Roland Marchal, CNRS, SciencesPo

For a longtime observer of armed conflicts in Central and Eastern Africa, it is striking that we are witnessing a higher number of conflicts than in 1991. This presentation will address several recurrent aspects. First, Marchal will address the intricacies of violence and local politics. Second, the organization of armed groups frequently does not correspond to the kind of violence they are exercising on the population. And third, paradoxically, the international community has often been unable and unwilling to frame its understanding of conflict, with the consequence that transitions to peace are becoming more problematic, while international support for conflict grows.

Hosted by Brooks Center on Global Democracy with support from the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and the Institute for African Development.

Nuclear weapons and associated technologies have been primarily developed by and for Global North nations, often using the labor and natural resources of indigenous populations around the world, and often doing violence to those populations and their environments. As a result, many scholars analyze the development of nuclear technologies–including uranium mining, the processing and production of fissile materials, nuclear weapons testing, and use–as a form of colonialism. But as a state-centric framework, colonialism does not always capture practices that transcend national boundaries; radioactivity does not respect borders. This panel will elucidate the uses and limitations of the colonial framework for understanding the social and political implications of nuclear technologies. The panel will discuss how nuclear technologies have been developed in ways that are both locally specific and globally-interconnected, and the implications of this history for social and environmental justice.

Virtual panel discussion with-

Vincent Intondi, PACS Domestic Affiliate Scholar

Myrriah Gomez, Associate Professor at University of New Mexico

Mary Mitchell, Assistant Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers Newark

Magdalena Stawkowski, Assistant Professor at University of South Carolina

Hirokazu Miyazaki, Former Director of the Einaudi Center, Professor at Northwestern University

Register here.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Join us to learn about opportunities for undergraduate students with the Einaudi Center for International Studies! This session will discuss how to successfully apply for programs like Global Internships and Laidlaw Scholars, and how to discover or strengthen global interests, including academic minors, weekly seminars, and language study.

Can't attend? Email programs@einaudi.cornell.edu for more information.

This session will describe opportunties for undergraduate and graduate students in the Institute for European Studies and the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

IES offers a minor in European Studies, Global Summer Internships, a Graduate Fellows Program, and research funding for both undergraduate and graduate students. PACS offers fellowships, funding, and research travel grants for undergraduate and graduate students.

Register for virtual attendance here. Can't attend? Contact ies@cornell.edu or pacs@cornell.edu.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. Students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Register here. Can't attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research in any field or teaching in more than 150 countries. Open to U.S. citizens only. The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months.

Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.

Register here. Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

In December of 2023, the United States Department of Defense released its detailed Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR DoD-I), as stipulated by Section 936 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The CHMR DoD-I formalizes and institutionalizes the recommendations of the earlier 2022 DoD Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR DoD-AP).

In this exploratory discussion, Helen Kinsella, University of Minnesota, seeks to identify the stakes of the 2022 and 2023 DoD guidance by drawing out the implications for conceptualizing CHMR as a strategic and moral military imperative and assessing the preeminent role of the United States. She charts the introduction of the concept of CHMR, its recent formulation in policy and guidance documents from the Biden administration, and critically assesses its potential; namely, the work it does, in whose service, and to what ends.

If, as its proponents claim, it is a manifestation of the U.S. understanding of a rules-based order, it can and should be analyzed for the “set[s] of material, ideational, and normative interests congealed into institutions and practices,” some of which bear the racialized and gendered histories of its conceptualization thus far, and result in a still troubling understanding of democratic accountability for and engagement with civilian casualties and civilian harm

About the Speaker
Helen M. Kinsella is a Political Science and Law Professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She holds affiliate faculty positions in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the Human Rights Center at the Law School, and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Cosponsors
Cornell Law School
Department of Government
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Book launch with a panel discussion
Sabrina Karim, Cornell University, will give a brief presentation of her book Positioning Women in Conflict Studies: How Women’s Status Affects Political Violence (Oxford University Press 2024), followed by a discussion with gender and conflict experts Summer Lindsey, Rutgers University, and Kanisha Bond, Binghamton University (SUNY).

About the Book
Authored by Dr. Sabrina Karim and Dr. Daniel Hill Jr., the book Positioning Women in Conflict Studies: How Women’s Status Affects Political Violence (Oxford University Press 2024), explores how the conflation of “gender equality” with “women” has inhibited progress on understanding how variation in women’s status in countries affects levels of political violence.

The second half of the book then delves into the pathways through which different aspects of women’s status—women’s inclusion, women’s rights, harm to women, and beliefs about women’s roles—affects levels of political violence globally.

About the Speaker
Dr. Sabrina Karim is an associate professor in the government department. Her research focuses on conflict and peace processes, particularly state building in the aftermath of civil war. Specifically, she studies international involvement in security assistance to post-conflict states, gender reforms in peacekeeping and domestic security sectors, and the relationship between gender and violence. She directs the Gender and the Security Sector Lab.

Panelists
Dr. Summer Lindsey is an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on the enduring implications of armed conflict for women’s security. Her work combines experimental approaches with quantitative and qualitative observational work to understand when and how social norms related to violence against women change.

Dr. Kanisha Bond is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her work orbits one central research question: How do organization and identity influence the dynamics of political challenges in polarized societies? She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine specifically mobilization and institution-building among radical socio-political groups around the world, particularly in North America, Latin America, and Africa.

Co-Hosts
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Gender and the Security Sector Lab

Co-Sponsors
Department of Government
Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies