Conflict Narratives Research Articles

Marking Territory: Modeling the Spread of Ethnic Conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992-1995

In order to study post-conflict economic development and social change in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), it is necessary to control for variation in the effect of conflict on each local community. To do this, we first explore the variation in nature, severity, and incidence of conflict during the 1992-1995 war. The conflict narrative is coded by type and date of an incident; these data are then related to indicators of pre- and post-conflict population composition, and presence of industrial, transportation, or military infrastructure. We then use OLS and IV regressions to attempt to identify the community determinants of where and when fighting will occur within a war. The results across the four sets of regressions indicate that ethnic composition is the primary initial determinant of conflict type and intensity, with more diverse communities suffering more conflict and greater intensity of fighting. We conclude that any analysis of post-conflict economic development needs to control for the variation in pre-war ethnic diversity and differences in pre- and post-conflict ethnic composition. Subsequent studies will seek to understand the effect of conflict typology, intensity, and community type on landmine placement and the effect of landmines on post-conflict social and economic development.

The Role of Emotional Security, Narrative, and Resilience for Youth and Families in Contexts of Armed Conflict

The far‐reaching devastation created by contemporary armed conflict puts children and families at risk. The goal of this article is to describe current research on the effects of armed conflict and political violence on families and youth with a focus on the roles of emotional insecurity and narratives of conflict that can persist long after the end of conflict. We describe how identity processes that are at the heart of many intergroup conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries are linked with emotional insecurity and the historical and personal narratives of youth in these contexts. We conclude with general considerations for legal, medical, and mental health practitioners working with families who have experienced armed conflict.

Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth by Mark William (review)

a general readership and appealing to readers who will bring their own gifts of desire and commitment to be in some way active parts of the church’s response to the Spirit-inspired gift that is the Second Vatican Council, readers who will be lighters of candles, not cursers of the enveloping darkness. Our response does matter. These essays direct us in a quite practical way to some of the reasons why the Council remains important, even indispensable, to the present day. My own response, having read some of the essays several times, is to pick out a small selection and follow up the attached bibliographies for further delving, and then to work out with some friends how we might in our own modest way share the fruits of our reading, with a keen awareness that there is work to be done. If we can harness some of the spirit of that parish in Kaikorai and the gritty gumption of Flannery O’Connor, and show that the church does matter to us in a profound way in our daily lives, we can be part of the change that is so badly needed in our Irish church. Those of us who are settled in the faith can be all too comfortable with the status quo. A fruitful first step might be, Augustine-like, to ‘take and read’ this provocative book. What happens after that is up to each of us. But it really does matter. James Sexton is a notary public and a retired solicitor, living in Castleconnell, Co. Limerick, where he is actively involved in his local parish pastoral council. Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth, Mark William, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 578 pages. Mark Williams combines a Fitzjames Fellowship in Medieval English at Merton College, Oxford, with the Departmental Lectureship in Celtic in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. He has written a book that attempts a difficult task, that of sorting through the various layers of understanding regarding Ireland’s ‘Gods’ who, at different times, have been taken to be deities, demigods, ‘angelic’ supernatural beings, superhumans , distressingly ‘normal’ human beings and mystical archetypes (Irish manifestations of undefinable entities first encountered in distant cultures, particularly India). That he succeeds as well as he has is a credit both to his Studies • volume 107 • number 425 118 Spring 2018: Book Reviews erudition and prudent judgment concerning the material he has chosen to consider. This is a text which scholars of Irish pre-Christian and medieval Christian religion, medieval literature, folk-lore and modern nationalist literature will undoubtedly consider for some time hereafter. Paradoxically, thebookmightultimatelybefoundmostusefulbythosewhoaren’tspecialists, since it brings concise coherence to a subject that from the outside sometimes appears as chaotic, nearly to the point of incomprehensibility. The extant texts in which these different understandings are embedded (many have been lost, but sometimes are referenced in those that still exist) date broadly from the early Middle Ages through to the beginnings of the Early Modern period, although they are most often found in compositional flux in any given period and now exist without definitive or primordial incarnations. Williams examines in particular fifteen of these texts, ranging chronologically from The Scholars Primer (Auraicept na n-Éces, ca. 650 – a grammatical and linguistic handbook) to The Tragic Deaths of the Children of Tuireann (Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, ca. 1500 – a narrative of internecine conflict within the Túatha Dé Danann – the main familygrouping within the Irish supernatural pantheon). He also considers at length The Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn, ca. 1075, probably ‘the single most complex text to have come down to us from medieval Ireland … the story of Ireland and its various waves of settlers and invaders from the time of Noah’s Flood down to the era of the Gaels or “Milesians”, meaning the ethnic Irish themselves’) (p.512), and The Tragic Deaths of the Children of Lir (Oidheadh Chloinne Lir, ca. 1450 – the ‘best known of Irish mythological talks … really a religious fable which uses native supernatural beings to exalt the Christian virtue of fortitude’) (p.515). The subjects of the texts that have survived include (among other things) Irish and...

Piecing Together Past and Present in Bhutan: Narration, Silence and Forgetting in Conflict

What happens when conflict is silenced in official narratives but not forgotten among a population? This article explores this question using interview data from anthropological fieldwork in Bhutan. In Bhutan, the ethnic conflict of the early 1990s is surrounded by silence and is not openly discussed. Despite this silence, young Bhutanese have formed a multiplicity of narratives about the conflict. The article highlights three different narratives of conflict, as well as the oblivion found among informants. The main argument is that the silence surrounding the conflict in Bhutan has contributed to two forms of societal rift: between the authorities and the people, and between people themselves. The article contributes to the discussion about what role social memories play in conflicts, by suggesting that silence may cause wariness and hinder processes that help societies to move past conflict in a constructive way.

Fortress under Siege: Narratives of Ethnic Conflict and Discrimination among Hungarian Youth in Vojvodina

This paper analyzes narratives of ethnic conflict among Hungarian and Serbian youth in Vojvodina. These experiences are narrated by Hungarian young people from Mali Iđoš in the Central Bačka region in the interviews with the author of the paper, and the excerpts of the transcripts are analyzed according to the Labovian socio-linguistic scheme. It argues that narrative structure varies according to the interlocutor’s gender; however, all narratives demonstrate similarity in terms of positioning the protagonists of such events as committing subjects and suffering objects. In addition, the narratives are highly script-like, which suggests a lack of diversity in the available discursive frames for narrating the experience of conflicts perceived as ethnically motivated. The most common script, which the interlocutors of this research use as well, constructs and justifies ethnic groups as simultaneously in confrontation with and isolated from each other, linguistically, culturally and geographically, and articulates interethnic experiences as a threat.

High Points, Low Points, Turning Points: Life Stories of Cambodian American Youth

Qualitative methods such as McAdam's Life Story Interview offer a rich means of exploring how culture affects an individual's development. Such a method has seldom been used with Asian Americans. In the present study, 20 Cambodian American teenagers aged 15-18 (half female, half male) narrated the high, low, and turning points of their lives. Those narratives were transcribed and coded with respect to the predominant emotional valence and context of those key events. Half of high point narratives were painful events that the narrator had recast in a positive light, a hallmark of resilience and of a tendency to redeem positive outcomes from negative events. The most frequent context for high points was the family, indicative of the importance of family to these participants. Similarly, low points were dominated by narration of family conflict. Turning points most often involved peers, reflecting the prominence of peers in adolescent identity negotiation, as well as achievement. Throughout all these key events, narrators gave us a view of the complex, multifaceted way the historical events of their parents' background permeated their lives.

East-West dichotomy in the context of Ukrainian conflict resolution

This article analyses the contrasting images of the West and the East in the conflict narrative in Ukraine: Where is the imaginary line that divides them? Which countries constitute the ‘East’ and which the ‘West’? and How does the Russia-Ukraine conflict affect the perceived division? This article is informed by Edward Said’s hypothesis of orientalism, specifically that Western knowledge of the Eastern world(s) carries a negative connotation. Testing this hypothesis on the materials of elite interviews conducted in Ukraine in 2017, the article ‘maps’ the image of the world from a Ukrainian point of view. It explores if an internalized ‘othering’ may be present within Ukraine’s borders due to the ongoing conflict in the East. The findings, however, disprove this assumption. Results show that there is a perceived sense of closeness between Ukraine and Eastern European countries due to historical and cultural ties as well as modern day partnership. Relations with Russia were perceived as ambiguous despite the armed conflict in the East and the annexation of Crimea. There is also no evidence for “othering of Eastern vis-à-vis Western regions inside Ukraine.

Book Reviews

102 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 41, No. 2, Winter 2018 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF YEMEN: Buildings That Fill my Eye edited by Trevor H.J. Marchand: United Kingdom, London, Gingko Library 2017, 231 pages. In bringing together the astute observations and reflections of an international and interdisciplinary group of acclaimed scholars, this book aims to raise awareness of Yemen’s long history of cultural creativity and the urgent need for international collaboration to protect it and its people from the destructive forces that have beset the region. EMPIRES AND ANARCHIES: A History of Oil in the Middle East by Michael Quentin Morton. United Kingdom, London, Reaktion Books Ltd, 2017, 263 pages. Empires and Anarchies is an unconventional history of oil in the Middle East. In the author’s account the burnt-out remains of Saddam Hussein’s armaments and the human tragedy of the Arab Spring are as much of the story as the shimmering skylines of oil-rich nations. From the first explorers trudging through the desert to the excesses of the Peacock Throne and the high stakes of OPEC, Morton lays out the history of oil in compelling detail, arguing that oil simultaneously enriched and fractured the Middle East, eroding traditional ways of life, and eventually contributing to the rise of Islamic radicalism. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the promises and peril of the world’s oil boom. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO REVOLUTION: Egypt Islamists and the Contest for Power by Gilian Kennedy. United Kingdom, London, Hurst & Company publishers 2017, 262 pages. The author is taking an approach to emphasize those studies of political Islam concentrate on either ideology or strategy rather than using a framework, which argues for both to be accounted together. It concludes that in Egypt from 1952 to 2012, the absence of this dialectical process of ideology and strategy was the decisive factor in the failure of radicals, conservatives and progressives to create and maintain lasting consent to their national project. Chapter 2 examines the Nasser period (1952-1970). Chapter 3 examines how political Islam evolved during Anwar Sadat’s presidency from (1970-1981). Chapter 4 examines how political Islam evolved during Mubarak’s presidency from (1981-1992) and the author will outline the continuation of Sadat’s economic liberalization and how the Islamist movement reacted to Mubarak’s political overtures and the continuation of economic liberalization policies in light of a spiraling socio-economic crisis among the lower and middle income class. Chapter 5 examines how Mubarak moved from containment to confrontation against Egypt opposition groups (1992-2011). TRIBES AND POLITICS IN YEMEN: A History of the Houthi Conflict by Marieke Brandt. United States, New York, Oxford University Press 2017, 466 pages. This book is based on years of anthropological fieldwork expertise both on the ground and through digital anthropological approaches. It offers a detailed account of the local complexities of the Houthi conflict and its historical background and underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in Yemen. The Houthi conflict is multifaceted and complex, and its local narrative as recorded in this volume constitutes only one manifold ways of approaching and explaining the conflict. The many other narratives of the Houthi conflict sometimes compete: the sectarian narrative, the domestic political narrative, the boundary narrative, the proxy war narrative. The Yemeni government has its own version. Foreign nations have their different claims. This book research objective is to explore the local dynamics of the Houthi conflictthus required spanning a broad period, from 1960 to the present time. 103 104 JINNEALOGY: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi by Anand Vivek Tasnneja. California, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2017, 312 pages. The author discover that in the ruins of a medieval palace in Delhi, a unique phenomenon occurs: Indians of all castes and creeds meet to socialize and ask the spirits for help. The spirits they entreat are Islamic jinns, and they w In the ruins of a medieval palace in Delhi, a unique phenomenon occurs: Indians of all castes and rite...

Moors Dressed as Moors: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia by Javier Irigoyen-García

Reviewed by: Moors Dressed as Moors: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia by Javier Irigoyen-García Lisa James Irigoyen-García, Javier. Moors Dressed as Moors: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia. Toronto: U Toronto P, 2017. 324 pp. ISBN: 97-814-8750-160-0. In his most recent book, Moors Dressed as Moors: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia, Javier Irigoyen-García enriches critical scholarship on the production of legal and sartorial codes surrounding the uprising of the Alpujarras in Granada in 1568. The author reframes the issue of Moorish dress through an interdisciplinary reading of its social and commercial value as a vehicle for economic mobility, against the common tendency to read Moorish clothing exclusively as a marker of religious and ethnic identity. Through a wealth of archival research of edicts and decrees stipulating sumptuary prohibitions; inventories, festival books, and municipal archives; and literary works, most pointedly the Lopean legacy of the nueva comedia, Irigoyen-García debunks the common assumption that "passing" (as Moor) was unequivocally tied to a decontextualized and dislocated politics of Moorish-Christian identity. The author builds his thesis, issuing from the pun after which he titles his book, with a compelling analysis of how Moorish clothing, and the surrounding material conditions of its use and production, came to designate hidalguía, if not nobility, and, from the end of the Reconquista until Philip III's edict of expulsion (1609-14), was thereby coveted by Moors and Christians as real and imagined social capital. A first to reinvest emphasis in the concrete import of dress as a positive strategy in favor of social distinction, this book successfully argues that the material conditions of the cultural domains in question, and the legislation that arises from these conditions, have been underexamined as generators of historical assumptions and frames for confronting Spain's complex past and the "ambiguous semantics … of the Spanish moro" (4), during roughly a century and a half of autos de fé, forced religious conversions, and expulsions of Moors and moriscos from kingdoms across Iberia. Irigoyen-García divides the book into two parts. The first part purports to "disen-tangle the cultural chiasmus" of Moorish-Christian relations (11), often misconstrued by scholars as a mix of infatuation and imitation of the idealized Moor, per romancero representations, pitted against the expurgation of ethnic otherness through political [End Page 197] edicts. The author's misgivings about facile interpretations of a Christian-Moor identity complex, by now a well-worn commonplace within literary and cultural studies, extricates from the stalemate fresh perspectives that help readers move beyond abstractive and blighted views of the post-c onvivencia epoch that have been tailored to meet predictable narratives of cultural conflict. He achieves this in Chapter 1 with an overview of the royally-sanctioned game of canes, treated as military exercises and social practices instead of "extraordinary, carnivalesque performances" (34), as has become the norm of analysis for Moorish artefacts in recent years. Chapter 2 chronicles the trickle-down effects of these equestrian performances at the municipal level, funneled through real motivations and not simply nostalgic or folkloric imaginings of otherness. Chapter 3, although less innovative in its assessment of the figure of the idealized Moor ("literary maurophilia") as a constant of late sixteenth-century ballads, coaxes from the literary imaginary some important elisions from official discourses about "the social demand for models of Moorishness" (60), and contrasts these exempla with the romances anti-moriscos featuring impoverished Morisco laborers to highlight the important point that the game of canes equally bred maurophobic reactions(61). Chapter 4 furthers the real-imaginary dialectic, arguing that Lope's plays were not standalone cases of authorial self-fashioning, but that plots and characters were selected in corroboration with the circulation and availability of liveries. Once again, the author does well to prove that these liveries had real and not just imagined value, and that they had a hand in cementing the social and economic landscape of seventeenth-century Iberia. The second part of the book ventures into the moralist thought of royal authority and town councils, arguing that legislation, akin to visual...

Book Reviews

105 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 41, No.3, Spring 2018 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF YEMEN: Buildings That Fill my Eye edited by Trevor H.J. Marchand: United Kingdom, London, Gingko Library 2017, 231 pages. In bringing together the astute observations and reflections of an international and interdisciplinary group of acclaimed scholars, this book aims to raise awareness of Yemen’s long history of cultural creativity and the urgent need for international collaboration to protect it and its people from the destructive forces that have beset the region. EMPIRES AND ANARCHIES: A History of Oil in the Middle East by Michael Quentin Morton. United Kingdom, London, Reaktion Books Ltd, 2017, 263 pages. Empires and Anarchies is an unconventional history of oil in the Middle East. In the author’s account the burnt-out remains of Saddam Hussein’s armaments and the human tragedy of the Arab Spring are as much of the story as the shimmering skylines of oilrich nations. From the first explorers trudging through the desert to the excesses of the Peacock Throne and the high stakes of OPEC, Morton lays out the history of oil in compelling detail, arguing that oil simultaneously enriched and fractured the Middle East, eroding traditional ways of life, and eventually contributing to the rise of Islamic radicalism. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the promises and peril of the world’s oil boom. 106 FROM INDEPENDENCE TO REVOLUTION: Egypt Islamists and the Contest for Power by Gilian Kennedy. United Kingdom, London, Hurst & Company publishers 2017, 262 pages. The author is taking an approach to emphasize those studies of political Islam concentrate on either ideology or strategy rather than using a framework, which argues for both to be accounted together. It concludes that in Egypt from 1952 to 2012, the absence of this dialectical process of ideology and strategy was the decisive factor in the failure of radicals, conservatives and progressives to create and maintain lasting consent to their national project. Chapter 2 examines the Nasser period (1952-1970). Chapter 3 examines how political Islam evolved during Anwar Sadat’s presidency from (19701981 ). Chapter 4 examines how political Islam evolved during Mubarak’s presidency from (1981-1992) and the author will outline the continuation of Sadat’s economic liberalization and how the Islamist movement reacted to Mubarak’s political overtures and the continuation of economic liberalization policies in light of a spiraling socio-economic crisis among the lower and middle income class. Chapter 5 examines how Mubarak moved from containment to confrontation against Egypt opposition groups (1992-2011). TRIBES AND POLITICS IN YEMEN: A History of the Houthi Conflict by Marieke Brandt. United States, New York, Oxford University Press 2017, 466 pages. This book is based on years of anthropological fieldwork expertise both on the ground and through digital anthropological approaches. It offers a detailed account of the local complexities of the Houthi conflict and its historical background and underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in Yemen. The Houthi conflict is multifaceted and complex, and its local narrative as recorded in this volume constitutes only one manifold ways of approaching and explaining the conflict. The many other narratives of the Houthi conflict sometimes compete: the sectarian narrative, the domestic political narrative, the boundary narrative, the proxy war narrative. The Yemeni government has its own version. Foreign nations have their different claims. This book research objective is to explore the local dynamics of the Houthi conflictthus required spanning a broad period, from 1960 to the present time. 107 JINNEALOGY: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi by Anand Vivek Tasnneja. California, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2017, 312 pages. The author discover that in the ruins of a medieval palace in Delhi, a unique phenomenon occurs: Indians of all castes and creeds meet to socialize and ask the spirits for help. The spirits they entreat are Islamic jinns, and they w In the ruins of a medieval palace in Delhi, a unique phenomenon occurs: Indians of all castes and rite out requests...

Interstate narratives for local aspirations: The Soviet Baltic Republics’ Samizdat on the War in Afghanistan

Dissident publications of Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Samizdat were among the first to comment on the Soviet military involvement in the Afghan Civil War. Reflecting on the war situation in these unofficial texts, the publishers of the Baltic Republics used a particular Afghan conflict narrative to accomplish their own pro-independence national goals. Two open letters, analyzed in this paper, illustrate how the Samizdat authors equate the Soviet military operations on Afghan soil with the Stalinist invasion and annexation of the Baltic States in 1940. The Samizdat oriented the core of the message to the Helsinki Declaration’s provision on the peoples’ right for self-determination, which was more suitably applicable to the Baltic republics, as they were trying to garner support for independence.

Aiding Activism? Humanitarianism’s Impacts on Mobilized Syrian Refugees in Jordan

A common narrative of the Syrian conflict suggests that it began with a grassroots uprising and devolved into a violent war between armed actors, leaving civilians to become victims or warriors. A more careful consideration of developments in and around Syria uncovers evidence of continued unarmed mobilization among civilians. Indeed, refugees in neighboring countries like Jordan are deeply engaged in humanitarian, developmental, and political endeavors. In this study, qualitative research and a unique survey together demonstrate that Syrians in Jordan have engaged in abundant activism on behalf of the Syrian cause. Still, the overwhelming militarism and humanitarianism that have characterized the Syrian crisis have had their impacts: activist organization is constricted and configured by security imperatives and, paradoxically, by the aid regime assisting civilians in the conflict. In turn, activism has evolved from grassroots mobilization to a formal and aid-based response to a humanitarian crisis.

The Personalisation of Conflict Reporting

This study explores the question of the blurring of traditional boundaries between the personal and the professional in relation to images tweeted during the Ukraine conflict. The study focuses on two Moscow-based correspondents, Shaun Walker and Alec Luhn, and a photojournalist, Paul Hansen, all of whom created parallel conflict narratives on Twitter while reporting on the Ukraine conflict for legacy newspapers. Their use of Twitter is examined here in the context of “personalised reporting” that allows for more opinion and displays of emotion than are typically acceptable in traditional news reporting. The results demonstrate the coexistence of the traditional media’s visualisation of conflict with that driven by social media logic.

Genocide Discourses: American and Russian Strategic Narratives of Conflict in Iraq and Ukraine

This paper presents the concept of “genocide discourses”, defined as a type of strategic narrative that shapes the way individuals and groups position themselves and others and act, playing a critical role in the production of violence and efforts to reduce it. Genocide discourses tend to present genocide as fundamentally a-political, and hold that genocidal systems are dislodged only when they are swept away through external violence. Secondly, genocide discourses are built on an assumption that the victims of genocide are necessarily moral innocents, not parties in conflict. These two factors make genocide discourses highly effective in conferring moral capital upon certain actors in a conflict. The two principles converge to produce strategic narratives that direct political and military actions in certain ways in the context of contentious conflicts and political violence, motivating humanitarian responses in defense of certain groups, or sustaining popular support for foreign wars. The paper illustrates the argument by examining two case studies between 2014 and 2017: the debates in the United States over Islamic State genocides, and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

‘From Gaza to the Streets of Britain’: British social media coverage of the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict

Social media has removed the sense of distance between the public and an international conflict. However, there has been little attempt to look at the impact of this on a spectating society. This article addresses this inquiry with the 2014 Gaza War and British society. Drawing upon a variety of online sources, including tweets, Facebook comments/posts, images, and videos, this article demonstrates how the competing narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have intersected with both virtual and public space in Britain since 2014. Thus, this article is an interdisciplinary study that merges paradigms from social history and media studies to determine why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become an increasingly impassioned issue within Britain in recent years.

Media and the Ukraine Crisis: Hybrid Media Practices and Narratives of Conflict

Media and the Ukraine Crisis: Hybrid Media Practices and Narratives of Conflict

Wheels Coming Off the Empire: Transport, Flight and Gender in Victorian Accounts of the 1857-58 Indian Uprising

Cet article porte sur les représentations du conflit et de la fuite dans les récits de voyageuses victoriennes, pendant la Rébellion indienne de 1857-58. L’ébranlement soudain d’un ordre impérial apparemment stable met à nu la réalité des modes de transport dans l’Inde britannique. Des officiers de l’armée britannique contemplent, impuissants, des roues brisées, des chevaux récalcitrants et des domestiques enfuis, tandis que les femmes doivent négocier les routes de l’Inde, dont la réalité physique est altérée par les mouvements révolutionnaires. En analysant la représentation des transports coloniaux au travers du mélange de genres comme le récit de voyage, le récit de réfugiés et le récit de conflits, je montre que tous ces échecs et solutions de fortune, conséquences de la crise de l’Empire, deviennent, pour les voyageuses britanniques, le moyen de conceptualiser un échec plus profond : la fin de l’illusion du contrôle de l’espace, du temps, et du savoir.

Student Agency in Negotiating the Relationship Between Science and Religion

Research examining the relationship between science and religion has often painted a narrative of conflict for students with various religious beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to present a counter-narrative based on a study carried out in Singapore, which provides a unique multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment and geopolitical context to study the phenomenon. Informed by the theories of collateral learning, situated cognition and agency, the study examined how a group of high school biology students viewed and negotiated the relationship between biological evolution and their beliefs in Christianity. Case study methodology and semi-structured interviews were used to generate thick descriptions of their views. Findings from the study illustrate how the students exhibited agency in deliberately creating multiple resolution mechanisms as they recognised and negotiated the conceptual and social tensions between the worldviews of evolution and creationism. The findings suggest that the students exhibited more agency in resolving the perceived conflict between science and religion than we tend to ascribe based on previous interpretative accounts that emphasised confrontation, alienation and marginalisation. The implication is that students’ agency in negotiating the differing worldviews between science and religion should be seen as a resource for the learning of evolution, rather than a hindrance.

"If we become friends, maybe I can change my perspective:” Intergroup contact, endorsement of conflict narratives, and peace-related attitudes in Turkey.

"If we become friends, maybe I can change my perspective:” Intergroup contact, endorsement of conflict narratives, and peace-related attitudes in Turkey.

Beyond disaster framing: exploring multi-mandate INGOs’ representations of conflict

This article examines how and why multi-mandate INGOs represent contemporary armed conflicts in particular ways. Based on empirical analysis of NGO communications and interviews with staff, it finds that these organisations typically adopt a two-track approach to representing conflicts. They use mainstream media to present consequence-oriented accounts to the general public, while utilising alternative channels to represent more nuanced depictions of conflict to more targeted audiences. These alternative forms of communication often aim to disrupt the dominant narratives of conflict produced by influential policy or media actors. Decisions about how to represent conflict are shaped by organisations’ histories, identities and funding relationships.