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Course Outline - Building environmental movements in divided societies

Instructor: Dr. Chiara Milan

The recent years have seen an unprecedented wave of mobilization around the environment and environmental-related issues. Environmental campaigning and ecological concerns have brought together different actors to stage protests and raise their voice for a better environment and the preservation of natural resources. Collective action for the environment has occurred also in societies divided along ethnic lines, where individuals of different background joined their forces to safeguard natural resources. This course aims to provide students with a critical reading of the main debates within the field of collective action in divided societies, with a specific focus on the emergence and development of environmental movements and mobilization for spatial justice. It draws on the literature on social movement studies and on deeply divided societies, with the contribution of scholars, local practitioners and activists engaged in the field. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) represents a case in point for the study of social movements in divided societies, and in particular of environmental movements, which emerged and diffused nationwide in the last decade. BiH represents in fact a critical and strategic case for the examination and understanding of the dynamics of mobilization in divided societies, at times challenging the existing theoretical assumptions. Over the last decade, contentious collective action took place in BiH in spite of the country presenting a wide range of unfavourable conditions for its occurrence.

We will start by reviewing the key debates on divided societies.

Session one will be devoted to elaborating on the notion of divide, central concept in the social sciences. In the first session the participants will be acquainted with the different types of cleavages and divides that exist in societies. While extant literature tends to focus on the ethnic divide, we will explore other types of cleavages that subsist in a society.
Session two will examine the implication and challenges of institutional arrangements in governing divided societies. We will try to understand the main dilemmas concerning the representation of minorities, non-dominant communities, and non-aligned citizens in power-sharing systems.
Session three will delve into the ways in which ordinary people mobilize to challenge, at times overcoming, divides from the bottom-up, demonstrating that in divided societies people may ascribe to broader civic affiliations and imagine alternative forms of political community. We will thus look at the recent scholarly works addressing various aspects of collective action in divided societies, from the formation of collective identities to the emergence of environmental and right to the city movements. The session will thus focus on civic mobilizations in divided settings, with a particular attention to environmental movements and the discussion of empirical cases in different geographical areas, with a specific attention to the former Yugoslav region.
Session four will elaborate more in detail the campaigns for spatial justice struggle and the relevance of urban commons in sparking social mobilization in divided societies, looking also at existing cases of common governance in urban and rural areas that cross ethnic divisions. This session will look at how environmental movements emerged in rural areas to protect the commons (such as rivers), challenging the view that cities and the urban space constitute the main place of resistance.
Session five will explore the possibilities of participatory and deliberative democratic practices as a possible way forward to overcome divisions, focusing on their importance in overcoming existing cleavages.
Session six will conclude the course with a wrap-up activity consisting in a practical exercise of simulation (e.g. citizens’ assemblies, deliberative mini-publics). Throughout the course, in-class discussion will be enriched by lectures of scholars, practitioners and activists engaged in local, bottom-up environmental initiatives that challenge institutional norms, practices and policies that legitimize and preserve divides.

The course will consist of:

sessions over four weeks (January 9 - 30, 2023)
a virtual excursion that will include interaction with environmental activist organizations

The classes will be based on an online model.

Instructors: Trauma-Sensitive Peacebuilding

Instructors

amela cropped tall Amela Puljek-Shank

After living through the war in Bosnia & Herzegovina as an internally displaced person, Amela Puljek-Shank has worked for almost three decades in the field of peacebuilding as a facilitator, trainer, and manager.

As Program Manager for Karuna Peacebuilding Center and as Mennonite Central Committee’s Area Director for Europe and the Middle East, she supervised programs and staff working on peacebuilding and trauma healing in divided societies and oversaw their work with local partner organizations. She has worked in Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, including in BiH, Croatia, Kosovo and Serbia, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, and Ukraine as well as virtual work during the Covid-19 pandemic with partners in Nigeria and Myanmar.

Puljek-Shank specializes in trauma healing, recovery, and in the areas of worker care, compassion fatigue and burnout. Currently, she works as a consultant to international organizations and focuses on organizational development, capacity building, strategic planning, and developing and leading trainings and evaluation processes. She has created and led over 80 interactive trainings on the topics of trauma and reconciliation, conflict transformation, nonviolent communication, resilience, self-care and care for others. Her publications include “The Contribution of Trauma Healing to Peacebuilding in Southeast Europe” in Peacebuilding for Traumatized Societies (ed. Barry Hart, 2008), “Trauma and Reconciliation” in 20 Steps towards Reconciliation (Center for Nonviolent Action, 2007), and “Journey of Healing” in Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding (Pact Publications, 2003). Currently, Amela is also under supervision as a student studying Gestalt Therapy in an accredited program from the European Association for Gestalt Therapy in the European Association for Psychotherapy.

Julianne Funk cropped Julianne Funk Julianne Funk is a peace scholar-practitioner dedicated to nonviolent conflict transformation for two decades. She brings together scientific analysis and local peace innovations, specializing in ethnic, religious and trauma-informed conflict and peace practices and the post-war Western Balkan context.

Julianne organized the international conference “Trauma, Memory and Healing in the Balkans and Beyond” (Sarajevo, 2015), co-edited the book Healing and Peacebuilding after War: Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Routledge), and has taught at the University of Zurich and Lenoir-Rhyne University (USA).

Currently, she is a Research Fellow at the South-East Europe Programme of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Managing Editor of the journal Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and she serves as Treasurer for the European Society of Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS). She has a PhD in social sciences and MA in peace and conflict studies from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; her BA is in theology from Wheaton College (USA). Julianne has published on political, diaspora and religious identities, public religiosity, trauma and healing, Bosnian Islam, socially engaged Buddhism, Mennonite conflict transformation, reconciliation, peace and conflict studies, coexistence and women’s spirituality.

Guest Speakers

vahadin omanovic cropped Vahidin Omanović

Vahidin Omanović received his Master’s degree in International Relations with a concentration in Conflict Resolution at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. He also served as a teaching assistant in SIT’s Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (CONTACT) program, where he taught classes on forgiveness and conflict transformation.

In 2004, Omanović co-founded the Center for Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which seeks to rebuild trust and foster reconciliation among the people of Bosnia — Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, and others—as well as support peace processes in other countries that have suffered from violent conflict. He has taught peace workshops and trainings throughout the world, including in Switzerland, Georgia, Germany, USA, Kosovo, North Macedonia, the Philippines, and Nepal, where he helped to found a peacebuilding organization.

In 2011, the Threshold Foundation from Germany honored Omanović with the 5th International Bremen Peace Award, naming him the year’s “Unknown Peace Worker.” In 2014, at the Center for Peacebuilding he won a Tomorrow’s Peacebuilder peace award given by Peace Direct, UK. In 2015, he was awarded the Cohen Center’s Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust & Genocide Awareness (Keene, NH, USA). Omanović has been a guest faculty member at Bennington College in Vermont each spring from 2017-2021.

Seth Seth Karamage

Seth Karamage was born and raised in Rwanda. He completed his graduate studies in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University, where his focus was on conflict resolution, mediation, strategic organizational leadership, and diversity work. He has been working with the University of Massachusetts (UMass Boston) under the auspices of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CPDD) for 11 years, managing its peacebuilding and governance projects in Nigeria and Rwanda, respectively. Currently, Karamage is UMass Boston’s Resident Country Director for the Strengthening of Rwandan Administrative Justice (SRAJ) project, a nationwide initiative intended to improve the state of administrative justice in Rwanda and to spur training, civic awareness, and legal and policy reforms. Karamage has also been working as a Dialogue Coach as part of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding’s Healing Our Communities project in Rwanda. In Nigeria from 2012-2017, he implemented the project TOLERANCE (Training of Leaders on Religious and National Co-Existence) which promoted peace and reconciliation among religious leaders and their constituencies in northern and southeastern Nigerian states.

Through work with media influencers, military personnel, young people who lost their parents through terrorist acts, and groups of divided religious leaders, ethnic leaders, and women, he has developed expertise in post-conflict stabilization and mitigation, security-risk assessment, recruitment and training of peace practitioners, project management, program design, and facilitating dialogue for institutional and community collaboration. Karamage also founded the Rural Economic Development and Management (REDEM) Company which aims to improve rural farmers’ social and economic livelihoods with modern agricultural techniques to strengthen sustainable peace and reconciliation efforts in Rwanda.

Barry Hart 2 Barry Hart

Dr. Barry Hart is Professor Emeritus of Trauma, Identity and Conflict Studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Dr. Hart has conducted workshops on peacebuilding, psychosocial trauma recovery and reconciliation for religious and secular leaders in Northern Ireland, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Burundi and South Africa. Hart lived and worked in the Balkans where he developed and led trauma and conflict transformation programs for schools, communities and religious leaders. Barry was the Team Leader for a USAID Tolerance Assessment in Bosnia-Herzegovina (2009). He was also engaged in a three-year peacebuilding institute and curriculum development project between EMU and the University of Hargeisa in Somaliland (2008-2011); and taught peacebuilding at the University of Sarajevo from 2018-2020. In August and September, 2021, Barry was the lead trainer for a UNDP sponsored Training of Trainers of 45 psychosocial facilitators in South Sudan. Dr. Hart recently stepped down as a member of the International Council of Initiatives of Change, “a world-wide movement of people of diverse cultures and backgrounds, who are committed to the transformation of society through changes in human motives and behavior, starting with their own.” Hart holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), George Mason University.

Katie Mansfield 2021 headshot cropped Katie Mansfield

Dr. Katie Mansfield is facilitator of learning about trauma-sensitivity and resilience-building amidst conflict, stress, and adversity in multiple contexts, in the field of peacebuilding for over fifteen years. Katie is the Lead Trainer for Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Prior to joining STAR in 2015, she worked for three years as Peacebuilding Coordinator with Mennonite Central Committee in Kenya. This followed an apprenticeship with peacebuilder John Paul Lederach and work with CDA Collaborative Learning Projects’ Listening Project. Katie has worked in the US in corporate, nonprofit, higher education and youth programs; and in Kenya, India, and the Philippines (Mindanao) with peace education, trauma awareness and resilience training, environmental education and conflict transformation initiatives. She has facilitated trainings with peacebuilding, development, human rights and humanitarian workers, students and educators in Afghanistan, Argentina, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Fiji, Kenya, Lebanon, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and the US (including US government agencies).

Katie’s formal and informal studies have focused on Expressive Arts, peacebuilding, history, movement therapies, yoga instruction, and integrative energetic medicine. She recently completed her PhD with a doctoral dissertation entitled “Re-friending the body: Arts-based, embodied learning for building resilience” with the European Graduate School in Switzerland. She also holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an AB in History from Harvard University.

Trauma-Sensitive Peacebuilding: Program Introduction & Course Description

Program Introduction

As societies continue to fracture along political, ethnic, and ideological lines, becoming aware of and being equipped to deal with various types of trauma is increasingly relevant for all of us in our families, everyday relationships, workplaces, and communities. Trauma-sensitive peacebuilding requires that we recognize and acknowledge individual, communal, and historical harms and incorporate strategies for healing individuals and societies.

Instructors - Peacebuilding Practices in Divided Societies

Emily Stanton fotka Dr. Emily Stanton joined Community Relations In Schools (CRIS) as Programme Manager in October 2020 having worked within the peacebuilding field both in Northern Ireland and internationally for over twenty years. Emily was awarded a doctorate in International Conflict and Peacebuilding with INCORE from Ulster University in 2018. Her professional practice includes research, teaching, and training in peace and conflict studies, education, mediation, trauma and resiliency, and community relations. She is also experienced in conducting community-based monitoring and evaluation on topics of peacebuilding and social cohesion. Emily has two children and lives in East Belfast with her husband, cat, and dog.

Zlatiborka Popov Momcinovic Dr. Zlatiborka Popov Momčinović is an associate professor of political sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of East Sarajevo. Her PhD dissertation was Women's Movement in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina: Achievements, Initiatives, and Controversies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. The focus of her research is on gender, development of civil society and women’s activism, religion and politics, professionalism of media and reconciliation processes. She is active in civil society, trying to reconcile scientific and activist engagement, and was engaged as an expert and key-note speakers by various NGOs in activities related to gender equality, religious tolerance and dialogue, rights and freedoms of marginal groups (autistic children, mothers of children with disabilities, LGBT population), media literacy, political culture and participation.

jramovic sm Dr. Jasmin Ramović is a Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies in Politics Department at the University of Manchester. He is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to studying international relations, particularly the intersection of anthropology, international political economy and peace and conflict studies. His research focuses on local actors in conflict-affected settings, with a specific focus on the economic dimension of their everyday. This has led his recent research projects to concentrate on examining the potential of the workplace for peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly the changes which affected this space in country’s transition from the socialist to capitalist economy. He is also interested in analysing the state of social contracts in societies divided by violent conflicts. His research has been published in international journals and he has recently co-edited The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace (2016).

orichmond sm

Dr. Oliver Richmond is a research professor in Politics Department, University of Manchester. His primary area of expertise is in peace and conflict theory, and in particular its inter-linkages with IR theory. He is currently working on a book on The International Peace Architecture and Global Order in the 21st Century (OUP, forthcoming). His most recent work has been on peace formation and its relation to state formation, statebuilding, and peacebuilding (Failed Statebuilding and Peace Formation, Yale University Press 2014 & Peace Formation and Political Order, Oxford University Press, 2016). This area of interest has grown out of his work on local forms of critical agency and resistance, and their role in constructing hybrid or post-liberal forms of peace and states (see A Post-Liberal Peace, Routledge, 2011), as well as earlier conflict resolution and conflict management debates in IR, including international mediation, peacekeeping, and state formation debates. He has also published a Very Short Introduction to Peace (Oxford University Press, 2014), which offers an overview of the development of related concepts, theory and practices. He edits a Palgrave Book Series called Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, which seeks to provide a forum for the development of new and alternative approaches for understanding the dynamics of conflict and of the construction of peace. He is also co-editor of the journal "Peacebuilding”.

Portret Michelle foto

Dr. Michelle Parlevliet is a peacebuilding practitioner and process facilitator with a long-term focus on the nexus of peacebuilding, conflict transformation, human rights and social justice, working since 1995 at community, national and international levels in various contexts. She served, amongst other things, as senior conflict transformation adviser for the Danish Foreign Ministry in Nepal at the end of the civil war; worked with the conflict team of the World Bank in Aceh; with the Centre for Conflict Resolution in South Africa; and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Upon her return to Europe in 2010, she served a few years as an academic at the Universities of Amsterdam and Copenhagen upon completion of her PhD, before striking out again as an independent practitioner. She's an associate of international peacebuilding NGO Conciliation Resources and a senior associate with Reos Partners (a social enterprise focusing on systemic change and complex challenges). In the latter capacity she's currently co-facilitating a multi-stakeholder dialogue process on criminal justice in the Netherlands. Michelle holds a PhD in law and MA degree in political science (Univ of Amsterdam) and a MA degree in international peace and conflict Studies (Un. of Notre Dame, IN).

Louis M foto Dr. Louis Monroy Santander is lecturer in International relations at Ponctificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia. He is also associate researcher at BSocial Col - Innovación Social para el Desarrollo – in Colombia and project assistant for Asfar CIC in Sarajevo. Dr Monroy Santander has a PhD in International Development from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the possible links between state reconstruction practice and initiatives for reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dr. Monroy Santander specializes in the fields of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and transitional justice, focusing specifically on approaches to reconciliation in post-conflict societies and their relation with processes of state-building. He has collaborated with various Bosnian-based organizations.

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Course Outline - Building environmental movements in divided societies