy Kerekezi, Kusa Kusa Gael Maksy, and Bathsheba Okwenje. Blog posts have referenced this process. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Creative writing collaboration with the College of Education, University of Juba |
| Organisation | University of Juba |
| Country | South Sudan |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Naomi Pendle and Yovanka Paquete-Perdigao (FLCA) worked with Edward Momo and other academics in the College of Education (University of Juba) to develop stories of South Sudanese journeys that critically engaged and challenged simple troupes about refugee identities and journeys. Yovanka used her creative writing experience to share with students and staff various ways to use creative writing as a form of knowledge production. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The College of Education hosted the writing workshops and meetings that facilitated the collaborations. They were also active in engaging with the creative writing process. |
| Impact | Those involved in the collaboration are completing their final edits before a publication of these stories of journeys are complete. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Governance-In-Conflict Network |
| Organisation | University of Ghent |
| Country | Belgium |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our research team has exchanged research with the partners of this network and promoted innovative interdisciplinary research. We have worked with the network to enhance the publicity of research and have co-published research briefs on public authority and politics of return together. A member of our research team, Annalisa Bolin, took residence for a short term research stay (1 to 3 months) in 2019 as a visiting researcher at Ghent University to support the work of this international partnership. During her time she prepared for publication peer-reviewed academic journal articles and worked on a joint research proposal with GiC partners. The network provided access to university facilities and a work space, and subsidized her housing during the duration of her research stay. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Governance-in-Conflict (GiC) Network is an international research network led by the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University. It brings together all relevant disciplinary knowledge at Ghent University in a thematic interdisciplinary approach. Through cooperation with 28 academic partners from 16 countries a diversified regional and international expertise is integrated in the network. Bundling our strengths together creates valuable opportunities in research and education. |
| Impact | This collaboration has produced (Silent) Voices, a collective of researchers from the field of development and (post-)conflict studies working in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe who strive for an open dialogue on the practice of transnational collaboration in academic field research. (Silent) Voices have published the Bukavu Series in French and English and published articles on researcher positionality that resulted from reflections within the initiative and other resources on collaborative knowledge production. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | LSE PhD Academy |
| Organisation | London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaborated for a workshop and exhibition on the 30 November about South Sudan around issues of research and representation during crisis. The PhD Academy hosted a half day workshop and then an evening exhibition and dialogue. This initiative was spearheaded by Kara Blackmore and Liz Storer. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The PhD Academy hosted the workshop and provided financial support for the exhibition through the ESRC Multidisciplinary Fund. |
| Impact | Video Blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/02/19/video-reliving-the-euphoria-of-south-sudan-independence-through-the-documentary-our-bright-stars/, Research Blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/09/22/keeping-the-faith-on-the-spiritual-dimensions-of-south-sudanese-exile-in-arua-north-west-uganda-lsereturn/, Photo Essay Blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/09/20/photo-essay-seeing-displacement-through-ethnographic-photography-lsereturn/ |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Learning and sharing with African Youth Initative Network |
| Organisation | African Youth Initiative Network |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We hold regular meetings to discuss research, practice and developing more informed programming for transitional justice in Uganda. This means that the research on memorialization informs one of their funding areas to support commemorations at Abia, Barlonyo and other massacre sites in northern Uganda. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Director Victor Ochen opened a symposium on the 22nd of August 2018 that was a collaboration with the Politics of Return project. He also shares contacts and discusses research regularly. This gives important insights from someone who lived through the war between the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army and who now works in policy and advocacy. In 2019, the Director Victor Ochen contributed to a panel on arts and social justice as part of the Politics of Return conference in Gulu, Uganda. |
| Impact | Grammar of Images Symposium |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partner: African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET) |
| Organisation | African Youth Initiative Network |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Preliminary Meetings to establish partnership and do research design of arts narratives into exhibition formats. |
| Collaborator Contribution | AYINET identified the need for youth ambassadors to help translate narratives and develop text for exhibition outputs. Offers a space for LSE Programme for African Leadership scholars to continue research and information dissemination in Lira. |
| Impact | Refined exhibition design and monthly meetings between Victor Ochen and Politics of Return curator Kara Blackmore. This collaboration is multi-discplinary and covers the Arts, Law, and Heritage and grew from relations established in 2016. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partnership: Centre for African Research (CAR), Uganda |
| Organisation | Centre for African Research-Northern Uganda Research Centre |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are entering into a contract with CAR under which we will fund their capacity building activities and commission a paper and four blog posts. We are also committed to providing mentoring support to the organisation and trainers for some of the training workshops and has been supported by Julian Hopwood and former students from the Programme for African Leadership at the LSE. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Under our contract CAR will deliver local capacity building outputs in Uganda including quarterly methodology training workshops, monthly seminars and monthly reading groups. They will provide logistics services in relation to annual stakeholder workshops and produce a published paper and four blog posts. |
| Impact | This collaboration is still active and outcomes are forthcoming. This partnership will be covered by a formal MoU which is currently being finalised. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partnership: Ghent Conflict Research Group (CRG) and GEC |
| Organisation | Green Economy Coalition |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The Conflict Research Group (CRG) at Ghent is closely collaborating with GEC in Bukavu and research, including fieldwork, is conducted in collaboration with local researchers. Links are also being created with MONUSCO, UEPNDDR (national DDR office), Fondation solidarité des hommes, Bureau voluntaire pour la solidarité, Transcultural Psychological Organisation, all located in Bukavu and involved in the facilitation of DDR. These relationships have grown over a number of years with Aaron Pangburn, Koen Vlassenroot and Tatiana Carayannis working in the region. |
| Collaborator Contribution | GEC is hosting a number of local researchers involved in the research on return of ex-combatants. It is also our key partner creating links with other stakeholders |
| Impact | At present fieldwork is still going on. Results will be published in the paper on circular return and in a number of blogposts. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partnership: Gulu University MA Medical Anthropology Programme |
| Organisation | Gulu University |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Dr Holly Porter has designed and taught a course module titled Gender, Sexualities and Reproductive Health in January 2017 and which will be repeated in 2018. Julian Hopwood has designed a course module on Cross-cultral psychiaty to be delivered in 2018 and is working with Dr Grace Akello, Director of the Masters in Medical Anthropology programme to revise the course. Prof. Tim Allen, Prof. Melissa Parker and Dr Anna Macdonald will also be teaching on the course. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Grace Akello is currently undertaking a Fellowship at LSE which will strengthen collaboration between LSE and Gulu University. She has completed field resaerch which will be written up as a paper for ESRC-FD. |
| Impact | Students in the MA course examined the role of gender and relationships in sexual and reproductive health. The course explored the social, cultural, economic, political and private aspects of reproductive health as a reference point to examine power dynamics, and analyses of gender, sexuality and health. Each of the students enrolled in the course passed their exams successfully and several went on to write their master's dissertations on related topics which Holly Porter supervised. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partnership: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine |
| Organisation | London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Melissa Parker and Tim Allen have organised, funded, and are hosting (currently) three interdisciplinary lecturers from Njala University, Sierra Leone from the School of Community Health Sciences. The lecturers have come to visit the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for three weeks to partake in knowledge exchange activities. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The three lecturers are contributing to knowledge exchange, attending events and lectures, conducting research and contributing to research sharing in the areas of health policy and bio-medicine specifically focusing on Ebola. |
| Impact | The researchers are currently visiting and outcomes from this partnership are forthcoming. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Partnership: Universities of Gbadolite |
| Organisation | University of Gbadolite |
| Country | Congo, the Democratic Republic of the |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The SSRC team (Aaron Pangburn, Koen Vlassenroot and Tatiana Carayannis) is working primarily with our local researchers at the Universities of Gbadolite and will be joining them in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late-Jan through early February. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The local researchers at the Universities of Gbadolite are active participants in all phases of the research design. There is a research contract with Professor José Ndala of UNIGBA governs that was last extended in November 2017. |
| Impact | Impacts are still being developed, but given the University and Professor Ndala's work with the Central African Refugee community, there will be societal and policy/public service impact to this partnership. He is already working with a local NGO, Père Gilbert Kambo, founder of the NGO "Droit pour tous obligatoires" on the deployment of conflict resolution training to be deployed between the Central African refugees and local Congolese population. Professor Ndala is involved in all phases of our work, provides regular updates regarding conditions on the ground, and will be a major partner in the deployment of our semi-structured questionnaire schedule to be deployed in the late Spring/early Summer 2018 in Gemena and/or Gbadolite. He joined us in Gemena in Feb 2018. The costs of fieldwork are integrated into a month salary and this partnership grew out of established relationships from 2012. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Partnership: University of Kinshasa |
| Organisation | University of Kinshasa |
| Country | Congo, the Democratic Republic of the |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The SSRC team (Aaron Pangburn, Koen Vlassenroot and Tatiana Carayannis) is working primarily with our local researchers at the Universities of Kinshasha and will be joining them in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late-Jan through early February. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The University of Kinshasa's Centre for the Studies of Politics (CEP) sent a letter of support to the Politics of Return proposal, but essentially our research contract with Professor José Bazonzi governs this relationship last extended in October 2017. This relationship is also reinforced with regular visa letters of support as our local partner to enable us to travel to DRC. Note - the costs of fieldwork are integrated into a monthly salary disbursed to Dr. Bazonzi. This partnership grew from relations established in 2012. |
| Impact | The impacts of our partnership will be primarily societal as we collect data, publish and disseminate the results for our comparative study on demobilized in Nord, Sud-Ubangi and Equateur provinces. Dr. Bazonzi has helped develop our semi-structured questionnaire, and informed much of our research agenda. He has already joined us on our Feb 2018 trip to Sud-Ubangi, and will assist in the deployment of our questionnaire in Mbandaka and Equateur province. His post in Kinshasa will also add to our policy/public service impact as we intend to feed our findings into government channels. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Uganda Museum | BIEA |
| Organisation | Uganda Museum |
| Country | Uganda |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Curated an exhibition at the Uganda Museum entitled Enduring Exile with images by Katie G. Nelson and research by Liz Storer. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Hosted Enduring Exile exhibition and Beyond the Statistics workshop in May-June 2017. |
| Impact | This inspired the event in London in November 2017. It gave the questions and exhibition format to expand into another context. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | United Nations |
| Organisation | United Nations (UN) |
| Department | Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | PoR researchers at the Social Science Research Council, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn, frequently collaborate with various departments and offices within the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Office of the UN Special Envoy within the Department of Political Affairs, on various issues related to DDR reform and interventions in the Great Lakes region of Africa, specifically CAR and the DRC. Tatiana and Aaron, organized a panel discussion in May 2018 on "The Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing DDR in New Contexts" in collaboration with the Office of the Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the World Bank Group's Global Program for Reintegration Support (GPRS). This panel discussion built on a previous event held in March 2018 during the World Bank Fragility Forum in Washington, DC. Collaborations within the last year have also included an October 2019 closed-door meeting related to "New Thinking and Lessons from DDR Reform in CAR" and other informal briefings. These collaborations help bridge the gap between the evidence-based research of ex-combatant return and the coherence and the understanding of UN policymaking interventions on these issues. Tatiana has served as both a panelist and a moderator in these collaborations and with Aaron, who provides the day-to-day follow up on these issues, she has co-authored and published the outcome documents/meeting reports that summarize the main points of each discussions and that are distributed among the UN policy and practitioner community working on such issues of security and return. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The various UN partners involved in these collaborations support the project's research uptake and provide a medium by which policy perspectives are systematically integrated into and inform the research and data being collected on the experiences of Congolese demobilized combatants, ex-combatant reintegration programs, and distributive justice. |
| Impact | A link for the published output related to the May 2018 meeting on "The Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing DDR in New Contexts" is provided above. The panel discussion was attended by 94 participants, representing various Permanent Missions to the United Nations and government agencies, international organizations, UN departments, offices and specialized agencies, programmes and funds, as well as academic institutions, think tanks and non-governmental organizations working on military/security interventions, small arms trade, and the return of diverse displaced populations (including children, civilians, refugees, and ex-combatants). The panel discussion also invited postdoc researchers working on these issues and drew on knowledge from different disciplines (political science, anthropology, economics, law, human rights, sociology). The 3-member panel represented three distinct communities (research, policy, and donor) and was chaired in a manner that synthesized and harmonize the links between them into a coordinated and coherent whole. A full list of all participants in the panel discussion can be found on page 11 of the outcome document above. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | University of Juba (South Sudan) |
| Organisation | University of Juba |
| Country | South Sudan |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The University of Juba (UoJ) and Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa (FLCA) coordinated to host a writing workshop for South Sudanese academics. Numerous papers focused on research related to the politics of return in South Sudan. The FLCA contributed administrative support, academic inputs and organisation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The UoJ contributed academic reviews of papers written, including by South Sudanese academics who are well known for contributions to forced displacement debates. |
| Impact | Various papers were presented during this workshop and have since been refined based on feedback from these collaborations. This includes the paper by Abraham Diing and Naomi Pendle entitled, '"I Kept My Gun": Establishing Home and Authority After Returning Without Experience of Combat in South Sudan'. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN) |
| Organisation | University of Kinshasa |
| Country | Congo, the Democratic Republic of the |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our research team has provided material support to this partnership in the form of material and financial support and providing the partnership visibility and publication. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ResCongo, created and coordinated by UNIKIN Professor Jose Bazonzi, held its inaugural annual conference from September 27-28 at the University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN). Professor Bazonzi has supported the research as an active member of our research team since the start of the research project by producing research, writing, and data collection assistance in Kongo Central and Kinshasa provinces. He, and other researchers at UNIKIN, have served as a focal point in Kinshasa and coordinated the local researchers in the aforementioned research sites and in the Nord and Sud Ubangi provinces and ensured that data collection is properly carried out and data transmitted securely. Professor Bazonzi has also organized logistics for, and accompanied the research team (Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn), on all field research trips to DRC. |
| Impact | . |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | "Evidence-Based Peacekeeping" at the Next Frontier of Peacekeeping Conference at Yale University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis gave a talk on "Evidence-Based Peacekeeping" at the Next Frontier of Peacekeeping Conference at Yale University's MacMillan Center. She also participated in a panel on "What can political/social science do for peacekeeping?." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/new-frontiers-of-peacekeeping-yale-university/ |
| Description | "Power of Rules and Rule of Power" and "Prevention: The Challenge of Theory and Practice" International Studies Association Conference 2018 (San Francisco) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | On 6 April 2018, Tatiana Carayannis presented her newest paper "Prevention: The Challenge of Theory and Practice" with co-author, Sabrina Stein of the Conflict Peace and Prevention Forum, during the International Studies Association (ISA) Conference in San Francisco, Californi, Tatiana also spoke on a round-table discussion titled "Power of Rules and Rules of Power" on the effective approaches for academic engagement with think tanks and policymakers to an audience concerned with the policy impact of their academic research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | "When We Return" PoR, Gulu Exhibit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 25 - 26 July 2019, Aaron Pangburn, Jose Bazonzi, participated in a two-day workshop in Gulu, Uganda, for the launch of the Politics of Return exhibit showcasing artwork and conversation pieces around the issues of displacement and return in Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Panels explored the relationship between art and research, and ideas of "transition," accountability, justice, social repair, and home. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | #LSEReturn: Trapped in Enclaves: How Politics of Inclusion could help Central African Muslim Refugees Return Home |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Four years after systematic ethnic cleansing led Central African Republic's Muslim community to flee to neighbouring countries, Enrica Picco explores the challenges facing returnees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/02/26/lsereturn-trapped-in-enclaves-how-politics-of-inclusio... |
| Description | #LSEReturn: Understanding South Sudan: Questions of Knowledge and Representation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A photo essay by Kara Blackmore on the "Understanding South Sudan: Questions of Knowledge and Representation" held at LSE on 30 November 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/01/25/understanding-south-sudan-questions-of-knowledge-and-r... |
| Description | 2019 International Studies Association |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | From March 27 to March 30th 2019, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn attended the International Studies Association conference in Toronto to present the findings of their research on "The Reintegration of Congolese Ex-Combatants: Coping Strategies and Collective Action in Western DR Congo." They also presented on the following research panels: o The Politics of Return: Re-visioning the Paradigm of DDR (FA71: Friday 8:15 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.) o Re-visioning UN Peacekeeping: New Perspectives on an Evolving Institution (FC40: Friday 1:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.) o Field Research Methods in Insecure Places: Challenges and Innovation (FD40: Friday 4:00 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.) o Rising Powers as Peacebuilders in International Conflict Management (SB07: Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | A regional approach to peacebuilding: The Great Lakes Strategic Framework (New York) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On 27 November 2017, Tatiana Carayannis moderated a briefing/panel discussion at the United Nations (UN) Secretariat, which took stock of the main policy issues raised at the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of a regional integrated peace and security approach in the Great Lakes region. The meeting also aimed at raising awareness for international engagement, by promoting new programmatic and funding opportunities in support for the Cross-Border Multi-Partner Trust Fund, building on the initial investment funding provided by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). Ambassador Said Djinnit, Special Envoy of the Secretary General for the Great Lakes Region, introduced the Great Lakes Regional Framework and its six pillars before highlighting the connections between the work of his office and the ICGLR. The panel discussion brought together experts representing UN Member States, from international organizations, from civil society organizations, and from within the UN system. Highlights included insight from Ambassador Liberata Mulamula, a Visiting Scholar and the Acting Director of the Institute for African Studies at The George Washington University, who spoke to opportunities for promoting a strong women and peacebuilding agenda in the region and provided reflection on the ICGLR initiative 10 years on, after having served as the ICGLR's first Executive Secretary from 2006-2011. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/a-regional-approach-to-peacebuilding-the-great-lakes-strategic-fram... |
| Description | Acholi Love in the Aftermath of War |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter gave a paper presentation titled 'Acholi Love in the Aftermath of War' at the American Anthropological Association in Washington DC, USA on November 29-December 3, 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Africa/Latin America bridging Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | presented preliminary findings from my phd research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | African Studies Association Conference presentation: 'Reintegration, rejection and disappearance after life with the Lord's Resistance Army' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Melissa Parker and Tim Allen presented 'Reintegration, rejection and disappearance after life with the Lord's Resistance Army', at the African Studies Association Conference, Chicago, USA on 16 November 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | African Studies Association: Identity in War and Peace in Central Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research Associate Gino Vlavonou presented research on Violence and Autochthony in the Central African Republic on a panel titled "Identity in War and Peace in Africa" at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | African Studies Association: Resistance Strategies in Central Africa (Chicago) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | On 18 November 2017, at the annual conference of the African Studies Association, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn participated in a panel discussion entitled "Resistance Strategies in Central Africa". The panel brought together a group of scholars to analyze actions and discourses that contest, transgress, subvert or resist to international policy prescriptions and/or national public policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. Koen Vlassenroot, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Conflict Research Group at the University of Ghent, presented his reflections on resistance by armed groups in Eastern DRC, and explored whether Herbert Weiss' theory of rural radicalism [1] (developed after the Congolese rebellions of the 1960) could help explain the character and the grievances of contemporary rebels. The DRC presentations were complemented by An Ansoms, Professor of Development Studies at the Catholic University of Louvain, looked at resistance to land policy and social reengineering in Rwanda, and the dichotomy between hidden and open forms of resistance by the Rwandan farming community. Her presentation focused on the green revolution in Rwanda, and how farmers are expressing discontent and pushing for reform in a variety of innovative ways. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/african-studies-association-resistance-strategies-in-central-africa... |
| Description | African Studies Association:The Politics of Return: Understanding trajectories of displacement and 'return' in Central Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 22 November 2019, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn presented "Home is Where the Heart Is: Identity, Return, and the Toleka Bicycle Taxi Union in Congo's Grand Equateur" at the 62nd Annual African Studies Association Conference in Boston. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | African Studies Seminar: Post-elections Congo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | On 10 February 2019, Tatiana gave a talk on post election dynamics in the DRC at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Affairs African Studies Seminar. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Analysing the role of football in building social cohesion in war-affected Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | On the Africa@LSE blog Madeleine Issitt and Aloh Francis find out just how successful football is in developing social harmony in post-conflict areas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/11/14/analysing-the-role-of-football-in-building-social-coh... |
| Description | Article, The Republic |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | For The Republic (2018): The Spiritual Dimensions of Exile: South Sudanese Refugees in Exile, (link here: http://www.republic.com.ng/aprilmay-2018/spiritual-dimensions-exile/) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.republic.com.ng/aprilmay-2018/spiritual-dimensions-exile/ |
| Description | Arts and Peacebuilding: Curatorial and Ethical Considerations |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Kara Blackmore was invited to lecture on the Politics of Return work at the University of Los Andes for the Masters in Peacebuilding. She shared the creative pathways to impact, research findings and her curatorial process with students who are mostly peacebuilding professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Association of Memory Studies Conference, Dec, 2016, Amsterdam, Netherlands Paper presented for Bridging Scholars and Practitioners panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation entitled: "Art and Exhibition Making as Method: An exploration into curatorial practice in post-conflict societies". Research within exhibition making offers a place to investigate the intentions of memory positivist and memorial producers. In these exhibition spaces where scholar, practitioner, narrator and artist become co-producers, my research compares the intentions within particular imagined communities. This maps well onto an earlier statement in the panel on art where Eyal said that "the only way to confront the unimaginable is the imagination." Therefore the research sits in a moment during the production of public and private memorials with ex-combatants, NGOs, government actors, survivors and bystanders from four different conflicts. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Conference-Program.pdf |
| Description | Bemba Interview, Rise and Fall of the MLC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | During a July 2018 field visit to Congo, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn interviewed a number of MLC local leaders in Gemena and visited Jean-Pierre Bemba's property as background for the MLC book. The visit was especially timely as Bemba had just been released from the ICC, and was planning his return to Congo in August after more than 10 years in prison. He filed his candidacy for the Presidency on 2 August. Local stakeholders provided details on the mobilization plan for his return, and early insight into the campaign when Bemba and over 400 MLC candidates would contest the presidential, legislative and provincial elections. However, the promise and excitement we experienced was soon tempered, when the CENI (Commission Electorale Nationale Indépendante) invalidated his candidacy due to his lingering witness tampering charges at the ICC. Months later, after Bemba has joined the opposition coalition Lamuka behind eligible Presidential candidate Martin Fayulu, Carayannis traveled to Brussels to interview the former DRC Vice President for the second time, just weeks before the scheduled presidential election in DRC. She gathered more valuable insight on his views on the recent political developments in Congo, and how he envisioned running the MLC during the upcoming transition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Beyond the Statistics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Scholars, practitioners and students joined together for a full day workshop on South Sudanese realities of living beyond the statistics. The exhibition Enduring Exile remained on show at the Uganda Museum and was seen by school children and general visitors during the month of June, 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://nickikindersleycom.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/final-workshop-report-beyond-the-statistics.p... |
| Description | Beyond the Statistics Dialogue Kampala May 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Bringing together South Sudanese diaspora in Kampala to provide an open forum to discuss unfolding dynamics of South Sudanese displacement |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Blog on new publication: "Pursuing Justice in northern Uganda" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Blog summarising findings and implications of two book chapters on justice and reconciliation in post-conflict northern Uganda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Blog post on broadening the scope of scholarly research on the repatriation of refugees |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Almost twenty years on from the decade of voluntary repatriation, Jolien Tegenbos and Koen Vlassenroot explore in this blog post how scholarly understanding of the process of 'return' has evolved and how it has largely been determined by policy priorities. Blog its based on the academic literature conducted by the authors, also published under the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/07/11/broadening-the-scope-of-scholarly-research-on-the-rep... |
| Description | Blog post on the notion of circular return; The in-between of being a civilian and combatant - circular return in eastern DR Congo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In this blog post Koen Vlassenroot, Emery Mudinga and Josaphat Musamba Bussy tackle the complexities around the remobilisation of armed combatants following conflict and introduce new ways to look at it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/06/05/the-in-between-of-being-a-civilian-and-combatant-circ... |
| Description | Blog post: Transitional justice and the implementation gap in northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Blog posting to share the findings of an article published in the International Journal of Transitional Justice about transitional justice in Uganda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/07/08/transitional-justice-and-the-implementation-gap-in-ug... |
| Description | Briefing - UK Stablisation Unit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On February 12, 2019, Tatiana met with members of the UK Government's Stabilisation Unit to discuss how their work on Elite Bargains and Political Deals might support the outcomes of the UN Peace and Security Architecture review and the future of UN conflict prevention and stabilization policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Briefs on Returning Populations in Acholiland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald and other stakeholders briefed regional state prosecutor (Gulu, Uganda) and Chief Magistrate (Gulu, Uganda) on justice seeking patterns among returning populations in Acholiland occured in July/August 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | British Institute in Africa Lecture. Can Art Exhibitions Achieve Justice, 23, September, Nairobi Kenya |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presented a lecture on work in Uganda making memorials and posed questions around the possibilities and limits of exhibition making in post-war contexts. It was also a space to dialogue around the upcoming work with PaCCS. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | CAR's Peace Accords and Rebel Warlords - Africa@LSE Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The latest peace agreement in the Central African Republic creates space for rebel warlords to participate in the country's future but with accusations that the agreement has downplayed justice, postdoctoral researcher, Gino Vlavonou, argues that a mix of doubt and excitement allows the potential for renewed anger and grievances towards the state. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/05/15/cars-peace-accords-and-rebel-warlords/ |
| Description | CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ART, OBJECTS AND ARCHIVES - The Origins Centre, 18 & 19th of November 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | The Origins Centre (University of the Witwatersrand) and the Heritage Experience Initiative (University of Oslo) invited participants to join in "Conversations about Art, Objects and Archives" - a two- day workshop at the Origins Centre museum of University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The workshop held on the 18th - 19th November 2019. Paper presented - "Archival Transitions: Artistic and Curatorial Connections in Uganda" "Kara Blackmore (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Bathsheba Okwenje (Independent researcher- artist)" "This paper interrogates the missing archives of Uganda's dark pasts through artworks. The curator, Kara Blackmore, and artist Bathsheba Okwenje will present the emergence of Kanyo and Gang Kikome and Other Things We Left Behind as an artistic attempts to create space for specific memories. The objects featured in both artworks are image acts in the tradition of aesthetic justice. The paper uses the artwork as a staging ground to interrogate symbolic reparations through memory voids rooted in language. Specifically, Gang Kikome and Other Things We Left Behind is an artwork that presents itself as an archive of items that were used by the inhabitants of the settlement camps - during the war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government forces - but that were left behind once the camps were disbanded. The objects are a materiality of humanitarian aid and an aesthetic of aid; they also provide insight into the ways in which these objects of assistance have become artefacts of culture. Kanyo in Acholi language means to endure, to be resilient. Kanyo is also an artwork about the aftermath of war through an exploration of the love lives and relationships of 36 former wives of the LRA combatants. It critiques the silencing of love in the story of forced marriage and abduction that are superimposed onto the women. Collectively the works present a social portrait about Uganda's recent history and yet they, and by extension the war in Northern Uganda, are not displayed in the collections in Uganda's national museums. Curating the work as knowledge register insists on a decolonizing move that speaks directly to policy and academic framings of lived experiences. The paper will bring together Okwenje and Blackmore to discuss how the artwork sits within the heritageization of past violence in Uganda." "Gang Kikome" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Call for proposals: African Scholars programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Julian Hopwood and his team have issued a call for proposals seeking to support the development of early to mid-career Ugandan academics through commissioning research papers, offering substantial mentoring support to try to ensure that all are published and that some are published in peer-reviewed academic journals. So far under ESRC-FD two proposals have been accepted and finalised and another five are in development. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Carayannis, T. and Pangburn, A. (March 2018) "DDR and Return in the DRC--A Foolish Investment or Necessary Risk?" LSE Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa blog. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | . |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/03/26/ddr-and-return-in-the-drc-a-foolish-investment-or-nece... |
| Description | Cattle raids, gunfights and tribal tensions during field work in Uganda #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) While conducting research on post-conflict peace building interventions in northern Uganda, Francis Abonga is surprised to encounter a gunfight. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/01/14/cattle-raids-gunfights-and-tribal-tensions-during-fie... |
| Description | Central Africa Policy Forum: CENCO |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On June 8th, Tatiana Carayannis organized a Central Africa Policy Forum session at the Security Council Report on the electoral process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This invitation-only session brought together academics, NGOs, UN country missions, and UN agencies and departments in a discussion led by the president and secretary general of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO). CENCO successfully facilitated the December 31, 2016 Saint-Sylvestre agreement, which aims to pave the way for DRC's first peaceful democratic transfer of power through the express will of the Congolese people. The election is scheduled for December 23, 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/s/ |
| Description | Central Africa Policy Forum: Elections in the DRC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On 29 November 2018, Tatiana Carayannis, as a founding member of the Central African Policy Forum, hosted a session with ICG Senior Analyst, Hans Hoebeke. Titled, "Looking Ahead at Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo". Tatiana moderated the talk held at the Security Council Report in New York. Hans Hoebeke focused his discussion on the current challenges to a free and fair election process in the DRC by framing discussion within the context of previous held elections in 2006 and 2011. Mr. Hoebeke outlining the opposition party's inability to energize the electorate, the danger of the current regime's control of the entire electoral process, and the concern over the introduction of electronic voting machines as some of the key and continuing challenges to a free and fair election in December. In addition, he cited the negative impact barring of main opposition leaders, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, will have on the chances for the opposition party to succeed against incumbent president Joseph Kabila's chosen successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. After the discussion, Mr. Hoebeke and Dr. Carayannis fielded questions and comments from an audience of UN member states and NGO representatives concerning whether the opposition would boycot the election and the extent to which the election results are expected to cause instability both in the country and the region. Audience members also asked questions regarding the UN's role in the region and the approach it should take in the follow-up to the election and the future of MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission. Hans Hoebeke joined Crisis Group as Congo analyst in 2014. His research focuses on the Central African region, in particular Congolese politics, the role of international and regional actors, and developments in the security sector. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/a-central-africa-policy-forum-discussion-looking-ahead-at-elections... |
| Description | Cohabitation, Prospects for a Central African Return: Case of Inke |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Using the example of the village of Inke in Democratic Republic of Congo, Aaron Pangburn and José Ndala provide insight into how an inclusive approach and the support of host communities can improve the lives of displaced in a blog for the #LSEReturn series, exploring themes around Displacement and Return. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/08/22/cohabitation-and-the-prospects-for-a-central-african-r... |
| Description | Conference Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter organised a panel entitled: 'Masculinities in Africa', for the African Studies Association, in Birmingham, UK, September 11-13, 2018 (with Philipp Schulz). She also also presented work from her own research with former male ex-combatants from the LRA entitled: At Home and in the Bush: Agency, coercion and desire among male (ex)combatants. It sparked questions and discussion afterward and a number of the participants mentioned how impactful it was on their own thinking and research. Several have followed up via email in weeks following to continue the discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Conference Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter presented research from ongoing research at the American Anthropological Association, San Jose, USA, November 14-18 which will eventually be a second book, entitled: Sex, Love and War: Intimate relations in a violent world. It was one of several presentations in the panel which she co-organizesd with Ryan O'Byrne highlighting other research related to Politics of Return and Trajectories of Displacement grants. The panel was entitled: The Contradictions of 'Resilience' and Return in the Aftermath of Forced Displacement. It sparked a lively discussion and questions afterward. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Conference Presentation - Africa Studies Association 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk on state authority |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Conference Presentation - Witchcraft and Human Rights Conference, Lancaster, January 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Talk at conference aimed to develop UN policy on witchcraft/ human rights |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Conference about land and conflict in east DRC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 13 November, Koen Vlassenroot was invited as an expert at the pre-conference with European and Congolese experts, state representatives and civil society members in Wageningen on land and conflict in eastern DRC. This pre-conference is organized by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in preparation of a large conference in Bukavu on conflict land reform, scheduled for June 2019. Koen Vlassenroot is also a member of the scientific committee of the conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Conference presentation 'Legacies of the Invisible Children: was it a good idea to infantilise the Lord's Resistance Army?' at the Children and politics: Violence, citizenship and political re-education in the twentieth century' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Tim Allen and Melissa Parker had a conference presentation titled 'Legacies of the Invisible Children: was it a good idea to infantilise the Lord's Resistance Army?' Presented at a conference entitled: 'Children and politics: Violence, citizenship and political re-education in the twentieth century' The conference was held by the Centre for War, State and Society and Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter over two dais from 20-21 October, 2017. There were international contributions from scholars based in Israel, France, the US, and the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Conference presentation at African Studies Association UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of emerging findings of study on access to magistrates' courts in Uganda and South Africa. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Conference presentation: Uganda's invisible children: Reintegration, rejection and disappearance after life with the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda at the University of Oslo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Tim Allen and Melissa Parker presented 'Uganda's invisible children: Reintegration, rejection and disappearance after life with the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda', at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, December 6th 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Congolese Research Network on Peace and Security (ResCongo) - Annual Conference 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | ResCongo held its inaugural annual conference from September 27-28, in collaboration with the SSRC, the University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN), Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu (ISP-Bukavu), and the Conflict Research Group (CRG) at Ghent University, at the Centre Culturel Boboto in Kinshasa. Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn were invited to attend as members of the advisory committee. ResCongo, the first national Congolese network of researchers working on peace and security issues, is a virtual platform that promotes and facilitates exchanges among Congolese scholars, connecting and enhancing the participation of these researchers in international academic and policy discussions. ResCongo invited members and interested researchers to submit abstracts, draft papers, and present their work through a call for proposals. Twenty applications were selected after a competitive assessment process. The theme of the inaugural conference was "Insecurity and the Provision of Justice in Urban and Semi-Urban areas in the DRC: Actors, Practices and Perspectives." The conference began with opening remarks from Noël Obotela Rashidi, professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Politics (CEP) at the University of Kinshasa. Over the course of two days, conference leaders and participants held panels on topics ranging from "Insecurity and National Resources" to "Land Conflicts, Customary Authorities, and Justice." Prominent Congolese researchers led most of the panel discussions, while Tatiana was asked to co-lead a discussion on methodologies, the challenges of conducting research in the DRC, and how scientific research can best inform public policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/congolese-research-network-on-peace-and-security-rescongo-%E2%80%93... |
| Description | Cross Cultural Understandings of Trauma |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The workshop brought together historians, psychologists, geographers and medical anthropologists to use the findings from the Politics of Return Project as a way to examine different forms of cultural trauma. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.lse.ac.uk/africa/research/Politics-of-Return-Report |
| Description | Curating Impact: A Process for New Knowledge Creation Through Arts #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Kara Blackmore explores the vital role art can play in developing and disseminating research to a variety of audiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/10/25/curating-impact-a-process-for-new-knowledge-creation-t... |
| Description | DDR/Return in the DRC - A Foolish Investment or Necessary Risk? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn argue that it is time to rethink Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo in their blog for the #LSEReturn series, exploring themes around Displacement and Return. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/03/26/ddr-and-return-in-the-drc-a-foolish-investment-or-nece... |
| Description | Diamonds in the Central African Republic for Sustainable Development and Peace with the Belgian/CAR/Moroccan Missions to the United Nations (New York) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn partnered with the Permanent Mission of Belgium to the United Nations to facilitate a high-level Expert Brainstorming on "Diamonds in the Central African Republic for Sustainable Development and Peace." The meeting was co-hosted by the Kingdoms of Belgium and Morocco and by the Government of CAR. Participants included representatives from civil society, the United Nations Secretariat, and 21 Permanent Country Missions to the UN. They discussed key challenges and opportunities for building the CAR's capacity to counter the illicit exploitation of natural resources and the role MINUSCA and other partners can play to establish the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in CAR. Ambassadors and Permanent Representatives Marc Pecsteen de Buytswerve of Belgium; Ambroisine Kpongo of the Central African Republic, and Omar Hilale of Morocco provided introductory remarks on the draft national strategy to address these issues, while a group of experts comprised of Tatiana Carayannis (SSRC), Marc Van Bockstael (Antwerp World Diamond Centre), Ruben De Koning (The Sentry), Marie Lintzer, (Natural Resource Governance Institute) and Damian Lluna (European Commission) provided their expertise on armed groups operating in the CAR and the role of the sanctions regime. This meeting worked to support the implementation of the National Recovery and Peacebuilding Plan for CAR and the work of the African Ministers of Mining at the upcoming African Diamond Conference in Brussels on 13-15 November. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/diamonds-in-central-african-republic-for-sustainable-development-an... |
| Description | Dicussions with DFID conflict advisers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald held discussions with DFID conflict advisers in the Research and Evidence Division (RED) and East Africa country offices about Politics of Return project and importance of research on returning populations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Discussions with DFID conflict advisers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald held discussions with DFID conflict advisers in the Research and Evidence Division (RED) and East Africa country offices about the Politics of Return project and importance of research on returning populations in May 2017. Primary audience included 10 DFID/HMG conflict advisers and 4 FCO/HMG analysts engaged in Somalia, South Sudan, DRC, and the east Africa region. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | EPON Network Annual Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On November 14, 2019, Tatiana and Aaron served as an expert panel discussant on Central Africa/Great Lakes during the Annual Meeting of the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Emerging Security Sector Leaders Seminar (ACSS-Washington, D.C.) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 30 October 2017, Tatiana Carayannis participated in the Africa Center for Strategic Studies' (ACSS) Emerging Security Sector Leaders Seminar as a panelist during a session entitled, "Conflict Focus: Civil War Resolution: South Sudan and CAR". She was invited to share her expertise and insight on the conflict in CAR, the status of UN's efforts in the region and some major challenges to peacebuilding. The panel is part of ACSS' inaugural Emerging Security Sector Leaders Seminar, from 23 October to 9 November in Washington, D.C. The seminar aims to provide the next generation of African security sector leaders with practical and effective tools upon which they can draw to contribute to their nations' security and development. Around 60 mid-level security professionals from over 30 African countries participated in the seminar. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://africacenter.org/programs/emerging-security-sector-leaders-seminar/emerging-security-sector-... |
| Description | Foreign Policy: Congo Wanted an Election This Isn't What It Meant |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis was quoted in a piece published by Foreign Policy magazine on the credibility of the recent elections in the DRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/20/congo-wanted-an-election-this-isnt-what-it-meant/ |
| Description | Gbadolite Airport and Collective Memory |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | SSRC researchers held a restitution conference in Gbadolite, DRC using the photos they took of the war graffiti in the local airport. This graffiti (images, proverbs, testimonials), was left by successive armies and armed groups over a decade of war. The conference was attended by provincial leadership, religious and civil society leaders, and created a space for the community to reflect on questions of transitional justice, reconciliation, and collective memory around the projected images. This was a conversation that community leaders had been trying to have for years and not been able to. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Gender, Arts, and Symbolic Reparatons |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Symbols and Bodies: a comparative look at performative commemoration and counter-memorials in the former Yugoslavia and Great Lakes of central Africa. Abstract: This collaborative paper and performance proposes the use of female bodies as the locust for counter memorials against state and INGO formulated masculine hero narratives. Curator and scholar Kara Blackmore will draw on her work curating temporary war memorials in Uganda and be joined by artist and scholar Manca Bajec who will examine and perform a memorial piece related to mosaic of post-war former Yugoslavia memoryscapes. The two propose that in fragile conditions with ongoing structural and cultural violence, even after the physical trauma has ended, that women's bodies become a site to process the transitions and seek out justice. This proposition stems from the work related to the performative turn in memorialisation and the recognition of the body as a critically underrepresented space in the literature on symbolic reparations. Here they interrogate the forms of solidarity founded in women's movements to produce narratives against the dominant discourse. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.genderjusticememory.com/cape-town/ |
| Description | Gulu stakeholder meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald and other key stakeholders held a meeting in Gulu, northern Uganda (attended by ~50 Ugandan researchers and practitioners) to present Politics of Return research programme and discuss opportunities for collaboration and co-production in August 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | I will not just be average: How football took Aloh Francis from Uganda's war-zone to Vietnam and back |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Madeleine Issitt narrates how Aloh Francis emerged from conflict-affected northern Uganda to develop a football career that took him to Vietnam. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/09/17/i-will-not-be-just-average-how-football-took-aloh-fra... |
| Description | Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis took part in a two-day, joint workshop with the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the UK Research Council (RCUK) to discuss the recent UN-World Bank report, Pathways to Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/pathways-for-peace-mapping-out-a-new-research-agenda/ |
| Description | Information Sharing with Key UN implementing partners in the Central African Republic |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | After conducting her research and finishing her paper for the PoR project, Enrica Picco shared and presented her findings with various UN actors who are involved in shaping refugee return policy in CAR, including the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for MINUSCA (UN Peacekeeping Mission in Country), and senior representatives from the UN Peacebuilding Support Office. They were grateful for the guidance, and data about the challenges return Muslims refugees face, and committed to adjusting their protection policy to help better serve this vulnerable population. Through this engagement, and their knowledge of Ms. Picco's earlier work, she was hired to serve as the Humanitarian expert, on the Panel of Experts, authorized by the UN Security Council in S/RES/2399. The Secretary General announced her official appointment on 28 February 2018. The most significant outcome of this activity was better projection for Muslim returnees in CAR by international peacekeeping forces. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=%20S/2018/168 |
| Description | International Studies Association Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | . |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/roundtable-discussion-on-academic-engagement-with-think-tanks-and-p... |
| Description | International facilitator at British Academy Writing Workshop: Rwandan Perspectives on post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | International facilitator at British Academy-funded writing workshop in Kigali (organised by KCL, SOAS and Aegis Trust) to support the development of promising early career scholars in Rwanda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Interview on Ugandan radio station (Mega FM) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Media interview on Mega FM, Gulu's largest reaching radio station, to inform the general public about the Politics of Return conference/art exhibition as well as key findings from broader research in the northern Uganda region and beyond. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Interview with Laura Gees of the UN Department of Political Affairs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana was interviewed by Laura Gees for the UN Department of Political Affairs' online magazine Politically Speaking. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Interview, former DRC Vice President Jean Pierre Bemba |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis also traveled to Brussels to interview former DRC Vice President Jean Pierre Bemba, who had one-week prior to the interview been acquitted by the International Criminal Court for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. Tatiana's timely and exclusive interview with the possible presidential candidate for the DRC elections scheduled for December 2018 has heightened the narrative of her upcoming book supported by CPAID, the Rise and Fall of the MLC: Rebellion, the ICC, and the Shaping of Public Authority in Congo and CAR. This book will be published by Zed Books, after a formal proposal has been requested by Editorial Director Ken Barlow. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited Talk, book talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter gave a book talk and presentation at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, May 24, 2018 entitled: After Rape: Violence justice and social harmony in Uganda. Subsequently, the talk is available on podcast from their website. It was well attended by students and faculty as well as others from outside the University and sparked questions and discussion afterwards, and the school reported increased interest in related subject areas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter gave a book talk and presentation at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Social Science in Denmark, April 13th entitled: After Rape: Violence justice and social harmony in Uganda. It was well attended by students and faculty as well as others from outside the University and sparked questions and discussion afterwards, and the school reported increased interest in related subject areas. Colleagues at the University of Copenhagen were also planning to begin research on related gender issues and violence in northern Uganda and this talk and discussion afterward has impacted this as well as led to plans for future collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter gave a book talk and presentation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, February 8, 2018 entitled: After Rape: Violence justice and social harmony in Uganda. It was well attended by postgraduate and doctoral students and faculty as well as others from outside the University and sparked questions and discussion afterwards, and the school reported increased interest in related subject areas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Irish Times: Situation in the DRC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana was quoted in the Irish Times on the situation in the DRC in a January 30, 2019 article titled, "World looks away as DRC celebrates dubious democratic transition". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/world-looks-away-as-drc-celebrates-dubious-democratic-t... |
| Description | Juba Dissemination |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | South Sudan-based policy makers from the UN, NGO's and donors came together to hear and discuss research by Dr Leben Moro and Dr Naomi Pendle. Chirrilo Madut shared his personal story of return and Tomas Dai discussed his role as a cartoonist tasked with transforming research into artwork, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Justice briefs -Gulu, Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald briefed the regional state prosecutor (Gulu, Uganda) and Chief Magistrate (Gulu, Uganda) on justice seeking patterns among returning populations in Acholiland in July/August 2017.The activity reached the regional state prosecutor, as well as his team: the district state attorney and a junior state attorney. It also reached the Chief Magistrate of Gulu High Court and two grade I magistrates, and justice sector officials. This was a regional activity - focused on the Ugandan judicial sector in northern Uganda. The primary audience was Ugandan researchers, scholars and development practitioners as international researchers working on topics related to the grant. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| Description | Keeping the Faith: On the spiritual dimensions of South Sudanese exile in Arua, north-west Uganda #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Elizabeth Storer explaining spiritual and religious consequences of exile. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/09/22/keeping-the-faith-on-the-spiritual-dimensions-of-south... |
| Description | Keynote address at the Invitational Model African Union at Hobart and William Smith College |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis gave the keynote address at the Invitational Model African Union at Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, New York. Representing delegates from the African Union nations, students engaged in a weekend of dialogue and debate with their peers about the political, social, environmental and economic challenges that face the African continent. The aim of the conference is to enhance students' understanding of diplomacy and public speaking, respectfully engage with the diversity, significance and values of Africa, challenge colonial viewpoints and inspire interest in Africa. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | King's College-University of Nairobi African Leadership Centre Fellows |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | On July 30th 2019, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn welcomed six International Peace Institute (IPI) fellows from Kings College-University of Nairobi African Leadership Centre for a day-long event. The fellows learned about various programs at the SSRC - including CPPF, UVC, Media and Democracy, and the African Peacebuilding Network - and presented their own research for brainstorming and feedback. After welcoming remarks from Ambassador John L. Hirsch, Tatiana Carayannis chaired a discussion on the Council's history of commissioning research for the public good and outlined its current programming on the African continent and fellowships portfolio. The African Leadership Centre fellows research interests touched on various SSRC themes including women's political leadership, the security implications of forced migration, the challenges of the return and reintegration of ex-combatants, China-Africa relations, and resilience to violent extremism. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/king-s-college-african-leadership-centre-fellows/ |
| Description | King's College/African Leadership Centre of the University of Nairobi Fellows |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Social Science Research Council hosted a group of King's College Peace and Security Fellows as part of the SSRC's partnership with King's College London's African Leadership Centre, the University of Nairobi. The SSRC has been hosting the King's College Fellows annually for the past decade. The Peace, Security and Development Fellowship for African Scholars seeks to nurture junior African Scholars, specifically women, interested in pursuing a career in peace and security and to equip them with the skills necessary to achieve this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018,2019 |
| Description | Knowledge exchange meetings with policymakers, development practitioners and civil society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Five days of meetings in Kampala, Uganda to engage development practitioners, government officials, legal practitioners and civil society organisations on emerging findings of research on transitional justice and access to justice in northern Uganda and implications for policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Knowledge exchange workshop with development and foreign policy practitioners |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on "what works" in justice and security interventions in central Africa to UK HMG audience at the British Embassy in Nairobi. Presentation drew upon research conducted on transitional justice and access to state justice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Legacy of Mobilisation and Return of MLC in DRC's Gemena |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Aaron Pangburn (@panger55) is the Senior Program Manager of the Understanding Violent Conflict (UVC) program at the Social Science Research Council. He co-authored this blog with researchers Gino Vlavonou and Jose Ndala on the ways in which MLC ex-combatants have used their network to persevere through a decade of poor governance. Their unique history of local embeddedness and social cohesion has eased their transition from combatant to civilian, but if MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba is set to return to the DRC as a leading opposition figure, aims to mobilise a broader coalition of supporters, the MLC must reinvigorate his former political base and develop a platform with national appeal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/10/15/legacy-mobilisation-return-mlc-drc-gemena/ |
| Description | Machar Diu Presentation at the University of Khartoum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Machar Diu (South Sudanese researcher) presented research on the Nuer courts in refugee camps in Kosti (Sudan) during a conference at the University Khartoum. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Making Family: The Journey into Exile of a South Sudan Refugee - Part 2 #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog part 2 by Naomi Pendle that explores the meaning of exile and the lived experience of being a refugee through cycles of displacement and return. In the first article of this two-part series, Pendle tells us how Chol rebuilt home after years spent in exile. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/01/16/making-family-the-journey-into-exile-of-a-south-sudan-... |
| Description | Making Family: The Journey into Exile of a South Sudan Refugee Part 1 #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Naomi Pendle explores the meaning of exile and the lived experience of being a refugee through cycles of displacement and return. In the first article of this two-part series, Pendle tells us how Chol rebuilt home after years spent in exile. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/01/15/making-family-the-journey-into-exile-of-a-south-sudan-... |
| Description | Media coverage in Ugandan national paper - Daily Monitor |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Media interview, and quotes published in Ugandan national newspaper (Daily Monitor), on the Politics of Return project, exhibition and broader key findings from research in northern Uganda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Media coverage in Ugandan national paper - New Vision |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Media interview and subsequent quotes in New Vision (Ugandan national newspaper) on the Politics of Return conference, exhibition and project, and key findings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.google.com/search?q=LRA+returnees+need+counselling+gov+told&oq=LRA+returnees+need+counse... |
| Description | Meeting with General Denis Kalume, National Coordinator of the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and Great Lakes Region |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | During this meeting in Addis-Ababa, Tatiana Carayannis met with General Kalume, the primary national representatives tasked with implementing the DRC's commitments of the PSCF. One of his key challenges is the successful socio-economic integration of returning ex-combatants, and it was discussed that our work could be channeled into his policy reform process. General Kalume is the leader of the Government of the DRC's National Oversight Mechanism for the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework of the Great Lakes Region. The results of this meeting resulted in a possible change in policy, evolution of DDR programming in DRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Mobilising histories of discrimination, persecution and genocide to make progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals 21-22 May, 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The legacy of traumatic pasts - including internal displacement, war and genocide - is one of the most serious obstacles to development in post-conflict states. The Mobilising Histories workshop, which was organised by the University of Leeds and the South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation, and supported through the UK Global Challenges Research Fund, brought together academics and practitioners (from NGOs and civil society organisations), to learn from each other, and share their experience of devising arts interventions that mobilise 'dark pasts' to promote social justice agendas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://changingthestory.leeds.ac.uk/resources/working-papers/ |
| Description | Moving Toward "Home": Love and relationships in the aftermath of war and displacement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter gave a paper presentation titled, Moving Toward "Home": Love and relationships in the aftermath of war and displacement, presented in three conferences: African Studies Association UK, Cambridge, UK September 7-9; Development Studies Association, Oxford, UK, September 12-14; American Anthropological Association, Minneapolis, USA, November 16-20. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Notes from the field: mob justice in Gulu |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Julian Hopwood writes about an unsettling event on the field that led him to reflect on mob justice and the complicated moral and political territory it finds itself. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/11/23/notes-from-the-field-mob-justice-in-gulu/ |
| Description | Organised workshop on ethics and positionally of research in conflict environments |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | workshop in collaboration with GEC and Land Rush on ethics and positionally of research in conflict environments, September 2017, Bukavu, DRC (30+ local participants). in the workshop we worked together with Congolese researchers to discuss ethical dilemmas they face when conducting field research. This workshop was the first in a serie of sessions discussion and further reflecting on positionally and ethics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Organised workshop on research ethics and on blogging |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | We organised a workshop on research ethics and on blogging with GEC and Land Rush, October 2018, Bukavu, DRC (30+ local participants). This workshop was the second in a series, discussing ethical issues in doing field research in conflict sensitive areas. We also organised a workshop on how to write blogs, so Congolese researchers can more readily participate to discussions around Congo, and research ethics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Panel, "This Is Congo" at the New School's Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana gave a talk at the New School's Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility following their film screening of "This Is Congo" as a part of their Fall Performance in Motion Film Series. The film takes the audience into the cycles of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and provides a very rare look inside the Congolese Army (FARDC), while also following the movement of internally displaced people in the region. Tatiana's discussion was complemented by remarks by the film's producer/editor Alyse Ardell Spiegel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://events.newschool.edu/event/film_series_this_is_congo#.XE84UFVKiCg |
| Description | Papa Mfumu'Eto, Carter Conference, African Studies, University of Florida |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Paper presentation given by Joe Trapido entitled 'Papa Mfumu'Eto vernacular sociologist, which was about the social and cultural context of Congolese cartoonist Papa Mfumu'Eto. The paper was delivered mainly to scholars at a conference that included several open sessions attended by the public, including readings and presentations by artists and novelists, and a school visit. There were around 40 people in attendance including Africanist scholars from history and anthropology, museum curators, artists and writers and wider university figures. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Paper Presentation: The role of magistrates courts in conflict-related disputes in northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald gave a paper presentation on the role of magistrates courts in conflict-related disputes in northern Uganda at University of Edinburgh, Centre for African Studies (CAS) conference Law and Social Order (3-4 April 2017). The audience included international academics, researchers and scholars from UK, US, Zimbabwe, France, Portugal, Kenya and Belgium. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Paper Presentation: Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald gave a paper presentation on Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in northern Uganda at Oxford University Transitional Justice Network seminar in March 2017. 20 participants but likely more through the Oxford Transitional Justice Network podcast, which recorded and distributed the presentation. Audience included primarily with scholars, researchers and practitioners engaged in the local dimensions and impact of transitional justice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Paper Presentation: Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Holly Porter presented her paper on Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in northern Uganda at Oxford University Transitional Justice Network seminar in March 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Paper presentation and panel organisation at the African Studies Association in the USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Around 50 people attended, primarily other academics, and students, a panel I organised where I also presented a paper. which sparked questions and discussion afterwards as well as invitations to present to other academics classes and being put onto reading lists for courses. The paper was, Moving toward 'home': Love and relationships through war and displacement. African Studies Association, Boston, MA, USA, November 20-24 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Paper presentation: Role of magistrates courts in conflict-related disputes |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald presented her paper on the role of magistrates courts in conflict-related disputes in northern Uganda at University of Edinburgh, Centre for African Studies (CAS) conference Law and Social Order (3-4 April 2017). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Participation in Workshop - Witchcraft and Insecurity 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at Workshop |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Participation to workshop - silent voices from the field |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | On 26 October, Koen Vlassenroot participated in the 'Silent Voices from the Field' workshop organized by CRG at Ghent University. Participants of workshop included researchers from CRG partners in the Global South. The workshop connected to similar reflections held in eastern Congo in January and October 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Pathways for Peace: Mapping Out a New Research Agenda with the Global Challenges Research Fund and the UK Research Councils |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Supporters |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis participated in a joint, two-day workshop with the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the UK Research Council (RCUK) titled "Pathways for Peace: Mapping Out a New Research Agenda,". The meeting was held at the United Nations and brought together researchers funded by the RCUKs and UN practitioners for a critical discussion on the recent UN-World Bank report, Pathways to Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Photo Essay: Seeing Displacement through Ethnographic Photography #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Elizabeth Storer unveiling a project which seeks to present a more accurate portrayal of displacement through the medium of photography. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/09/20/photo-essay-seeing-displacement-through-ethnographic-p... |
| Description | PoR Grant Wrap-Up Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis participated in a wrap-up meeting on the Politics of Return Research collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Politically Speaking Interview with Laura Gees |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis was interviewed by Laura Gees for the UN Department of Political Affairs' online magazine Politically Speaking on her work in the DRC, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Politics of Return Annual Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn participated in a series of workshops at the annual meeting of its Politics of Return and Reintegration research consortium, at which they presented the findings of their fieldwork research on a case of "successful" return and reintegration of a group of ex-combatants in the Equateur Province of the DRC: the Toleka. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Politics, the Interfaith Religious Platform and Public Authority in CAR |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Gino Vlavonou explores how multiple public authorities shape the current armed conflict in CAR in his #PublicAuthority blog. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/02/07/politics-the-interfaith-religious-platform-and-public... |
| Description | Preliminary discussions about a showing of the Gbadolite airport photo exhibit/essay |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This meeting was an initial conversation to gage NYU's interest in hosting this type of exhibit on university grounds. The feedback was positive, and once the Gbadolite event is scheduled, a follow-up for a New York showing will follow. The intention of the exhibit is to broaden the exposure of the Gbadolite Airport graffiti, and the historical significance of this form of art to an audience in one of the most artistic communities in the world. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and organisation of two day conference in Gulu, northern Uganda on the Politics of Return (alongside launch of Art exhibition 'When we Return' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A large, two-day conference held in Gulu, northern Uganda, to share key findings of the Politics of Return project with practitioners, policy makers, media, study participants, artists and researchers; and to run alongside the launch of the Politics of Return Art Exhibition, 'When we Return'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/10/03/images-politics-of-return-displacement/ |
| Description | Presentation at Conference at University of Copenhagen: 21st Anniversary of the Rome Statute of the ICC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop to discuss the record of the International Criminal Court on its 21st Anniversary. Research on the record of the International Criminal Court in Uganda was presented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/calendar/2019/the-21st-anniversary-of-the-rome-statute/ |
| Description | Presentation at UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Seven policy makers from the UK's Foreign Office and from UK's Department for International Development attended a presentation that I organised to share research carried out in Malakal's United Nations Protection of Civilian Sites (POCS) (South Sudan). I organised the presentation and also invite two other academics to present on their research findings that related to other Protection of Civilian Sites in South Sudan. The research presented highlighted looked at the ways people have built shelters as a way to explore how camp residents have remade dignity. Plus, they have used their shelters to remake social diversity despite the conditions of the camp and despite the tendency towards homogeneity in humanitarian programming. At the moment, in the UK government, these UN protection sites are of concern because: 1) policy decisions are being made about the future of the sites in South Sudan; 2) policy decisions are being made about whether the POCS model in South Sudan should be repeated elsewhere. This timely discussion was able to directly feed into UK government policy discussions. Policy has not yet been formed at the time of writing. However, the audience found it useful to think about the diversity in the POCS and residents agency in these contexts. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation at workshop in Gulu, northern Uganda, on Trajectories of Displacement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A workshop in Gulu, northern Uganda to discuss on-going research related to displacement and return in northern Uganda and central Africa more broadly. Participants included international, regional and local researchers as well as media representatives and practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation of article on previous research for the workshop for the Gender Justice and Security Hub |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The presentation was part of a panel themed on resilient entitled 'Moving Toward Home: Love and Relationships through war and displacement' was given to a gathering of Hub researchers, practitioners and study participants from Hub partners and some members of the public in Sri Lanka. It sparked questions and discussion afterwards and led to new connections and a growing network for future work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation to OECD States of Fragility Expert reference group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to the OECD States of Fragility Experts Reference Group on key findings from research, to inform the OECD's new report/policy making on prevention and peacebuilding. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Public Authority in the DRC and UN Peace Operations: A Talk at Peking University, Beijing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | December 18th 2017 Tatiana Carayannis, gave a talk on the nature of public authority in the DRC and UN peace operations to a group of Chinese scholars, researchers, students, and faculty members at Peking University in Beijing (PKU) - hosted by Dr. Liu Haifang, Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the Centre for African Studies at Peking University's School of International Studies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/public-authority-in-the-drc-and-un-peace-operations-a-talk-at-pekin... |
| Description | Pursuing Justice in Northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald and Holly Porter explore issues of justice, accountability and social repair in the context of post-conflict northern Uganda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/12/24/pursuing-justice-in-northern-uganda-lsereturn/ |
| Description | Restitution of African Cultural Heritage |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On 18 October 2019 Tatiana participated in a workshop at Columbia University's Institute of African Studies on the restitution of African cultural heritage dispossessed and held in art collections around the world. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Revisiting 'justice' in northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This is a blog that explores justice interventions in northern Uganda. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/01/11/revisiting-justice-in-northern-uganda-lsereturn/ |
| Description | Revisiting 'justice' in northern Uganda #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Two studies in the current issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies re-visit the fascinating debate about justice and reconciliation in northern Uganda, nearly ten years since the fighting between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) stopped on Ugandan soil, as Anna Macdonald, Holly Porter and Letha Victor discuss in this blog. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/01/11/revisiting-justice-in-northern-uganda-lsereturn/ |
| Description | Roundtable on Academic Engagement: "Power of Rules and Rule of Power" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Roundtable on academic engagement with think tanks and policymakers organized by the Bridging the Gap project in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/roundtable-discussion-on-academic-engagement-with-think-tanks-and-p... |
| Description | Safe Havens 2019 - Cape Town, South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Since 2013, a global network of cultural creators, journalists and academics has held an annual meeting to gather and share knowledge about both threats to and solutions around artist and writers under the umbrella of the Safe Havens conference. The goal of the Safe Havens conferences has been to create a context where networks in the area of freedom of expression and human rights in artistic practice can meet across disciplinary and national boundaries. This is to create greater inclusion and commitment to protecting persecuted creatives. It is important to create a place where authorities, organisations and activists can meet and discuss the issues; to meet on equal terms and learn from each other. Kara Blackmore presented the Politics of Return work on a specific panel dedicated to Uganda and the issues of critical research as well as collaboration and equity. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.swedenabroad.se/en/embassies/south-africa-pretoria/current/calendar/safe-havens/ |
| Description | Social Science in Humanitarian Action Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On September 10, 2019, Tatiana Carayannis participated in the second meeting of the Social Science in Humanitarian Action network on the DRC Ebola virus outbreak and response. The meeting was held at the Wellcome Trust in London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | TAKS Centre in Gulu: From Bastion of the Colonial Establishment to Acholi Cultural Hub |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In the Africa@LSE blog, Morris Omara and Tim Allen unveil the role of art in the healing process following the trauma of a two-decade-long civil war in northern Uganda by exploring the history of the TAKS Community Arts Centre in Gulu. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/09/24/taks-centre-in-gulu-from-bastion-of-the-colonial-esta... |
| Description | Talk at the Global Studies Research Seminar, Ghent University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The Global Studies Research Seminar provides doctoral students (and advanced Master students as well as postdoctoral researchers) whose research is situated in, or related to, the field of Global Studies in-depth and advanced training in contemporary critical Global Studies, and theory and methodology in related fields, Tatiana Carayannis spoke on a panel titled "Global Studies in Parliament - the promises and pitfalls of policy influence" about processes of political agenda-setting and policy-making, the politics of knowledge transfer and exchange, short-term and long-term influence, conditions, strategies and capacities for policy-influencing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Tatiana's interview on the DRC on France 24 and BBC Radio |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis was interviewed by France 24 and BBC Radio for her analysis of post-electoral dynamics in the DRC. Tatiana makes a well-argued, carefully thought out case for how the short-term fix that has prompted a post-electoral crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo have 'sowed the seeds for instability' and could lead to long-term instability and violence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.france24.com/en/video/20190120-tatiana-carayannis-conflict-prevention-peace-forum-electi... |
| Description | The Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Differently |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On May 1st 2018, Tatiana Carayannis moderated and spoke on a panel discussion at the United Nations Secretariat on "The Changing Landscape of Armed Groups: Doing Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Differently." This panel discussion was hosted by the World Bank Group and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations' Office of the Rule of Law and Security Institutions and brought together representatives from the United Nations, Member States, civil society, and academia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/the_changing_landscape_of_armed_groups.pdf |
| Description | The Politics of Return: An agenda for research #LSEreturn |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Professor Tim Allen and Dr Anna Macdonald discuss why it is more important than ever to investigate the dynamics of return and reintegration in Central and Eastern Africa. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/09/18/the-politics-of-return-an-agenda-for-research-lseretur... |
| Description | The Situation in the DRC (with Sylvain Saluseke, LUCHA) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On 16 March 2018, SSRC researchers, Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn organized a Central Africa Policy Forum on current developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with featured speaker Sylvain Saluseke of the Congolese pro-democracy youth activist group, LUCHA. The meeting, held at the Security Council Report and in the margins of Security Council debates on the mandate renewal of the UN mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), brought together representatives from UN country missions, the UN Secretariat, NGOs, and researchers. LUCHA or Struggle for Change (Twitter: @luchaRDC) is a non-violent, non-partisan citizen's movement formed in 2012 and based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Neither a classic NGO nor a political party, Lucha has mobilized in innovative ways to ensure young people's voices are heard in DRC. Sylvain Saluseke, a businessman and activist, was held by Congolese security forces for over a month in 2015 for his work with the movement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/the-situation-in-the-drc-with-sylvain-saluseke-lucha/ |
| Description | The legacy of LRA conflict continues to disempower women in rural Northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Donnas Ojok shares a compelling personal tale of how the impact of the LRA war in Northern Uganda still make it difficult for women and girls to thrive. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/03/14/the-legacy-of-lra-conflict-continues-to-disempower-wom... |
| Description | Towards a New Congo Crisis: A Roundtable Conversation on Security, Electoral Tensions and Political Imaginaries in the DRC: A Talk at NYU, Abu Dhabi Institute |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | On February 12th, Tatiana Carayannisspoke at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute on "Towards a New Congo Crisis? A Roundtable Conversation on Security, Electoral Tensions and Political Imaginaries in the DRC". This roundtable discussion examined the current wave of protests in the DRC and the gravity of the mass displacement of 4.3 million civilians before examining the possible evolution of the crisis and the prospects for political change.Tatiana spoke of the growing pro-democracy movement and political impasse in Kinshasa, and of regional dynamics, and warned that the DRC is now facing its worst crisis since 1998. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ssrc.org/events/view/dr-tatiana-carayannis-speaks-at-nyu-on-towards-a-new-congo-crisis-a... |
| Description | Trajectories of Displacement Stakeholder Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In August 2017, a large research stakeholders workshop was held in Gulu, northern Uganda, chaired by Dr Grace Akello, a research consultant on the grant from Gulu University. Forty Ugandan researchers were in attendance from the UK and across Uganda, as well as practitioners and policy-makers. The workshop programme encouraged the development of research ideas linked to 'Trajectories of Displacement' as well as advice and training on the writing of research proposals. Shortly after the workshop a 'call for proposals' was circulated and twenty-five proposals were received. To date, we have commissioned three papers (topics below) and the PI, co-Is and project consultants will work closely with and mentor the junior researchers as they develop their research and write it up. Julius Kaka, 'The civil-military interface and the reality of post-conflict reconstruction in northern Uganda' Eric Awich Ocen, 'A re-examination of women's participation in household livelihoods initiatives and community development: the case of the VSLA and self-help groups in northern Uganda'. Robert Okeny, 'Self-help groups, social capital and the role of development actors in community post-conflict reconstruction'. The workshops were also document on the TAKS Community Art Centre blog: Day one - http://takscentre.blogspot.com/2017/08/taks-unites-lawinos-people35-years.html Day two - http://takscentre.blogspot.com/2017/08/taks-unites-lawinos-people35-years_8.html |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://takscentre.blogspot.com/2017/08/taks-unites-lawinos-people35-years_8.html |
| Description | Truth, Evidence and Proof in the realm of the unseen |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On the Africa@LSE blog, Julian Hopwood reflects in first of a two-part series on matters of evidence in both the Ugandan justice system and in popular understandings of witchcraft. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/11/23/truth-evidence-and-proof-in-the-realm-of-the-unseen-p... |
| Description | Truth, Evidence and Proof in the realm of the unseen (Part 2) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | In the Africa@LSE blog, Julian Hopwood reflects in the second article of a two-part series on matters of evidence in both the Ugandan justice system and in popular understandings of witchcraft. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/11/30/truth-evidence-and-proof-in-the-realm-of-the-unseen-p... |
| Description | Understanding South Sudan |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Speakers and academics based in the UK were brought together with policy makers and representatives of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sudan and South Sudan, to engage the urgent questions of knowledge and its consequences. Key speakers were Martin Ochaya, a pastor, researcher and political analyst; Frédérique Cifuentes Morgan, a filmmaker and cultural producer and Aru Muortat, an economist and heir to a legacy of political resistance leadership. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/11/23/understanding-south-sudan-questions-of-knowledge-and-r... |
| Description | United Nations Summer Study |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In June, Tatiana Carayannis spoke at the annual United Nations Summer Study (UNSS), a 7-week program for advanced undergraduate and graduate students at the New School's Julien J. Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs on the nexus between public authroity, development, human rights, humanitarian action, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and environmental and reform issues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | United Nations University - Conflict Prevention Strategy Retreat |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On September 10, 2018 Tatiana participated in a strategy retreat at the Greentree Estate with the United Nations University's Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR). This retreat brought together a select group of key researchers, thinkers, and policy actors to think through the major challenges facing the United Nations in the area of evidence-based policy research. Discussions are organized around a series of themes, relating to prevention and public authority, challenges to the rules-based order, and policy impact of research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Video: Reliving the Euphoria of South Sudan Independence through the Documentary Our Bright Stars |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Almost seven years after South Sudan became independent, we look back at the high expectations citizens had for their new nation through the eyes of a documentary, Our Bright Stars, directed by Frederique Cifuentes and Sidi Moctar Khaba. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2018/02/19/video-reliving-the-euphoria-of-south-sudan-independenc... |
| Description | What Ghost Rape Teaches Us About What Rape Really Is |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The biog explores: What is rape? Is it a socio-cultural or legal construct? Is it a bodily experience? Is it an objective thing that exists apart from subjective human experience? Reflecting on evidence from war and post-war northern Uganda, It suggests that rape might better be understood as a sexual trespass on the boundaries of being. The blog suggests ways outsiders wanting to understand a context deeply impacted by decades of war might look beyond physically evident conditions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/02/18/what-ghost-rape-teaches-us-about-what-rape-actually-i... |
| Description | Women Peace and Security , Intensive Course for policymakers, presentation of research on sexual violence and justice in Northern Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Women Peace and Security centre at LSE organises an annual intensive course attended by practitioners and policymakers. Holly Porter presented research from northern Uganda on sexual violence, and responses to it. The presentation highlighted some of the policy implications of the research. The presentation sparked a lively debate, questions and discussion afterward, some of which has been continued over email. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Workshop at LSE: South Sudanese Displacement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | to explore issues of representation in the current conflict in South Sudan |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2017 |
| Description | Workshop at TAKS Centre, Gulu on Lawino's people |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Tim Allen, Melissa Parker and others on the PaCCs team: in the summer of 2017, a 2 day workshop was convened at the TAKS Centre, Gulu on Lawino's people. This workshop focused on Okot p'Btek and others who have written on the region in the past. It also provided an opportunity for around 60 participants to discuss the kind of research they felt was important following the end of the war, and the breaking up of the displacement camps. The event was blogged by the TAKS Centre themselves - highlighting the local impact of the event. Around 60 people attended. It was aimed at researchers in the region, although around 10 international researchers attended, including representatives of the International Criminal Court. A book, based partly on the meeting has been completed and passed to the publisher. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://takscentre.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/taks-unites-lawinos-people35-years_8.html |
| Description | Workshop in Bukavu |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 22-23 January 2018 a workshop was organized in Bukavu with 35 local researchers, including our research team (Tatiana Carayannis, Koen Vlassenroot, and Aaron Pangburn), to discuss ethical challenges of local researchers. This seminar was organized in collaboration with the ISDR and ISP, two local research and teaching institutes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Workshop in Gemena |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | On 30 January, a workshop was organized by Tatiana Carayannis, Aaron Pangburn, and Koen Vlassenroot in Gemena with various segments of the Congolese ex-combatant community (ex-MLC, ex-Conader) to discuss their experiences of return. This conversation will be hosted with Les Aiglons, a locally based NGO. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Workshop on blogging with GEC and Land Rush, January 2019, Kamembe, Rwanda (30+ local participants) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In this second workshop on blogging, which we organised with GEC and Land Rush, January 2019, Kamembe, Rwanda (30+ local participants) We followed up on how to write a blog, more over we discussed ongoing research activities in the region and reflected on the outcome of the Congolese elections. Due to security restrictions by Ugent the event was organise din Rwanda instead of Bukavu, East DRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Workshop on the 5th Anniversary of the Signing of the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework (PSCF) for DRC and the Great Lakes Region of Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Tatiana Carayannis served as the facilitator for the workshop on the 5th Anniversary of the signing of the Peace, Security & Cooperation Framework (PSCF) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Africa's Great Lakes region in Addis Ababa. Led by UN Special Envoy Said Djinnit, this workshop brought together dignitaries, leaders, and other regional stakeholders to assess progress in the implementation of the PSCF in the 5 years since it was signed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://ungreatlakes.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/joint_press_release_-_five_years_on_the_peac... |
| Description | Workshop: Law and Social Order |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Anna Macdonald (co-I), working in partnership with Dr Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock at the Edinburgh Centre for African Studies through a small British Academy/Leverhume grant, helped conceive of the event and put together the agenda and list of participants. Macdonald's PoR funded work on the role of Magistrate's Courts in return-related land and generational disputes in Gulu, northern Uganda was presented at the conference. Macdonald also chaired the high-level session on 'Order and Disorder' in law and social order. The conference was administered through the University of Edinburgh Centre for African Studies. The conference was administered through the University of Edinburgh Centre for African Studies. Two articles were submitted to peer-reviewed journals; An ESRC open call funding application for further collaborative research (Macdonald and Cooper-Knock) on the role of Magistrates' Courts in areas of limited statehood (this was submitted in Feburary 2018). The collaboration leading to the conference contributed to theoretical and empirical knowledge exchange on contestations around law and social order across several African contexts. It also resulted in on-going collaboration between Macdonald and Cooper-Knock to prepare and submit an ESRC open call application for further research on the role of Magistates' Courts in areas of limited statehood. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Workshops in Gulu (Feb-March 2019) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop held over a series of days in Gulu, presenting and discussing papers that will be included in a special issue on displacement and return. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | conference presentation - Geneva |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | On 15-17 November 2018, Koen Vlassenroot participated at the international conference on Civil Wars and State Formation - Africa in Comparative Perspective. The conference was convened by the University of Geneva and the Swiss Society of African Studies. He presented a paper on the circular return of combatants in eastern DRC and exchanged with academics and Swiss Peace staff. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | meeting with Stabilisation Unit, Monusco |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Meeting with Stabilisation Unit, Monusco, October 2018, Goma, DRC. To discuss conflict dynamics in eastern Congo and to provide feedback to MONUSCO on their approach in the region. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |