The Creating Safer Space research network invites Expressions of Interest to participate in a 10-week training course on Strengthening Civilian Capacities to Protect Civilians.
This course is an introduction to the objectives, principles, sources of guidance, and methods of Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP). The course is led by Dr Ellen Furnari and Dr Thor Wagstrom, and is based on course content developed by our partner organisation Nonviolent Peaceforce. There are no course fees, and course material will be provided for free. More information about the course is available on our website.
Course Structure The course dates are 7 January – 17 March 2023. The course will require about 8-10 hours per week to read, participate and complete assignments. Participants complete all activities online through modules that are accessed through the course website. There are no required meetings for this course. However, participants are invited to meet the course facilitators and each other during an informal kick-off Zoom meeting on Saturday 7 January. Up to three additional meetings will be arranged during the course for opportunities to meet and question experienced UCP practitioners and to practice UCP methods through role-play exercises. Attendance for these meetings will not be required but is encouraged.
Eligibility Researchers, Masters/PhD students and relevant practitioners are invited to submit an Expression of Interest to participate in this course. Anyone is welcome to apply, but places are limited. Priority will be given to those candidates who are most likely to benefit from the course, with priority to candidates from the UK and from the Global South. We especially encourage Principal Investigators, Co-Investigators, Project Partners and Research Assistants on Creating Safer Space research projects to participate in the course.
How to apply Please submit an Expression of Interest of no more than 100 words to creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk by 22 November 2022, with an explanation of your interest in the course and how it would benefit you in your work or studies. Please specify if you are involved in a Creating Safer Space research project, including your role in the project.
Research Café: Unarmed Civilian Protection in Thailand
The aim of the Creating Safer Space Café is to enable people in different parts of the world to exchange knowledge and to help build a community of Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP) researchers and practitioners.
This month, Prof. Chantana Wungaeo and Prof. Mark Tamthai will discuss their Creating Safer Space research project, “Introducing Unarmed Civilian Protection in Thai Society: Opportunities and Challenges”. The team will share the aims of the project, their experiences of carrying out the project, and preliminary findings and anticipated outcomes.
12.30 – 1.30 pm UTC on Thursday 17 November Please use a timezone converter to check your local time.
The session will be held in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation.
Unarmed civilian protection through collective impact: Learning from the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace for enhanced civilian protection in Maiduguri, north-eastern Nigeria
Civil society and government actors participated in the research in Borno state
This research project involved learning from a collective impact initiative for unarmed civilian protection launched in 2017, in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Using quantitative and qualitative research on local violence reporting from newspaper archives; focus group discussions, and a video documentary with the members of the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace (JSCP) network, this project contributed new theoretical and empirical insights on enhancing civilian protection through unarmed collective action in the area of community security. Prominently, the research included partner organisations and collaborators in Nigeria to promote grassroots advocacy, capacity building, and knowledge dissemination around unarmed civilian protection (UCP) in Maiduguri, Borno state, where civilians have witnessed both state and non-state directed violence due to the Boko Haram insurgency. A growing normalisation in state-insurgent relations since 2015 has created the opportunity to build the self-protection capacities of local communities. Towards this end, the novelty of the project was three-fold. First, it encouraged inter-regional learning of the collective impact model in UCP. Second, it built the capacity of the people at the grassroots, and those in positions of local power and influence through workshops, mobile video projection and community discussions around UCP in Maiduguri, Borno state. Third, it developed the local capacity in Maiduguri to arrest conflict escalation and mitigate both state and non-state armed violence directed against civilians, through unarmed community security initiatives.
RESEARCH TEAM
Sukanya Podder, King’s College London, UK (principal investigator)
Pwakim Jacob Choji, Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse, Jos, Nigeria (co-investigator)
Allamin Foundation for Peace & Development, Nigeria (project partner)
Short Film: Inter-regional learning on UCP in Nigeria
This short learning video captures insights from an intergenerational and collective impact model adopted by the Jos Stakeholder’s Centre for Peace in Jos, Nigeria, to reduce violence in the context of two communities, Angwan Damisa and Balakaze, that have witnessed several episodes of communal conflict. The insights could help other Nigerian communities adapt the model to reduce or prevent violence in their specific context, such as in Maiduguri where ex-Boko Haram fighters and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are returning and changing the composition of the communities.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The Jos-based model of intergenerational collaboration through multi-stakeholder driven collective impact has had the following lessons to offer for the practice of civilian protection.
The project findings point to the diversity of local capacities that exist for civilian protection that is inclusive and collaborative in nature. In our presentation of the learning video and discussions with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders (n=23) in Maiduguri we found similarities with the Jos model, although these were less deliberate in including a youth-focused, intergenerational and collective impact design.
One of the areas of success in Bala Kaze and Angwan Damisa was collaboration between security agencies (police) and the community leaders. This collaboration included reporting on violent and crime-related incidents. The Breaking the Borders (BtB) Ambassadors who were trained unarmed defenders of the community would arrest miscreants and hand them over to the police for further action.
The BtB included members of different age groups and their ability to use unarmed methods of civilian policing presented an improvement on localised jungle justice methods. In both communities youth involvement in drug abuse and high levels of unemployment were cited as a trigger for localised fights at the stream dividing the two villages. This area of cooperation between formal security agencies/police and the civilians had mixed results in the Tudun Wada community. Some level of complicity between criminals and the police was observed; miscreants were often released without repercussions when the local community leaders attempted to hand them over for selling narcotics or for any other localised crime-related issues.
This variation in the success of the collective impact model suggests that cooperation with the formal security agencies and their willingness to work with local communities is a significant factor in defining the success of civilian protection methods in the area of community security provision.
Finally, the success of civilian protection methods in arresting conflict escalation and maintaining inter-community peace in Angwan Damisa and Bala Kaze does offer important lessons around when unarmed civilian initiatives can become sustainable, locally led, and locally maintained networks for security and protection. They suggest that state agencies need to become willing collaborators and supporters of these initiatives. Local arrangements need to include different age groups and genders.
Following the video screening at the Maiduguri workshop, the five communities whose members took part (communities of Gangamari, Kawar Maila, Limanti, State Low Cost and Old Maiduguri (n=150, 45 F, 105 M), were encouraged to launch an informal civilian protection network and a WhatsApp group to report on civilian protection-related developments.
The sustainability and effectiveness of these networks are likely to be variable and could benefit from the adoption of a more deliberate organisation structure grounded in collective impact-type design. The communities in Maiduguri would benefit from adopting intergenerational collaboration and not just dialogue, as we found that the collective and inclusive decision-making model that was adopted in the case of the Jos network was more effective than one that is consultative or based on elders directing younger members of these networks on proposed routes of action.
Research participants in Borno state
Burnt houses due to communal conflict in Angwan Damisa, Jos, Plateau State
Stream bordering Muslim and Christian settlements in Angwan Damisa, Jos, Plateau State where UCP activities undertaken by the JSCP has resulted in conflict de-escalation
New Project: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills
We are pleased to announce that a new research project will start in October: “Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta)”
The project is led by Marwan Darweish at Coventry University (UK), in collaboration with Co-Investigators at Coventry University and the Al-Shmoh Cultural Center (Palestine).
The project focuses on the South Hebron Hills of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where the civilian population face acts of violence by Israeli settlers in which their crops, livestock, dwellings and lives have been targeted. The project will analyse attempts by civilian actors to support the local communities in their attempts to create safer spaces within which they can continue to maintain their livelihoods, hold on to their land and way of life.
Project co-investigator Mahmoud Soliman during a civilian protection gathering in the West Bank.
New Project: Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict
We are pleased to announce that a new research project will start in October: “Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict”.
The project is led by Gordon Crawford at Coventry University (UK) in collaboration with Co-Investigators from the African Leadership Centre in Nairobi (Kenya), Coventry University (UK), the Big Steps Outreach Network (Cameroon), Authentic Memorial Empowerment Foundation (Cameroon) and Women for Change (Cameroon).
The project investigates community-led initiatives of unarmed civilian protection in the ongoing ‘Anglophone conflict’ in Cameroon. Subjected to violence from both the military and armed separatist groups, civilians have been pro-active and resourceful in devising ways to protect each other and stay safe, inclusive of coded language, non-verbal communication, direct negotiation with the warring parties, early warning networks and information sharing through local associations and social media.
The project will use arts-based and creative research methods that enable conflict-affected communities to co-create knowledge.
New Project: Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia
We are pleased to announce that a new research project will start in October: “Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned”.
The project is led by Juan Mario Díaz at the University of Sheffield (UK), in collaboration with Co-Investigators from the University of Sheffield, Universidad del Rosario (Colombia) and Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (Colombia).
The project will investigate and seek to strengthen the extraordinary capacity of Colombian communities to navigate the complex conflicts that threaten their security. Using a Participatory Action Research approach, which conducts research with rather than on communities, the project will collaborate with grassroots organisations and train community researchers in three diverse communities in the Pacific region of South-West Colombia: i) the predominantly Afro-Colombian port city of Buenaventura; ii) mestizo coca growers based in and around the town of Lerma; and iii) members of an indigenous coffee-growing cooperative in Caldono, Toribio, Santander de Quilichao and Bolivar municipalities. The aim is to facilitate an exchange of knowledge and experiences which enhances community capacities for Unarmed Civilian Protection in the region and beyond.
Meeting between researchers and project partners to discuss training and capacity-building opportunities.
New Project: Exploring Community Perceptions and Coping Strategies on Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar
We are pleased to announce that a new research project will start in October: “Exploring Community Perceptions and Coping Strategies on Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar”
The project is led by Abellia Anggi Wardani at Knowledge Hub Myanmar. The project will investigate how local ethnic groups in Rakhine state, Myanmar, identify and cope with the local violent events they encountered or anticipated.
The project uses a participatory action research approach not only to compare different conceptions of violence of the different ethnic groups in the region but also to explore divergent strategies of said groups to handle and reduce violence in their respective communities.
New Project: Mapping and Responding to Vulnerability through Nonviolent Collective Actions in Colombia
We are pleased to announce that a new research project will start in October: “Mapping and Responding to Vulnerability through Nonviolent Collective Actions in Buenaventura, Colombia”.
The project is led by Manuel Müller at FOR Peace Presence (Colombia), in collaboration with Co-Investigators at FOR Peace Presence and Colectivo ANSUR.
The project will use Participatory Action Research to work with five Afro-descendent and indigenous communities and organisations in the Buenaventura region of Colombia to map collective and individual vulnerabilities to physical harm. Community members will engage in critical analysis over the structures that have constructed vulnerability and the intersectional identities (race, gender, age, sexuality, place of residence, ability status) that interact with vulnerability at the community level. The research will explore through photos and collective histories the diverse strategies that individuals and communities have developed to protect themselves, their lands, and their traditions.
The territory of the AINI Women’s collective in the Naya river. The flag is used by FOR Peace Presence as a protection measure to visibilize their presence.
Gender-just landscapes: Gender based violence and community protection in land, natural resource and climate conflicts
Gender-based violence (GBV) is experienced by one in three women worldwide; however, the risk of GBV grows substantially in conflict. Our understanding how GBV relates to land, natural resource and climate-related conflict is limited however. Our aim was to address this gap in knowledge and improve understanding of the prevalence, intersecting vulnerabilities and resilience to GBV in these contexts, and identify community responses and local protection infrastructure to reduce GBV risks. Through case studies in Colombia, Nigeria and the Philippines, our project used visual and participatory action research methods to understand GBV risk and identify community responses that UCP practitioners and beyond could both learn from and engage with to foster support for communities experiencing violence.
Dr Lora Forsythe (PI) l.forsythe@gre.ac.uk Associate Professor Gender, Inequalities and Food Systems Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, UK
Colombia
Javier Lautaro Medina Bernal (Co-I) jmedina@cinep.org.co Project Manager, member of the Technical Secretariat of the International Verification Component of the Peace Agreement, and coordinator of the National Engagement Strategy in Colombia with the International Land Coalition Conflict, State and Peace Programme, Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP)
Dr Aliyu Barau (Co-I) Associate Professor Urban and Regional Planning Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Bayero University Kano
Philippines
Timothy F. Salomon (Co-I) Facilitator National Engagement Strategy in the Philippines for the International Land Coalition Center for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (CARRD)
United Kingdom
Lilian Treasure (Researcher) PhD Candidate and Vice Chancellor Scholar Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
Dr Uche Okpara (Co-I) Fellow in Climate Change and State Fragility Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
Professor Tilman Brück (Co-I) Visiting Professor of Food Security, State Fragility and Climate Change Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
PROJECT OUTPUTS
Desborde: A Visual Memory website of the research in Putumayo, Colombia
The research used a mixed-method and participatory action research design. Firstly, the project conducted literature and data reviews at both country and global levels. Secondly, the project conducted primary research in the Philippines, Colombia and Nigeria to produce case studies. This included both key informant interviews and workshops with community leaders, civil society organisations, academics and policymakers, as well as focus group discussions with men and women in communities who have experienced or are experiencing violence to understand its relationship to gender based violence and the development of community-based responses to address this. The project also engaged in art-based research activities and immersion in nature-based activities.
Overall, the case studies found that gendered violence is embedded in social relations creating ‘ruptured fabrics’ within territories and enables exploitation of territory, labour, and identity. The focus of UCP on strengthening relationships and communication has an important role to play in healing these ‘ruptured fabrics’, with UCP actors having strong cognizance of power and gender relations in context and their own role within it. Furthermore, women experienced a continuum of violence at different scales. In every case, women related the violence they experienced to structural violence. The deep inequality was considered a form of systemic oppression linked to the production of environmental degradation and capitalist accumulation.
Power (physical, discursive etc) is used over and about women, devaluing their status and roles, enabling violence to be ‘justified’, which is linked to broader patriarchal, colonial, and racialised structures particularly around the creation of property. As such, UCP approaches and actors may only have the capacity or ethical background to address specific forms of violence but will need to recognise the interconnections between different forms of violence, including intimate partner, intra-household, and structural violence.
Development of civil protection capacities in women displaced by the armed conflict through popular communication and Community Legal Empowerment
Utilizing a qualitative research-action design, this project delved into the experiences in the field of unarmed civilian self-protection of a group of women who were displaced by armed conflict and now reside in contexts characterized by social and urban segregation. In these environments, they remain exposed to multiple forms of violence linked to fear-based political dynamics. The research explored the appropriation and implementation of innovative strategies, focusing on community advocacy and storytelling as active participation methods and testimonial resources for collective efforts aimed at promoting social cohesion as the foundation for peaceful community organization.
Research Team:
Luisa Maria Colonia, Masterpeace Cali, Colombia (principal investigator)
Gustavo Suárez, Universidad del Valle, Colombia (co-investigator)
Fundación Carvajal, Colombia (project partner)
Unicatólica, Colombia (project partner)
Humanos: Foro Iberoamericano de Periodistas en DDHH, Colombia (project partner)
Transmedia Booklet
This booklet has been prepared to communicate the key findings of the research. Through this research, Masterpeace Cali presents an innovative approach to peaceful protection strategies employed by displaced civilian populations in urban areas where violence persists and escalates despite ongoing state conflict resolution processes. Furthermore, by co-creating this booklet with the participating women, we aim to share their positive experiences related to the implementation of these strategies with other communities and grassroots organizations at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Our goal is to encourage the adaptation and replication of these strategies in other regions and communities affected by fear-based policies, thus fostering the exchange of best practices in the field of unarmed civil protection (UCP).
