- University News Archive - 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock /news-archive/tag/united-nations/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:13:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock professor joins international gender, justice, and security research hub funded by nearly $20 million grant /news-archive/2019/02/06/wiebelhaus-brahm-20-million-research-hub/ Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:13:57 +0000 /news/?p=73328 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock professor joins international gender, justice, and security research hub funded by nearly $20 million grant]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor is part of an international research network that has been awarded more than 拢15 million pounds, or $19.6 million, to address gendered dimensions of injustice and insecurity around the world.聽 Over the past two years, Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, associate professor in the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, has traveled to war-affected countries across the world as part of the Justice, Conflict and Development Network. The international research team investigated how peace can be achieved in societies emerging from conflict. That project was funded by a 2016 grant worth approximately 拢150,000 British pounds by the, which supports cutting edge research and innovation that addresses the global issues faced by developing countries. Through the team鈥檚 study of justice initiatives and economic development challenges in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Uganda, the researchers developed new research questions and applied for additional funding to continue their research. The London School of Economics (LSE) Centre for Women, Peace, and Security, which will lead the new coalition of research institutions, was awarded a from the Global Challenges Research Fund to create the Gender, Justice, and Security Hub. 聽 The new Hub is part of the, a pioneering new approach to tackle some of the world鈥檚 most pressing challenges through investment across 12 global research hubs. Over the next five years, these Interdisciplinary Research Hubs will work across 85 countries with governments, international agencies, partners, and nongovernmental organizations on the ground in developing countries and around the globe to develop creative and sustainable solutions which help make the world, and the UK, safer, healthier, and more prosperous. 鈥淭his is building upon our previous research of the that was trying to accomplish two things. The first was to identify important research questions about the interplay of three issues: economic development issues and challenge, justice issues, and conflict dynamics,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淲e are trying to establish policies that might help to ensure peace in the long run, even in conflict-affected countries where the people might never see justice. The second thing we are trying to do is facilitate collaboration among academics, activists, nonprofits, and policy makers across the world.鈥 The LSE-led Hub seeks to advance sustainable peace by developing an evidence base around gender, justice, and inclusive security in conflict-affected societies. With 44 partners across 17 countries, it will expand research capacity and interdisciplinary research. The Hub will also connect with leading ambassadors for gender justice to turn research insights into ongoing actions that will improve lives. 鈥淲hen you have had periods of mass violence, there are often massive human rights violations. People who are victims want to see justice, but different people have different views of what a just response is,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淲e are also looking at the drivers of the conflicts, the simmering tensions that continue in these areas, and how those issues prevent peace building in societies that have been deeply affected by conflict and civil war. A new focus of the project will be gender, how conflict affects individuals differently depending on their gender, and how justice and development are experienced differently according to one鈥檚 gender.鈥 As an example of the type of research the hub will investigate, Wiebelhaus-Brahm said one of the biggest research areas emerging from post-conflict Sri Lanka is the promotion of gender equality stemming from women who fought in the civil war. 鈥淥ne of my colleagues has done research investigating female Tamil Tiger fighters,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淪he has looked at how women have adapted to the end of the war. Women decided to join the rebellion for lots of different reasons. The rebels did sometimes pressure people to support the rebellion. Some said they volunteered to protect a younger brother from joining. Finally, some women saw it as empowering, that joining the rebels gave them more independence. In interviews, a lot of women talked about the equality they experienced as part of the rebellion. After the war, a lot of these women have been shunted back into traditional women鈥檚 work.鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm will be investigating issues related to the funding for peace and justice initiatives and reconstruction projects in countries emerging from conflict and civil war. His share of the grant, which is approximately 拢100,000 pounds (around $130,000), will be used to fund research tools, travel expenses, and graduate research assistants. 鈥淚 will be collecting data on how much funding is being devoted to justice initiatives and where that funding is coming from,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 will also look at attempts to come up with comparable cross-national measures related to gender and development and justice issues. This research will look at existing data from the United Nations, such as that relating to women鈥檚 access to justice. The goal will be to identify existing measures or to come up with measures that can compare a variety of relevant issues across countries to determine how specific countries are doing in terms of successful justice initiatives and the promotion of gender equality.鈥 Professor Christine Chinkin, founding director of the LSE Center for Women, Peace, and Security, will serve as the principal investigator for the Gender, Justice, and Security Hub. 鈥淭he Hub provides an amazing opportunity to work with our partners overseas to explore, through research and exchanges, the potential of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda to help deliver on the global challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals,鈥 Chinkin said.]]> 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock professor investigates Syrians鈥 pursuit of peace and justice in the midst of war /news-archive/2018/06/12/syrian-civil-war/ Tue, 12 Jun 2018 14:53:53 +0000 /news/?p=70742 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock professor investigates Syrians鈥 pursuit of peace and justice in the midst of war]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor visited Syrian refugees and activists in Turkey and Lebanon in May in the last of four trips to war-affected countries by an 18-member international research team investigating how peace can be achieved in societies emerging from conflict.聽 Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, assistant professor in the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, traveled to the region as part of the. Due to the unresolved state of war in some areas of Syria, the group was unable to meet in Syria as they originally hoped. Before the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, the country had an estimated prewar population of 22 million. The United Nations Human Rights Council estimates that 5.6 million Syrians are now living as refugees in foreign countries. The countries that house the most refugees are Turkey with more than 3.5 million refugees and Lebanon with nearly 1 million refugees. 鈥淭he goal of this trip was to meet with Syrian refugees and activists as well as other people working with the United Nations and non-government organizations,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淲e sought to examine how the world can hold people accountable for mass atrocities while simultaneously building peace and providing justice for victims who have suffered as a result of the war. Circumstances on the ground make this especially challenging. There are some parts of the country where there is peace because Assad鈥檚 government has imposed order. Elsewhere, there are many communities in rebel-held territory where local councils have been set up to provide order because the state doesn鈥檛 exist.鈥 The international team investigated some of the major barriers to recovery and development in Syria, including rebuilding homes and infrastructure and educating displaced children and youth. 鈥淭o rebuild the damage that has been done to Syria will take billions of dollars for 聽infrastructure that is no longer there. When it comes to education and health, many facilities have been destroyed. In some areas, Assad鈥檚 forces purposely targeted schools and hospitals,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淲ith education, for example, you have thousands of children who have missed out on years of schooling. That is going to have long-term development consequences for the country. When it comes to land, there are also issues where property ownership may not be clear, where people may not have clear titles to their property.鈥 The conflict will also have major consequences for women, especially those who have become the sole providers for their families due to the loss of their husbands and other male relatives through war, imprisonment, or displacement. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more likely that it will be men who will go out to fight. It鈥檚 also the case that, when the government is trying to clamp down on opponents, it will typically be males,鈥 Wiebelhaus-Brahm said. 鈥淭here are thousands of people who are political prisoners in Syrian jails. Their absence has consequences for the families. The male is typically the breadwinner in the family, so how does that family survive?鈥 In an article titled Martin Clutterbuck of the Norwegian Refugee Council described the challenges women in Syria face in asserting their property rights. 鈥淚n Syria, as in many other countries, laws, norms and practices around ownership, inheritance and decision favour men,鈥 Clutterbuck said. 鈥淔or example, a woman鈥檚 registered legal identity in the Syrian civil registration system both prior to the conflict and today is linked to that of her husband or father, and women often relinquish their inheritance rights to a male family member.鈥
Photo of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, provided by Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm.

Photo of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, provided by Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm.

The high point of the trip for Wiebelhaus-Brahm was a trip to the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. The refugee camp was originally set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross for Palestinian refugees in 1949. It remains home to thousands of Palestinian refugees. Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, the camp has swollen in size and become the home to thousands of Syrian refugees as well. The refugee camp is unique in that it has permanent structures because it has been around so long. However, the camp does not have water or sewer infrastructure. Electricity comes from generators. The camp, which is one square kilometer in size, houses one community center and two schools. 鈥淲e went to the Shatila refugee camp, which was an amazing experience,鈥 he said. 鈥淭here continues to be roughly 20,000 Palestinians living in the area, and there are also 20,000-25,000 Syrian refugees that have come over the past seven years. The Lebanese government hopes the refugees will return home eventually, which is why they have not created the infrastructure for the camp. That is not unique. Countries don鈥檛 want to make refugees feel too welcome because they don鈥檛 want them to stay. It鈥檚 a difficult situation.鈥 The research team met with Basmeh and Zeitooneh, a Syrian non-governmental organization working with the refugees. They provide skills training, life skills, and training in literacy, English, and how to use computers and social media, among other services. 鈥淭he Syrian refugees seemed very happy and grateful for that support, but they want to get back home,鈥 he said. Wiebelhaus-Brahm said many of the refugees were reluctant to talk to researchers because they feared that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad鈥檚 regime would eventually find out that they had spoken out against the Syrian government. 鈥淭here is this belief among Syrians that the intelligence arm of the al-Assad regime is long. If these people want to go back home, they may need to reconcile themselves to the fact the government may win the war. If they want to go back to Syria to live and work, being on record as a critic or even being suspected is dangerous.鈥 The goal of the is to understand how peace can be achieved in countries affected by conflict through the study of justice initiatives and economic development in four countries: Colombia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Uganda. The trip to Syria was the last of four planned visits. The network visited Colombia in April 2017, Uganda in July 2017, and Sri Lanka in January 2018. The project is headed by Kirsten Ainley, director of the at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Additional members of the network include professors from around the world, government officials, and members of nonprofit and activist organizations. The project is funded by the, which awarded the network a grant in 2016 worth approximately 150,000 British pounds, largely to develop relationships that bridge academics and practitioners from developed and developing countries and to fund travel for members of the network to research the four countries. The network recently submitted a larger grant to continue its research in additional countries.]]> 糖心Vlog传媒LR to host 鈥淎rkansas Women to Watch鈥 /news-archive/2016/09/07/arkansas-women-to-watch/ Wed, 07 Sep 2016 13:47:44 +0000 /news/?p=65023 ... 糖心Vlog传媒LR to host 鈥淎rkansas Women to Watch鈥]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host the artwork of four emerging and mid-career female artists from Arkansas whose pieces are featured in a statewide tour.聽 鈥淎rkansas Women to Watch: Organic Matters鈥 is the fourth biennial tour of work by Arkansas women. The competitive exhibit is sponsored by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. 聽 The 糖心Vlog传媒LR Art Gallery will display the exhibit from Sept. 8 to Oct. 20 in the Maners/Pappas Gallery and Gallery III in the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building. Artists include Sandra Luckett, of Conway, Katherine Rutter, formerly of Little Rock, Dawn Holder, of Clarksville, and Melissa Wilkinson, of Bono. A reception will be held for the artists at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building. The reception will also honor Brian McCarty, an internationally exhibited artist and toy industry veteran whose photographs are on display in the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Art Gallery from Sept. 1 to Oct. 20. Three of the Arkansas Women to Watch artists will give guest lectures at 糖心Vlog传媒LR during the exhibit, including:
  • Melissa Wilkinson, 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building Room 157
  • Dawn Holder, 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building Room 157
  • Sandra Luckett, 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building Room 157
The is a co-sponsor of the reception. The event will be held during in observance of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace.
Melissa Wilkinson's 2014 watercolor "Man Eater."

Melissa Wilkinson’s 2014 watercolor “Man Eater”

Curator Courtney Taylor canvassed the state of Arkansas to select four contemporary female artists working with imagery and materials taken from the natural world. Their work includes mixed media and photographic installations, mixed-media drawings, and watercolor paintings. Historically, society encouraged female artists to take the natural world as their subject. Rather than narrative art, which was thought to require invention and imagination beyond women鈥檚 capabilities, subjects such as botanical drawings, still-life paintings, and images of animals 鈥 merely requiring the powers of observation 鈥 were deemed suitable. The theme of 鈥淥rganic Matters鈥 illuminates how contemporary artists re-contextualize images in nature to reflect upon the themes of sexuality, gender politics, and the abstract to redefine emerging relationships between women, nature, and art. The 糖心Vlog传媒LR Art Gallery is located in the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Fine Arts Building and is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Beginning Sept. 10, the gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and 2 to 5 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, contact 糖心Vlog传媒LR Gallery Director Brad Cushman at becushman@ualr.edu or 501.569.8977. In the upper right photo,聽Dawn Holder’s “Once Upon a Time in the Forest of I鈥檓 Not Sweet Enough” is a featured work in the聽鈥淎rkansas Women to Watch: Organic Matters鈥 biennial tour of work by Arkansas women.]]>