The podcast “Vienna Dialogues: Coffee and IR” has published a new podcast episode about the research of the Creating Safer Space network. In the episode, host Markus Pollak is joined by Professor Xymena Kurowska to speak with network lead Professor Berit Bliesemann de Guevara about unarmed community self-protection amidst violent conflict.

The conversation opens with a discussion of conducting international relations field research in conflict and war-affected settings. At the core of the episode is the “Creating Safer Space” project. It explores questions of (unarmed) civilian protection, as well as the project’s broader contributions to debates in peace and conflict research and beyond academia.

“Vienna Dialogues: Coffee and IR” is a student-run podcast hosted at Central European University (CEU). 

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify.

The project “Water conflicts, violations and forms of self-protection: A multi-case study in Eastern Antioquia, Colombia” has published a new article (in Spanish) titled “Hydrosocial Resistances and Environmental Subjectivity: Defense of Water in San Luis, Eastern Antioquia” in the journal El Ágora USB. The article is co-authored by project team members Denisse Roca-Servat, Juan David Arias-Henao, Jessica Restrepo Gallego, Luis Evelio Giraldo García and Dubán Quinchía González.

Abstract: The socio-environmental movement in the municipality of San Luis, in eastern Antioquia, Colombia, has faced a historical process of defending its waters and territories, which has been transformed as territorial conflicts have been reconfigured. This article explores three periods of hydro-social resistance, by highlighting the environmental subjectivity that emerges in each. This piece of research employs a participatory action research methodology, and it stems from a multi-case study in eastern Antioquia. As part of the findings, the emergence of a new environmental subjectivity is observed as a response to territorial dispossession, expressed through art and pedagogy.

The Spanish-language article can be downloaded here.

On the occasion of Geneva Peace Week 2025, Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) officially launched UCP Academy, an online learning platform designed to equip individuals and organisations with the skills to practise Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP)—a proven, practical approach to protecting civilians, preventing violence, and fostering peace. 

UCP Academy has been developed in collaboration with the Creating Safer Space network and will soon feature a course on “Unarmed Community Self-Protection” based on CSS and related research (watch this space!).

The Academy will feature: 

• Opportunities for collaboration and mentorship across regions and sectors. 
• Resources to support community-led initiatives for the protection of civilians. 
• Foundational and advanced UCP courses with field-tested strategies. 

Developed by Creating Safer Space, UCP Academy also hosts the revamped UCP Knowledge Database, the biggest public repository on Unarmed Civilian Protection, community self-protection and related topics. It includes academic research publications, working papers, NGO documents, films, music, and more and is now available on a user-friendly, open access platform. 

UCP Academy and Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) also announced the launch of the Changemakers Programme—a global initiative designed to scale up civilian-led initiatives while equipping participants with the tools to integrate Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP) strategies into their work. Changemakers is open to individuals worldwide, including practitioners, researchers, artists, and policy advocates committed to advancing civilian-led protection initiatives. Selected participants will receive training, mentorship, and opportunities to collaborate on real-world projects that enhance the ability of communities to protect themselves and others amid violent conflict and displacement. Applications are now open!

Read NP’s press release about the launch here.

The former UCP Research Database is now the UCP Knowledge Database!

Developed by Creating Safer Space and hosted by UCP Academy, the revamped UCP Knowledge Database is the biggest public repository on Unarmed Civilian Protection, community self-protection and related topics. It includes academic research publications, working papers, NGO documents, films, music, and more, and is now available on a user-friendly, open access platform. 

We hope you you enjoy browsing through the database and find it useful to your work!

We need your input!

We seek to continuously grow and improve the UCP Knowledge Database, and to do so, we need your input:

• Are there UCP resources missing which should be included?
• Do you, or does your organisation, hold resources that could be made available through the database?
• Can you help pointing out UCP-related resources in languages currently under-represented (or not at all)?
• Any other constructive feedback?

Please send your input to: creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk.

The Cameroon team organised a practitioners workshop in Yaoundé on 19 March 2025, entitled ‘Strengthening Community-Led Approaches to Unarmed Civilian Protection in Cameroon’.

The event was held at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation office and attended by 30 representatives of local, national and international NGOs and diplomatic officials. The aim was to share research, experiences and brainstorm on ways to strengthen community-led nonviolent approaches to protection in Cameroon.

The Cameroon team presented their findings to the audience, stimulating a discussion about unarmed civilian protection in the Cameroonian context and Africa more generally. A Practitioners’ Roundtable involved representatives from Peacebuilders International (PBI), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and two local women’s organisations working on protection who presented their work on civilian protection in Cameroon and elsewhere.

The workshop concluded by formulating a joint media statement and call to action in French and English.

The workshop was funded through Coventry University’s ESRC/IAA Impact Funding award.

The project team of “Exploring Community Perceptions and Coping Strategies on Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar” has published two Policy Briefs, on perceptions of violence and of nonviolent civilian protection in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Policy Brief No. 1, “Perceptions of Everyday Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar“, examines years of civilian-targeted violence that occurred in central and northern Rakhine. At its core, the Rakhine conflict is an asymmetric conflict involving the national military (Sit-Tat) and factions of several local ethnic insurgency groups, prominently the Arakan Army. Contestation to assert local control across Rakhine has exposed the population of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds to different facets of violence. This ranges from direct violence attributable to armed clashes to subversive forms of violence rooted in systemic discrimination and a culture of hostilities targeted at certain ethnic groups. Discussion with respondents reveals a population in distress, losing hope and feeling isolated.

Policy Brief No. 2, “Perceptions of Nonviolent Civilian Protection in Rakhine State, Myanmar“, presents the project team’s findings on local conceptions of nonviolent protection in Rakhine State. Participants’ responses suggest that locals primarily need to invest in their capital as individuals (e.g., wealth, ethnicity, social standing, knowledge, and others) to gain access to different self-protection strategies. Yet access to such capital is largely driven by ethno-religious privilege, which puts the ethnic minority groups at the struggling end. Alternatively, there are chances of local protection efforts being provided by other stakeholders such as sangha (Buddhist monks), prominent local figures (i.e., village elders and local administrators), and locally operating humanitarian groups, but such efforts are currently limited and are highly context-specific. The policy brief concludes with some key recommendations on how to better expand access to civilian personal capitals for all Rakhine ethnic communities and what sort of support unarmed third parties may need in order to better prepare their interventions.

Beatriz Arias López and Laura Jiménez Ospina, of the project “Art That Protects“, have published a new open-access article under the title “Art that protects: Contributions to expanded self-protection in the urban socio-political conflict in Medellín, Colombia” (in Spanish) in the journal Revista Virtual Universidad Católica del Norte.

Summary: Previous experiences and studies agree that art is a powerful mediator in contexts of socio-political violence. The aim of the study was to explore how artistic and cultural initiatives developed by community-based organisations in Medellín generate and facilitate self-protection strategies, especially for women and young people in the context of urban conflict. From 2022 to 2024, our team conducted an in-depth case study including document analysis, participant observation, territorial walking tours, semi-structured interviews, and discussion groups, with the participation of 15 organisations. It shows that art becomes self-protective through its impact on strengthening collective processes, mutual recognition, the ownership of safe territories, and the possibility of an affirmative stance by artists and communities towards armed actors, making art a protective umbrella that enables other types of relationships and agency in the neighbourhood, in addition to the legitimacy built by organisations over the years. The authors conclude that art allows for expanded self-protection that encompasses both a physical and emotional dimension, considering the bonds that are formed between individual and collective bodies, with actions of care that strive to maintain and strengthen solidarity and spaces for the common good.

The article can be downloaded here.

Several Creating Safer Space project researchers contributed to the series “Civilian agency, armed groups and international law” of the Beyond Compliance: In Conversation Podcast, which is co-hosted by CSS project team member Florian Weigand together with Katharine Fortin.

In Episode 4, “Negotiating with Armed Actors”, Riyad Anwar and Abellia Anggi Wardani of the project “Exploring Community Perceptions and Coping Strategies on Violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar” talk with Ashley Jackson and the podcast hosts about their research on civilian agency during the armed conflicts in Myanmar and Afghanistan, respectively, asking: How do civilian communities negotiate with armed groups? What do people try to achieve in these negotiations? And what enables them to negotiate with an armed actor?

In Episode 11, “Civilian Self-Protection and Land”, Marwan Darweish and Piergiuseppe Parisi of the projects “Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills” and “‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict” talk with the podcast hosts about their research on the different ways in which civilian communities resist against armed actors in Colombia and Palestine, asking: How does a community’s relationship with the land they live on feed into their experiences of harm? What solutions do they find to protect themselves?

In Episode 7, “Victimhood & Everyday Peace”, CSS co-investigator Roger Mac Ginty discusses with Kieran McEvoy and the hosts about Northern Ireland and their research on civilians navigating armed conflicts across the world. What role did civilians play during the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland? How does agency relate to victimhood and transitional justice? And how can people contribute to ‘everyday’ peace?

The Podcast Series features a range of other interesting discussions will well-known researchers in the areas of civilian protection and civilian agency in conflict, and we highly recommend delving into it!

In December 2024, the project “Nonviolent Artivism Against Police Brutality in Kenya” held a powerful exhibition, performance and panel discussion event at the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi.

“Shadow to Strength: Resilience in the Face of Adversity” brought together artists, activists, survivors, and experts to discuss questions of human rights advocacy against police brutality in Kenya, which will also resonance with the experiences of many other communities around the world.

You can now watch highlights of this events in the “Shadow to Strength” documentary, the recording of a very insightful panel discussion on artivism against policy brutality, and in a series of art clips showcasing performances by Kenyan artists.

The documentary mini-series “Shared Knowledge on Community Self-Protection” sought to promote knowledge exchange between representatives of communities involved in various projects supported by the Creating Safer Space network in Colombia. It is an outcome of the Creating Safer Space regional meeting in Colombia in 2024, which found that Colombia has a wealth of nonviolent community self-protection experiences but often lacks opportunities to link those localised efforts.

In Episode 1, Norma, who participated in the project developed in collaboration with the Llano Verde Peace Seedbed in Cali, visits Harlequin and the Jugglers in Medellín, who participated in the Art That Protects project.

In Episode 2, Verónica, from the Water Conflicts project, travels with Luz Dey to Bajo Cauca to learn about the functioning of the Social Guarantee Process in that region, while in Episode 3, she shares her experiences at the Water Festival in Nariño, Antioquia.

In Episode 4, researchers from Art That Protects visit Lerma, where they learn about the self-protection experiences of indigenous communities living in the midst of a high-intensity armed conflict.

In Episode 5, Creating Safer Space Network researcher Laura Jiménez travels to Buenaventura to learn how the Cormepaz organisation has promoted unarmed civilian protection measures among communities living in a city marked by conflict and extractive economies.

Access all episodes HERE.