Sumários

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11 Março 2022, 18:00 • Rita Sousa

Due to chronic political instability and armed conflict the Horn of Africa has been famously called a "bad neighborhood". However, although having hosted one of Africa's rare inter-state wars and multiple civil wars until recently, the political environment in the sub-region has recently experienced rapid change. On 9 July 2018, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a historical agreement pledging to end their mutual animosity and work for peace. This unprecedented rapprochement was facilitated by the new leadership in Ethiopia, merging interests between the two states and external mediation. This lecture session looks into the changing political constellation and armed conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

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23 Fevereiro 2022, 20:30 • Rita Sousa

Positive and negative peace; Structural violence; New wars and failed states;
Post-war reconstruction; From peace-building to peace-keeping; Dilemmas of Statebuilding; Hybrid Peace and post-liberal approaches to peace-building and post-war reconstruction.


Key Questions:
Why should we understand peace as more than the absence of war? How can we understand violence during conflicts?
What are the main differences between old and new wars? How do they challenge existing modes o fconflict resolution?
What is the Liberal Peace thesis?
How is the emergence of external-led intervention linked to broader shifts in the liberal international order?
What are the key issues linked to international intervention and postwar reconstruction as practiced since the 1990s? How did practices of postwar reconstruction emerge and evolved?
What is hybrid peace?
What is state-building for peace?
What are the main challenges identified by practitioners in relation to external-led state-building?

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23 Fevereiro 2022, 18:00 • Rita Sousa

Key topics:

  • New wars and failed states; Post-war reconstruction; From peace-building to peace-keeping; Dilemmas of Statebuilding; Conventional and Emerging approaches to state-building

Key Questions:

  • What does postwar reconstruction mean?
  • Where does it fit alongside concepts like peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding, nationbuilding and statebuilding?
  • What is the Liberal Peace thesis?
  • What is a failed state?
  • How did practices of postwar reconstruction evolved?
  • What are the main differences between the four waves of postwar reconstruction?
  • What are the dimensions of postwar reconstruction and stabilization?
  • What are the main challenges identified by practitioners?
  • What are the key issues linked to international intervention and postwar reconstruction as practiced since the 1990s?
  • How contested is liberal postwar reconstruction in the literature?
  • Is liberal postwar reconstruction viable?
  • What is the concept of resilience and in what way does it affect liberal postwar reconstruction?
  • How does contemporary postwar reconstruction affect the concepts of autonomy and sovereignty?

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23 Fevereiro 2022, 13:00 • Rita Sousa

Positive and negative peace; Structural violence; New wars and failed states;
Post-war reconstruction; From peace-building to peace-keeping; Dilemmas of Statebuilding; Hybrid Peace and post-liberal approaches to peace-building and post-war reconstruction.


Key Questions:
(Why should we understand peace as more than the absence of war? How can we understand violence during conflicts?
What are the main differences between old and new wars? How do they challenge existing modes o fconflict resolution?
What is the Liberal Peace thesis?
How is the emergence of external-led intervention linked to broader shifts in the liberal international order?
What are the key issues linked to international intervention and postwar reconstruction as practiced since the 1990s? How did practices of postwar reconstruction emerge and evolved?
What is hybrid peace?
What is state-building for peace?
What are the main challenges identified by practitioners in relation to external-led state-building?

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16 Fevereiro 2022, 20:30 • Rita Sousa

The nature of violent conflict in human societies:

Ethological, archaeological, historical evidence.

Classical anthropological models:

Their difficulty incorporating aggression and conflict in its epistemological foundations.

A short history of anthropological thought, from after its evolutionist foundations to the end of the "expansive moment". The enduring legacy of durkheimianism.

A look into the historical exceptions: Max Gluckman and the Manchester School, Sol Tax and the Chicago School - the importance of the "knowledge from the field", the case-study based approach.

Changing moments, missed opportunities: the African independences didn't change the conceptual paradigm.

Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Congo-Zaire: the problem with "localizing strategies".

David Graeber's seminal testament: The nature of violent conflict in human societies

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/

Two case-studies:

The (ir)relevance of the work of Harry Turney-High for a renewed anthropological vision of the war in human societies.

The Napoleon Chagnon controversy as example of the enduring presuppositions in anthropology.

Towards an anthropology of war and violence:

Power, violence, and collective imagination. An add-on to Lévi-Strauss's model.

The phenomenon of war and the establishment of the nation-state.

The sacralization of power and state formation and dissolution (a reading of Luc De Heusch).

The cultural concepts of war and their relation to ideologies and political systems: readings of J. Kegan (The Face of Battle, A History of Warfare).

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