Background
The Centre of Excellence on Post Conflict Societies is co-leading an Africa-Europe cluster of Excellence on “Building Capacities for interdisciplinary PEACE Research: Exploring Conflict, Environment, Technology, Inequality and Identity in Africa Cluster of Research Excellence (CoRE)”. This Cluster is currently aiming to develop a knowledge base and community of early career scholars to enable interdisciplinary peace research that responds to the influence of environmental and technological factors on inequality, identity and conflict. It will incorporate participatory methods where understanding(s) of peace by those most affected can offer opportunities for peace and conflict transformation.
The Cluster’s focus enables the generation of robust scientific knowledge that adequately informs policy and practice communities for conflict mitigation and sustaining peace. Knowledge on the nexus between the environment and technology is pivotal at a time when climate justice and technological revolution are top of the global peace and security agenda. The Cluster will be attentive to how these interdisciplinary understandings of peace enrich knowledge, policy and practice on peacemaking, peace building and sustaining peace.
We would like to call on scholars from various fields of studies to collaboratively apply to tackle one of these interdisciplinary themes by conducting an extensive literature review to develop framing papers for the CoRE.
Qualification
We invite groups of scholars with the following qualifications:
- Applicants should apply in teams, with at least 2 members from different disciplines
- Have a track record of conducting research on the interdisciplinary theme you are proposing to cover
- Should be based at a university which is a member of this CoRE (See annex one)
- Should hold a PhD
- Should have a robust record of publishing in reputable journals
- Should be willing to collaborate or co-author with other scholars in the CoRE*
*Each selected team will be assigned one CoRE university institutional lead that will participate in the writing of the framing paper alongside them.
Expression of Interest (EoI) of not more than two pages, outlining:
- Thematic area the scholar will focus on
- Experience the author/s in relation to the theme
- Approach to writing the review
- Please also append a 2-page CV of the lead/leads to the EoI
Timeline:
- Selected applicants should begin their work on 5 February 2024
- Full papers should be submitted to the CoRE by 30 February 2024
Deliverable
- A framing paper, publishable standard, not less than 10000-words.
- The framing paper should clearly outline methodology, analysis of the literature, the state of art, gaps in the field and possible areas of future research.
Renumeration
- The CoRE will provide a remuneration of 1200 USD per framing paper.
- Renumeration will be based on deliverables, i.e., per framing paper not per person.
- These rates are non-negotiable.
Details on the Framing Papers
The aim of this exercise is to commission Framing Papers on each of the following interdisciplinary themes. These papers will guide the CoRE in identifying how peace is understood across themes and highlight gaps as well as new areas for research exploration with a focus on intersections on environment and sustainability and technology alongside identities and inequalities.
Interdisciplinary themes to be tackled by this exercise:
- Environmental change, sustainability, inequality dynamics and peace and peacebuilding
- What historical patterns can be identified in intersections across these? Are there identifiable key shifts?
- Continuities and discontinuities across historical and contemporary periods.
- Focus on a range of understandings of inequality; consider interactions between peace and conflict.
- Which actors and voices are prominent/absent in conversations about the environment, and how does inclusion and exclusion contribute to peace and peacebuilding?
- Technological innovations, inequality dynamics, peace and peacebuilding
- What historical patterns can be identified in intersections across these? Are there identifiable key shifts?
- Continuities and discontinuities across historical and contemporary periods.
- Focus on a range of understandings of inequality; consider interactions between peace and conflict.
- Use of technology in peacebuilding
- Narratives on digital peacebuilding
- Technology/innovation and enhancing inclusivity/ exacerbating exclusion, inequalities (socio-economic, gendered, demographic).
- Mediation of technological innovation and environmental sustainability in peace and peacebuilding
- Reconciling tensions between technology for warfare and for civil utility
- Technology ownership and influence and impact on peace and peacebuilding
- Unintended consequences of environmental sustainability on livelihoods, peace and peacebuilding
- Unintended consequences of technology innovations on livelihoods, peace and peacebuilding
- Identity complexes in times of environmental change, peace and violence
- Identity complexes in Africa
- Narratives on identity and environmental concerns across time
- Narratives on identity and violence across time
- Narratives on identity and peace
- Narratives on environmental peacebuilding
- Emerging methods in peace and conflict studies in the Era of Technology and Climate Crisis
- Big data analysis
- GIS mapping
- Inclusive, participatory, community-based approaches
- Partnership building
- Ubuntu and ecocentrism
- Africa as a knowledge episteme on the concept and practice of peace (and peacebuilding)
- Africa as the empirical basis for theory building/ De-peripheralising of African knowledges/ Empiricism and theory building
- Interdisciplinarity/ de-disciplinising
- Questioning dichotomies
- ‘Formality and informality’
- ‘Local and global’
- African peacebuilding practices
- Global South exchanges
Given the policy-facing and data driven priorities of this CoRE, the following priorities also emerge:
- Compendium of policy interventions that highlight intersections between peace, environment and technology
- Subnational, national, regional and continental frameworks
- Historical and contemporary periods
- National and international frameworks addressing the interface between environmental sustainability and peace and peacebuilding
- National (including subnational, state and non-state) and international frameworks addressing the interface between technological innovation and peace and peacebuilding
- Collection of useful data sets/sources
- Relevant global and national data sets
- What data gaps exist?
- Big data
- What opportunities and challenges underpin the use of data?
- Innovative datasets in Africa
Annex One: CoRE members
- Addis Ababa University
- King’s College London
- University of Ghent
- Makerere University
- University of Lagos
- University of Ghana
- University of Pretoria
- University of Nairobi
- University of Oslo
- University of Cape Town
- University of Dar-es- Salaam
- Social Science Research Council
- Good Governance Africa
ARUA -GUILD CoRE On Building Capacities for interdisciplinary PEACE Research: Exploring Conflict, Environment, Technology, Inequality and Identity in Africa Cluster of Research Excellence: Call for Expression of Interests to Develop Framing Papers for the CORE
Deadline: 31 January 2024
Submission: research@ipss-addis.org