Land, Colonial Legacies, Forced Displacement, Reconciliation, COVID-19 and Gender: Different Perspectives of Hub Research on Colombia
This event was held on Zoom on 29 July, 19:00 – 20:30 (BST) / 13:00 – 14:30 (COT).
Hub researchers will present preliminary results from their research projects ‘Land Reform, Peace and Informal Institutions’, ‘Navigating Colonial Debris: Structural Challenges for Transitional Justice in Colombia’, ‘The effect of cash transfers on gender violence during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bogota, Colombia’, ‘Political Economy of Gender and Reconciliation’ and ‘Forced Displacement and Migration’.
Speakers
Chair: Dr Marie Berry ( @marieeberry ) is an Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and the Director of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative. She is a political sociologist with a research focus on violence, gender, social movements, and politics. Together with Milli Lake (LSE), she leads the Women’s Rights After War Project, part of the Empowerment Stream on the Hub.
Project No. 1: “Land Reform, Peace and Informal Institutions”
Dr Camilo Sanchez ( @NCamiloSanchezL ) is an assistant professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law, a research associate at the Center for the Study of Law, Justice and Society – Dejusticia ( @Dejusticia ), in Colombia, and a Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub. His research focuses on justice in post conflict scenarios; land governance and peacebuilding; and the role of international human rights law in the Colombian transitional justice process.
Aaron Acosta ( @AaronAlfredoA ) is a California attorney who specialises in international human rights and IHL. He is employed as a researcher at Dejusticia ( @Dejusticia ) and works on the Hub’s Land Reform; Peace and Informal Institutions project. From 2018 to 2019, Aaron spent a year at Dejusticia as a transitional justice research fellow, where his work primarily focused on holding economic actors accountable for crimes committed during the Colombian armed conflict. Before joining Dejusticia, Aaron studied at UCLA School of Law, where he received his Juris Doctor with a specialisation in international and comparative law.
Project No. 2: “Navigating Colonial Debris: Structural Challenges for Transitional Justice in Colombia”.
Professor Fionnuala Ní Aolaín ( @NiAolainF ) is a Co-Director on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is concurrently Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Professor of Law at the Queens University, Belfast. She has published extensively on issues of gender, conflict regulation, transitional justice, and counter-terrorism. She has held academic positions at Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, Princeton University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ní Aoláin is currently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism, ( @UN_SPExperts ).
Professor Bill Rolston is a Co-Investigator on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is an emeritus professor and former director of the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University and a co-researcher on a Hub project examining the ability, or otherwise, of transitional justice to deal with the deep harms of colonialism with a focus on Colombia and Ireland. He has researched and written widely on legacies of conflict and on post-conflict transformation, mainly but not solely in relation to Northern Ireland. Issues researched have included: truth commissions, the contribution of politically motivated prisoners to conflict transformation, victims and memory, and political wall murals.
Dr Claire Wright is a research officer on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub is currently a Research Fellow with QUB’s School of Law, having worked for several years as a Lecturer in Mexico. Her research focuses on politics in Latin America, particularly the role of emergency institutions and ethnic difference. On the Hub, Claire is working on a project that seeks to determine the relevance of colonial legacies to processes of transitional justice, comparing the cases of Colombia and Northern Ireland.
Project No. 3: “Forced Displacement and Migration”
Professor Eleonore Kofman is a Co-Director on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship, Co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University, and a Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub. Her research focuses on theoretical and empirical aspects of gender and migration, especially the implications of families on the move and transnational social reproduction. On the GCRF Hub, Eleonore is undertaking a project on the gendered economic and social dynamics of labour migration in selected Middle Eastern and South Asian countries.
Professor Brad K Blitz ( @ProfessorBlitz ) is a Co-Investigator on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is a Professor of International Politics and Policy at University College London, Institute of Education. He was until June 2019 Director of the British Academy Programme on Tackling Slavery, Human Trafficking and Child Labour in Modern Business; Professor of International Politics at Middlesex University. He has published extensively on issues of governance, human rights, social policy, migration, political transition, labour, health and security. He has served as a consultant to several international and development agencies including DFID, the World Bank, as well as several UN agencies and governments.
Project No. 4: “Political Economy of Gender and Reconciliation”
Dr Angelika Rettberg ( @rettberg_a ) is a Co-Director on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is a professor in the Political Science Department at Universidad de los Andes and a Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub. Her research focuses on several aspects of the political economy of armed conflict and peacebuilding, such as the relationship between legal resources, armed conflict, and crime, the dynamics of transitional justice and reconciliation, and business behaviour in contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding. On the GCRF Hub, Angelika is pursuing a project on the relationship between reconciliation and development, with an initial focus on Colombia.
Project No. 5: “The effect of cash transfers on gender violence during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bogota, Colombia”
Dr María del Pilar López-Uribe ( @marialopezuribe ) is a co-investigator on the Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is assistant professor in Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia; Research fellow at the Latin American Centre and Firoz Lalji African Centre, London School of Economics (LSE) and affiliated with the department of International Development, LSE. Her research affiliations include the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University in New York, the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE; the Institute of Developing Studies IDS; the Centre for Development Economics at Los Andes. Maria’s research interests include development economics, economic history and political economy in Latin America and Africa.
Image credit: Agencia Prensa Rural (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)