2015 SCID Reader – Working and Researching in Conflict-Affected Environments

The 2015 SCID Reader: Researching and Working in Conflict-Affected Environments has just been published. The Reader includes papers presented at the second SCID Symposium, held on 12 March 2015 at the University of Leicester, as well as supplementary papers resonating with the theme of the Symposium. The video recordings of the presentations can also be found on this Blog.

The theme of the Symposium/Reader ties into one of the core aims of the SCID Course and one of the main reasons for establishing the SCID Panel of Experts: to help bridge the divide between the worlds of academia and practice in the field of peacebuilding and broader international development. This is particularly important given the Course aims to equip its students with the knowledge and skills to pursue or advance their careers in this field. Ultimately, it is hoped that by bridging this gap, efforts to understand and, thus, better respond to the challenges posed by conflict can be more successful.

Papers included in the Reader consider some of the skills, dynamics and challenges associated with researching in conflict-affected environments, as well as those (often similar) skills, dynamics and challenges associated with working as a practitioner in these environments. Part of the aim of the Symposium and subsequent Reader was to identify some of the common challenges and skills required for researching and working in the field, in an effort to identify lessons and enhance both research and practice.

Contributors to this Reader include film directors, retired senior police chiefs and military officers, government advisers, international human rights and humanitarian law barristers, senior officials in the UN system and other leading international experts in the field of conflict resolution and recovery.

It is hoped that the Symposium presentations and this Reader will be of significant value to the SCID student and others associated with the SCID programme, as well as other practitioners and scholars engaged in conflict-affected environments. It is also hoped that the publication of this Reader will provoke further discussion of some of the challenges associated with conducting research and working in conflict-affected environments and ways in which they can be overcome. Thank you very much to everyone who contributed to the Symposium and the Reader.

Please post any comments or questions that you may have here, or in reply to any of the individual Symposium presentations on the Blog.

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/news-and-events/scid-symposium-2015-reader-released