Rethinking Peace, Conflict and Governance Conference

Birds-eye perspective of three human hands in three skin tones touching at the fingertips

A conference to reflect on peacebuilding issues in the 21st century

Dates: 12–14 February 2020

Venue: University of New England (UNE) Parramatta Campus, Sydney, Australia.

About

This conference hosted by UNE Peace Studies will bring together scholars, postgraduate students, policymakers and practitioners contributing to the discourses and practices of sustainable peacebuilding.

Conflicts in the 21st century have become increasingly complex and require innovative frameworks to guide peacemaking and peacebuilding. In keeping with the interests of peace studies at UNE (with students from Sierra Leone to Mongolia and from Italy to Bangladesh), the geographical scope of this conference will be global.


Presentations

The UNE Peace Conference 2020, organised by staff, PhD students and graduates of UNE Peace Studies put some of the biggest issues facing the world today on the table, such as efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons. Discussions focused on the challenges, progress and work ahead. Speakers raised significant moral, educational and political issues, and initiated valuable discussions on the major challenges, as well as new research insights and constructive projects being undertaken to reduce war and militarism, and move towards a safer future.

On this page you can view a cross-section of the many presentations made at the conference. The topics of these range from the global, with the consequences of nuclear war, to Australian programs such as the Alternatives to Violence Project, to regional topics of developing nonviolent relationships; analysing governance and state-sponsored terrorism; and shifting from armed struggle to nonviolent action.


Promoting nonviolent relationships: Alternatives to Violence Project workshops with parents

The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) offers workshops on nonviolent relationships and conflict resolution. This presentation offers a brief overview of AVP and discusses how it has been adapted in Newcastle to work with families where there have been issues to do with family violence.

View the presentation: Promoting non-violent relationships: Alternatives to Violence Project workshops with parents


The Alternatives to Violence Project, social capital and people from refugee backgrounds

The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) in Sydney has been working conducting workshops on nonviolent relationships and conflict resolution with people from refugee backgrounds. This paper discusses some challenges of evaluation in this context, and the results of a mixed method evaluation of these workshops.

View the presentation: The Alternatives to Violence Project, social capital and people from refugee backgrounds


Name. Narrate. Navigate pilot program

Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) is a program exploring trauma-informed, culturally-sensitive responses to family and domestic violence by young people. This presentation provides a brief overview of NNN and its underpinning practice principles, and discusses some findings from associate research.

View the presentation: Name. Narrate. Navigate pilot program


Love and honour: marriage for peace

Where to from here? A local and a global issue.

Marriage for Peace presents potentially lethal Domestic Violence towards eloping couples in India and Nepal. Where to from here? is the question asked.The local issue in Northern India is being under police guard on your honeymoon expelled from your home community and looking for a new life in the wider community.

The global issue asks where to from here? for refugees in UNHCR Camps. Options are raised including the possibility of New Country - a functional country building afresh on land leased to UNHCR.

View the presentation: Love and honour: marriage for peace


Social media in West Africa: a continuation of conflict by other means

At a time when much of the world is communicating via social media, this presentation introduces a project underway in Sierra Leone to examine how the most popular platform, WhatsApp, is being used by students – with the aim of transforming it from a conduit for ethnic and political division into a force for greater harmony.

View the presentation notes: Social media in West Africa: a continuation of conflict by other means


Globalisation, governance and State-sponsored terror: the case of Indonesia
Shifting from armed struggle to non-violent action in indigenous communities in Mindanao
The consequences of nuclear war: current evidence
Prospects for the Sustainable Development Goals
Presentation on nuclear risk reduction NGO plenary


Conference program

Click here to download a conference program (PDF).