2021 International Summer Course in Critical Peace Studies

The Peace Academy (Sarajevo) in partnership with the University of Manchester welcomes applications from practitioners looking for comparative and rigorous reflection and academics interested in a grounded local perspective on divided societies. This course is led by practitioner academics in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands and Colombia and covers the practical wisdom of peacebuilders, peace practice and gender, peace at work, building peace in Western Europe and the peacebuilding complexities of the protracted conflict in Colombia online from July 26 until September 3.

ss2020The Peace Academy organized a summer course, Resisting Nationalism and Populism: Lessons from the case of Bosnia & Herzegovina, from July 27 to August 28, 2020 in partnership with the University of Manchester in Great Britain and with the financial support of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The course was held via the Zoom online platform and examined the growing global phenomenon of nationalism and far-right populism, its enormous potential and power to polarize society, and the perception that it is a threat to a liberal social order and political tolerance. BiH and the region offered a dynamic case study, because despite the revival of nationalisms and populism in the 1990s and the divisions present during the wars in BiH and the region until today, there is still evident and continuous resistance to nationalist and populist programs. 

2020 International Summer Course in Critical Peace Studies

It's our pleasure to inform you that we are organizing this course which offers an excellent opportunity for learning from almost 30 years of resistance to nationalist populism in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This focus includes the forms of everyday resistance and ‘hidden transcripts’, but also struggles to foster social movements and political alternatives. The course will also be offered as an online course given present uncertainty regarding travel restrictions to Sarajevo.

The Peace Academy is a partner in translating and publishing literature dedicated to the fight against right-wing populism, religious and ethno-national radicalization and violent extremism.intended for the academic and activist communities. 

Essays

  • Which Way to Peace?

    Course Participant: Dubravka Kalac (Zadar, Croatia) Sometimes, when I walk the streets of my city, late in the evening, when there's only silence present, pictures of  not so distant past strike me,...

    Read more: Which Way to...

  • Youth, Education, Peacebuilding

    Author: Tajana Vlaisavljevic (Zagreb, Croatia) Although the course touched on different areas and challenges of working in the field of peacebuilding in divided societies, while deciding what to...

    Read more: Youth,...

Videos

Ubleha for idiots

  • Cooperation

    It represents the relationship which Hegel described in his Phenomenology of Spirit, in the chapter on Lordship and Bondage. Relationship of equals between the poor locals (See) and the rich internationals (See). The locals may do whatever they want and they have to do everything while the internationals have to do only what they are paid for.

from Ubleha for Idiots – An Absolutely non useful Guide for Civil Society Building and Project management for Locals and Internationals in BiH and Beyond by Nebojša Šavija-Valha and Ranko Milanovic-Blank, ALBUM No. 20, 2004, Sarajevo, translated by Marina Vasilj.