War and Conflict
What are the root causes of war and conflict? What are the violent systems that enable and instigate war and conflict? Why do we care about war and conflict in places outside our home? This course is a deep dive into how we understand why war and conflict happens and the underlying drivers. In order to understand the topic, the concepts of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism provide a grounding in interconnected global systems. This course unpacks the power of narratives and discourse in shaping identity and reifying power structures, focusing on discourses that enable “othering” such as orientalism, islamophobia, and various types of bias. Case studies included Afghanistan and the War on Terror. This course centred on a justice framework, rather than compassion narratives, to identify responsibility and complicity, and integrated restorative justice exercises.
Christianne Aikins
Christianne is an educator, facilitator, and ‘development practitioner’ based in Beirut, leveraging participatory approaches to support security sector reform with police and military, primarily in Lebanon and Jordan, and engages with civil society in support of peacebuilding and social cohesion programming. Through these collaborations, Christianne has worked with police, civil society, and judiciary from a range of countries, including the …
Ramsay Boly
Ramsay is a Burkinabe-American whose values and identities draw from a global spectrum of cultures, ideologies, and narratives. Ramsay is a recent graduate from UC Berkeley’s Master of Development Practice whose work links development with social justice. This roots in his exposure to global social and economic inequities that have largely been influenced by histories of colonialism and intersecting hegemonic …