07/2011
Berghof Conflict Research hosted the Steering Committee Meeting and a Thematic Workshop of the EU-funded project Cultures of Governance and Conflict Resolution in Europe and India (CORE) on June 27 and 28, 2011 respectively. Participants included representatives from all ten project partners in the consortium. For more information on the project please visit the project’s website.
In the Steering Committee Meeting, the project basics were revisited, progress and project timeline were visualized, and general management issues were discussed. The different work-package activities were then further updated and clarified.
In the Thematic Workshop titled “The Socio-Cultural and Political Premises of European and Indian Initiatives in Areas of Conflict Transition/Resolution”, the partner institutes/universities gave presentations on different sub topics/questions that emanated from the workshop theme:
• What are the premises of European and Indian initiatives in the areas of conflict transition/resolution, and how do these initiatives resonate with – or are informed/determined by – the socio-cultural background of either Europe or India?
• How, if at all, are specific socio-cultural and political premises reflected/ incorporated or neglected/ ignored in those peacebuilding and conflict transition/resolution initiatives in Europe and India?
• If and to what extent do societal or elite discourses of socio-cultural and political issues underpin the principles, goals and strategies conceptualized and applied for peacebuilding in each context?
• How do internal and external governance initiatives interact and how do conceptualized norms of peacebuilding either merge with or compete with one another against the background of political conflict and socio-economic diversity?
• What are the methodological and theoretical challenges for analyzing and assessing the socio-cultural sensitivity and political appropriateness of governance initiatives in peacebuilding and conflict transition/resolution, and the results thereof?
The presentations, followed by inspiring and energetic brainstorming sessions, produced food for thought for the formulation of further refined research questions and for the case studies that are soon to start off.
A publicly accessible report on the workshop will be available in October 2011 on this website and later as a print version of the Berghof Occasional Papers series.
11/2010
On November, 25-26, 2010, the project “From War to Politics: Non-State Armed Groups and Security Transition Processes” held its mid-term advisory committee meeting at the Berghof premises in Berlin. Five committee members, scholars and practitioners from the UK, Switzerland, Ireland and Malaysia, were invited to discuss the project’s findings with the team, give advice on ongoing activities and brainstorm future research avenues. The intense two-day workshop was chaired by BCR’s Director Hans Joachim Giessmann.
05/2010
On May 6, 2010 Berghof Conflict Research welcomed to the institute Mr. Mohammad Gulab Mangal, Governor of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and Ms. Nasima Neyazi, a Member of the Afghan Parliament, as well as Mr. Najib Roshan and other colleagues of the Aachen Institute for Afghan Studies. The discussion with the delegation was attended by Prof. Dr. Hans J. Giessmann, Director of Berghof Conflict Research, and Johannes Zundel, CEO of the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies, as well as other colleagues of Berghof Conflict Research and Berghof Peace Support.
The main focus of the discussion was on peacebuilding activities for youth, public education programs and the current development situation in Afghanistan, which has recently undergone many positive developments and can be regarded as improving, despite the critical security situation. The discussion also addressed the effects and limitations of the new military strategy in the province and the importance of involving the Afghan population in the peacebuilding process. Military operations should not be allowed to have priority over civilian peacebuilding. In a concluding bilateral conversation, concrete options for collaborative research and peace support project work between BCR and Afghan partners were discussed.
05/2010
In collaboration with the Colombian organisations Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP) and Observatorio para la Paz, Berghof Conflict Research organised a conference on April 29 – May 1 2010 in Bogota, Colombia. It brought together local researchers and “insider experts” (former peace negotiators or commanders representing resistance/liberation movements) from El Salvador, South Africa, (South) Sudan, Burundi, (Northern) Ireland, Kosovo, Aceh, and Colombia, in order to discuss an innovative approach to post-war peacebuilding, provisionally labelled “security transition processes”. This workshop represented the first major event in the project “From War to Politics: Non-State Armed Groups and Security Transition Processes” (2009-2011).
Participants discussed various lessons learnt from their own research and practical experience on the linkages between security sector reform and political, socio-economic and judicial transformations, as well as the various reconversion paths and peacebuilding roles of former combatants in the aftermath of violent conflicts.
The conference was sponsored by a grant from the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada.
04/2010
Together with our sister organization, Berghof Peace Support (BPS), Berghof Conflict Research facilitated a Brainstorming Workshop on “indigenous” and “traditional” methods of conflict transformation in Southeast Asia. The workshop was held on April 19, 2010 in the premises of BCR in Berlin. It brought together a small group of distinguished scholars and practitioners in order to discuss the applicability of selected “indigenous” and “traditional” methods to the transformation of identity-based/self-determination type conflicts. Southeast Asia served as the primary empirical reference for this undertaking. As a starting point, BCR Senior Visiting Fellow Dr Kamarulzaman Askandar gave a presentation, which provided an overview on current conflicts and indigenous and traditional methods of conflict management as implemented in the region. In the following discussion the participants reflected on critical aspects of terminology, concepts, and research methodology. Key questions for further research were identified and articulated. An advisory board for working on the Framework Concept was established, with Dr Kamrulzaman Askandar (USM, Malaysia), Dr Alexander Horstmann (MPI, Göttingen), Ms. Antje Missbach (Free University), Dr Peter Kreuzer (HSFK, Frankfurt) as external members. The Workshop was sponsored by a grant from the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies.
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