Last spring I published some reflections to my course blog that included some reflections on a talk by Leymah Gbowee, one of three women who won the Nobel Peace Prize today.
Discussion not facilitated by me broke out in The Sociology of War and Peace today, in consideration of Alex Morrison’s contribution to Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, (Ch. 3), on conflict resolution in the international arena. It seems that this topic has been waiting to break out all…
Discussion not facilitated by me broke out in The Sociology of War and Peace today, in consideration of Alex Morrison’s contribution to Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, (Ch. 3), on conflict resolution in the international arena. It seems that this topic has been waiting to break out all…
Particularly after the earthquake and tsunami that just hit Japan, it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I cover this material in the Sociology of War and Peace tomorrow. What is striking is our ability to respond to natural disaster compared to our relative inability to cope with 30 years of warfare and human rights violations in a context of valued natural resources. Similarly, the longest lingering impact of disaster in Japan will have been caused by humans.
WATCH VIDEO
Running Time: 19:02REACTREAD COMMENTS
On December 26, 2004, the Indonesian province of Aceh was hit by the massive Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 170,000 people and devastated villages and towns. In the wake of the catastrophe, the Indonesian army and local separatist rebels, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) ended their decades-long war, which took 15,000 lives. The peace agreement led to free elections, and international aid money began to flow, bringing new prosperity to this impoverished region. In After the Wave, FRONTLINE/Worldcorrespondent Orlando de Guzman returns to Aceh, where he had first covered the war, to explore the prospects for continued peace.
I’ll be channelling George Carlin today as I talk about the difference between Mediation and Arbitration (often confused) in the Sociology of War and Peace today.
Tomorrow in my Sociology of War and Peace class, we will be talking about mediation. One of the texts we use for the class discusses Carter’s mediation of the Camp David Accords. We’ll talk about Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981. It’s interesting to be reflecting on this from the vantage of rapid social change in Egypt.
Belarus? Storify? This is what I like about blogging as a means of discovery. I’ve found out two things. First, there is post-election violence in Belarus, and second, that there is a new social media platform, Storify. This may have very practical implications for my teaching. First, I may use the case of Belarus as a warmup in my Sociology of War and Peace class next semester. Given what is known about the aftermath of Orange and Rose Revolutions, there are likely to be geopolitical implications here. I’m sure that we and Russia will be on opposite sides of what is occurring in Russia’s backyard, and that energy is likely to be involved. Second, Storify may be a useful tool for the explorations of the media-saturated generation from which most of my students are drawn. Like okay, people, the fact that you can retrieve information that much more quickly and in greater volume implies for me a greater responsibility to curate it into knowledge.
npr:
Trying this as an experiment - embedding a storify about Belarus post-election violence into a Tumblr post. My apologies if it blows up your Tumblr stream.
