Conversations from the Leading Edge

In this episode, we explore the work of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a religious group connected to the catholic church that has been an important stakeholder in peace processes around the world. Andrea Bartoli, an international conflict resolution expert for over three decades and president of the Community of Sant'Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, tells us more about Sant'Egidio's work. In this episode, Bartoli talks about how the Community started, its values and challenges and he presents its more recent intervention, in South Sudan, a country that has been struggling to find its ways towards sustainable peace.

Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams is a prominent scholar in the area of Peace Education who shares in this interview about the work he has been developing in his home country, Trinidad and Tobago, around violence in schools and how that matter goes far beyond school walls in this and other developing countries. Williams is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Gettysburg College. He has an Ed.D in International Education Development and Peace Education from Teachers College, also a former visiting scholar at AC4, the center behind this show. In 2017, he was a recipient of one of the inaugural Emerging Scholar Awards of the African Diaspora Special Interest Group in the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). In 2019, he also received the Early Career Award from Teachers College at Columbia University.

Meet Felisa Tibbitts and her work in Peace Education. She is a Lecturer in the International Education Development Program at Teachers College here at Columbia University and Chair in Human Rights Education in the Department of Law, Economics and Governance at Utrecht University. In this interview, she tells us about her work in creating a peace and sustainable development curricula for Myanmar, a country with a turbulent history around its recent democracy and that has been on the headlines for violating the human rights of the Rohingya, a local ethnic group. The Myanmar context made us wonder: can a national peace education curriculum be implemented and have a positive impact in a such turbulent national context?

Eliana Elías, Co-founder and Executive Director of Minga Perú, sat down with us to discuss her experiences working in the Peruvian Amazon and other rural areas to design and implement strategies that combine communications, women's leadership and sustainable community development. She shares insights and stories about her initiatives with NGOs and indigenous groups on education, conservation and health. With Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland, Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program, Eliana Elías discusses the model she brings for communication and participation for social change and what peace and security mean for her and the communities she works with. For more information about Minga Peru: https://mingaperu.org/en/home/ This talk was recorded on December 20, 2018. Photo Credit: Minga Peru’s Co-Founder and Program Director, Luis González

In January 2019, we sat down with University of Hawai`i student Marcus Armstrong-Patterson and Chief Resilience Officer of Honolulu Joshua Stanbro to discuss what the city is doing to adapt to climate change. The City and County of Honolulu Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency (Resilience Office) was established by City Charter in 2016 with overwhelming approval by O‘ahu voters. As mandated by Charter, the Resilience Office is tasked with tracking climate change science and potential impacts on City facilities, coordinating actions and policies of departments within the City to increase community preparedness, developing resilient infrastructure in response to the effects from climate change, and integrating sustainable and environmental values into City plans, programs, and policies. As a member of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities network, the Resilience Office is also responsible for developing Oʻahu’s Resilience Strategy, which will include the City’s first-ever climate action and adaptation plan.

Anastase Nabahire, the Coordinator of the Justice, Reconciliation, Law and Order Sector Secretariat in Rwanda discusses the role of restorative justice and mediation practices in post-genocide Rwanda. Interviewed by AC4 Co-Executive Director Peter T. Coleman, Nabahire shares his background and learnings on what a trauma-informed justice system is and how it works, joined in conversation also with Emily Gould, Co-Founder of African Peace Partners and lecturer at the Columbia Law School. Learn more about Restorative Justice and Mediation in Rwanda from Anastase Nabahire's talk given at Columbia University Law School, October 2018: https://echo360.org/media/3f8e78fe-520d-4032-af65-3cf70e3a1efb/public

"From the standpoint of a refugee family, unity is critical to their strength-building and success" says humanitarian response experts Neil Boothby and Zahirah McNatt. As part of an initiative to conduct a regional study on the effects of family separation on displaced people, Boothby and McNatt have published a report on Syrian refugees in Jordan. Their report Impact of Separation on Refugee Families outlines the several ways in which family separation negatively impacts the Syrians facing this displacement, including financial burdens, increased child labor, emotional distress, broken social networks, parenting challenges and changes to familial roles. In this conversation, McNatt and Boothby tell about their own backgrounds and how they got involved in this initiative and they provide background, current understandings and perspectives for future solutions. What are the barriers to reunification of family members, and how would reunifying Syrian families across the Middle East and Europe alleviate current burdens? Read the full report: http://bit.ly/refugeeseparation Boothby is a Professor and Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute where he directs the Child Resilience and Wellbeing Program. His research focuses on the long-term consequences of deprivation and danger on child development, and the comparative efficacy of interventions that aim to strengthen the capacities of families and communities to protect young children from harm. McNatt is a doctoral student (DrPH) at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and a senior research associate with the Syrian Refugee Initiative. She is currently wrapping up a study focused on the impact of host-country healthcare policy on Syrian refugees residing in urban settings in Jordan, and also is taking on new work aimed at studying the effectiveness of emergency education programs for children in adversity in central and east Africa.

Jose Pascal da Rocha, a lecturer on Mediation at Columbia University in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution MSc Program with over 20 years experience in crisis negotiation in volatile environments, discusses his extensive experience and new books on the topic in this conversation with Beth Fisher-Yoshida. Professor da Rocha tells us about his background in international mediation, the role of mediation in hybrid warfare environments, and insights and tips for students wanting to know more about being an international mediator. In addition to his involvement at Columbia University, Jose Pascal da Rocha is a fellow with the BRICS Policy Center, Global South Unit for Mediation in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. He serves as a Peace and Development Adviser to the UN and as a mediation expert with the UN Department of Political Affairs. He is a rostered mediation expert with the OSCE, and currently serves as a senior conflict prevention advisor to the African Union, a senior mediation advisor to ECOWAS, a special advisor to the Mediterranean Women Mediator’s Network under the chairmanship of Italy and the Commonwealth Network of Women Mediators under the chairmanship of the U.K. Foreign Office. He also provides advisory services for U.S. Fortune 250 companies in change management strategies and intercultural communication, including leadership, virtual teams, organizational development, and intercultural communication. In this conversation, he speaks about his work in these different areas as well as on his recent publications, including a handbook on international mediation (Lambert Publishing) and a book on political mediation and conflict resolution. For more information and to locate these books: http://sps.columbia.edu/negotiation-and-conflict-resolution/faculty/jose-pascal-da-rocha

Accomplished astrophysicist and mathematician Larry Liebovitch discusses his current work on the AC4 Sustainable Peace Project with project lead, Peter T. Coleman. Liebovitch is a Professor of Physics and Psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York and also currently an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at AC4. The professors discuss their collaborative work over the past three years with a team of scholars and practitioners on trying to understand peaceful societies and their core dynamics. Professor Liebovitch shares insights about the mix of time-honored and contemporary tools they are using on this project to understand complex systems of peaceful societies and to create models and real world applications from their understanding so that policymakers will be able to think more carefully about what they're doing in their communities to create peace. "This has been fun for me to work with because it is applying things from the physical sciences to a situation that is a lot more difficult to understand." Read more about Larry Liebovitch and the AC4 Sustainable Peace Project: http://ac4.ei.columbia.edu/research-themes/dst/sustainable-peace/

In this interview by Meredith Smith, Stephen Gray talks about recent work in Myanmar and his extensive experience in the conflict resolution field, sharing stories, insights and career advise for current students and aspiring peacebuilders. Stephen Gray is a practitioner, author, and entrepreneur in the field of international conflict resolution. After five years as a practitioner in Myanmar, much of his current work involves applied research and advice to international organizations, international non-profit organizations, and public and private donors, where possible incorporating complexity theory and systems thinking. Stephen is the Director of Adapt Research and Consulting.

"I am an American, a Muslim, an academic, a believer. I believe the only way to learn is to teach. As a speaker and writer I hope to work with you and your community." This from Hussein Rashid. Hussein Rashid is a Professor in the Religion Department at Barnard College of Columbia University, and he is the founder of Islamicate, a consultancy based in NYC. Professor Rashid brings his background in religion and culture to affect positive change in the world. In this conversation with Meredith Smith, he shares about his own religious life, his teaching and current academic work, and the current challenges and possibilities he sees in the contemporary world around religion generally and, and Islam in America specifically. The stories and insights he shares offer insights on many social justice issues in America today and ways to increase understanding so that we can better mediate and contain conflict. Note: this conversation was recorded at WKCR, Columbia's radio station in NYC, on March 16, 2017.

In this episode, Peter T. Coleman interviews Dr. Desmond Patton, an innovative social work researcher who focuses on youth violence research. He shares stories about his research on Internet Banging, as well as the potential utility of social media to identify certain hot zones or spots of violence as well as the implications and challenges of working with social media. He brings qualitative methods and data science to understand how and why youth and gang violence, trauma, grief and identity are expressed on social media and the real world impact they have on well-being for low-income youth of color. Dr. Patton tells about his partnership with the Data Science Institute at Columbia on his current research projects that examine how gang involved youth conceptualize threats on social media, the extent to which social media shapes and facilitates youth and gang violence, and how social media can be used to intervene in youth and gang violence. He explains how data is gathered and interpreted and how he also works with people on the ground, including outreach workers, community based organizations and others, in certain communities of high violence where the research is focused. One of the current pieces of his research, says Dr. Patton, is to invite us to "consider social media as an ecological system that we need to understand and see the implications for in social work practice." Dr. Patton discusses the current aims and challenges in his current research. He humbly shares about his previous work on Internet Banging. His previous research has been discussed on several media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, Boston Magazine, ABC News, and was most recently cited in an Amici Curae Brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in the Elonis vs United States case which examined the issues of interpreting threats on social media. Before coming to Columbia in July of 2015, Dr. Patton was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and School of Information. He received a BA in Anthropology and Political Science, with honors, from the University of North Carolina- Greensboro, MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and PhD in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Kenneth Kressel studies the nature and management of social conflict, with a particular focus on the use of third party mediation as a method for resolving highly polarized conflicts. Dr. Kressel has researched how professional mediators decide what to do when resolving disputes, looking at strategies and practices that lead to mediator success. In this conversation with Dr. Beth Fisher-Yoshida of AC4, he shares knowledge and insights on the role of tacit knowledge in mediator decisionmaking and on different mediator styles. "All mediation is local... context shapes the process," says Dr. Kressel, a professor ​in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University, with PhD from Columbia University.

"The new name of the game is leaks. This has a lot of different effects; one is on our sense of privacy," says Jenik Radon, Professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He sees the Panama Papers - an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world' fourth largest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca - as a global problem. In this conversation with Meredith Smith, he shares his legal insight on corruption, privatization and more, and his wisdom about regulating as a shared civic responsibility that must actively involve an engaged public and media; and he notes how eliciting views and discussing appropriate actions is an important aspect of transparency and democracy. Photo: By VectorOpenStock ([1]) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In this special episode for November 2016, Ali Dineen joined Meredith Smith and Drew Pham, both organizers and colleagues at AC4, for a musical set of folk songs and discussion about the importance of music as a tool for bridging divides and addressing social justice. Ali Dineen is a musician and visual artist who lives in NYC and has been making illustrations and performance pieces for anti-racist and anti-police brutality activism. She collaborates with different artists and musicians on various projects, including cantastoria and other puppetry, traditional and original folk music, and a 1920s jazz band called the Pocket Tonics, as well as the Soundtrack of War event put on at Columbia University's Teachers College last spring, led by the program Services Together from Intersections International. Ali has a new album coming out next month titled Light Comes In.