Professor Helen Ware

Professor of Peace Studies - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Helen Ware

Phone: +61 2 6773 2442

Mobile: 0499 563 123

Email: hware@une.edu.au

Biography

Professor Ware has been an historian, a sociologist (working on prostitution), a demographer, a human rights advocate, a femocrat, an aid bureaucrat, a diplomat (High Commissioner to Zambia and Malawi, Ambassador to Angola) and now is that rare creature: a Professor of Peace Studies. Given such a varied background, she is strongly sympathetic to students who are combining their studies with non-academic employment, the demands of a family and the need for some resting time. However, given the potential impact of peace studies on the real world where people are dying and fleeing as refugees, she is also strongly devoted to critical thinking. Before criticising the biases of others, we should understand our own. Passionate defence of the rights of the disadvantaged is vital, but must be based on rational grounds and an in-depth understanding of the actual situation. My current focus is on working with students to maximize their achievement of their full potential.

Teaching Areas

  • Peacebuilding (including issues related to infrastructures for peace and attacks upon neo-liberalism)
  • Post-Conflict Justice
  • Australia's Treatment of Refugees
  • PhD Students in areas related to peace studies (especially Africa, human rights, gender, transitional justice)

Research Interests

Research Interests

Hybridity (i.e. forms of government which mix Western models with non-Western traditions)
The roles of governments and governance in maintaining peace
Transitional Justice (especially the impact of the International Criminal Court and the balance sheet associated with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions)
Trends and differentials in Aboriginal mortality and morbidity (especially in urban areas and NSW)
African development

Major Grant

Professionalization of Peace Education through Wiki, Networking and Innovative Teaching Methods.  Leader of 18 month project which brought together a consortium of the Universities and Stakeholders in peace education ie potential or actual employers of people engaged in peace studies from the defence forces and police to members of government departments and INGOs.


Publications

Books & Monographs

Helen Ware, Bert Jenkins, Marty Branagan and DB Subedi, Cultivating Peace: Contexts, Practices and Multidimensional Models, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014.

Helen Ware, editor and chief contributor,  The No-Nonsense Guide to Conflict and Peace, New Internationalist,  Canada 2005, republished Oxford 2006

Helen Ware, Women, Demography, Development, Australian National University, Canberra, 1981.

Helen Ware, A Profile of the Italian Community in Australia, Co.As.It, Melbourne.

Helen Ware, editor Women, Education and Modernization of the Family in West Africa, Australian National University, 1981.

Helen Ware, Fertility and Family Formation: Australasian Bibliography and Essays, Australian National University, Canberra, 1972.

Thesis

The Recruitment, Regulation and Role of Prostitution in Britain from the Middle of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, University of London,1969.

Scholarly Articles, Book Chapters and Conference Proceedings

“Cosmopolitanism, national interest, selfishness and Australian aid”,  Social Alternatives, 34 (4): 436-46, 2015.

“What does the person on the street corner want ? Growing peace through democracy: issues with hybridity’, in H. Ware et al. 2014.

“Not everyone is Christian: Reconciliation and forgiveness in Buddhism and Islam”, Religion and Peace Commission, International Peace Research Association, World Congress, Istanbul, August, 2014,

“Not the universal remedy: The diversity and impact of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in Africa”, AFSAAP Conference Proceedings, Dunedin, 2014.

“Resilience and vulnerability in post-conflict societies: Three case studies Solomon Islands, Timor Leste and Sierra Leone”, Development Studies Conference, Dunedin, 2014.

XXX   Australian Population Studies Association, Hobart, 2014.

“The Hazara and Afghan Diaspora in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia”, British Society for Population Studies Conference, Swansea, 2013.

With John Idriss Lahai, “ Educating for peace: The sociocultural dimensions of grassroots peace education as a tool for national reconciliation and social forgetting in Sierra Leone”, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, 2013

“ XXX”  International Peace Research Association, World conference, Tsu, Japan, 2012.

With Dele Ogunmola, “Probing the roles of governance and greed in civil strife in West Africa”, in The Economics of War and Peace, 2010.

“Demography, migration and conflict in the Pacific”,  Journal of Peace Research, 42 (4): 435-54, 2005.

“The World Bank in Africa”, in Issues of Sovereignty, Tony Bennett Publishers, 2005.

“Australia’s relationship with Africa”, Australasian Review of African Studies, 26 (2): 42-51, 2004

“Africa: Peace, progress, passion and sustainability” Australasian Review of African Studies, 26 (2) 2004.

“The Word Bank’s poverty reduction strategies in Africa: Realistic expectations and civic engagement”, AFSAAP Proceedings 2004.

With Carlos Arnaldo, “HIV/AIDS and national economic planning”, Proceedings of the IUSSP, Tours, 2003.

‘Thoughts on the course of fertility decline in Sub-Saharan Africa’, 1994

“Origins of Post-War Italian Immigrants” in The Australian People: An Encylopedia of the Nation 1988

From 1982 to 1989 I was a bureaucrat then a diplomat

“Differential mortality decline and its consequences for the status and roles of women”  United Nations, Consequences of Mortality Trends and Differentials, United Nations, NY,1986.

“Effects of maternal education, women’s roles and child care on child mortality”, Population and Development Review, 10  Supplement: Child Survival: Strategies for Research, 191-214, 1984 (this is still regularly cited).

With David Lucas, ”Fertility and family planning in the South Pacific”, Studies in Family Planning.

“The economic value of children in Asia and Africa: Comparative perspectives”, Papers of the East WestPopulation Institute No. 50, 1978.

With Jack Caldwell, ‘The evolution of family planning in an African city: Ibadan, Nigeria”, Population Studies, 1977.

‘The social and demographic impact of international immigrants on Melbourne’ in I. Burnley ed. Urbanization in Australia, 1974.

“Immigrant fertility: Behaviour and attitudes”, International Migration Review, 1975

‘The limits of acceptable family size: evidence from Melbourne”  XX 1973.

With Jack Caldwell “The evolution of family planning in Australia”, Population Studies, 1973.

With Jack Caldwell et al. “ Australia: Knowledge, attitudes and practice of family planning in Melbourne, 1971”, Studies in Family Planning, 1973.

Other Publications

With Belinda Tynan “The use of Wiki in teaching/learning peace studies: A platform for the disadvantaged”, Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning: Access to Learning for Development London, 2008.

Women, Population and Development Trends since 1984, Population Bulletin of the United Nations, 1988.

Population and development in Africa South of the Sahara: A review of the Literature. 1978

The Sahelian drought: Some thoughts on the future, UN Special Sahelian Office, New York, 1975

Submissions to Parliamentary Inquiries

Senate Inquiry into Australia’s Involvement in Peacekeeping Operations.

Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Africa

Senate Inquiry: Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014

Memberships

International Union for the Scientific Study of Population