The Creating Safer Space project ‘Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua: Exploring Local Infrastructures and Initiatives’ published an opinion peace in the Jakarta Post, entitled ‘A new approach to violent conflict in Papua’, on 5 March 2024. The article is written by Arfiansyah and Delsy Ronnie, and it argues that recognizing and allowing a nonpartisan third party to focus solely on protecting civilians from violent conflict could be a stepping stone to conflict management in Papua. The article is available here:

https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2024/03/05/a-new-approach-to-violent-conflict-in-papua.html

The article is currently only available to subscribers of Jakarta Post, but please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk if you would like to connect with the authors to learn more about their research.

As part of the WOW Wales One World Film Festival the Creating Safer Space research network will be showing films from our research projects around the world. The films will be shown at Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Wales on the dates specified below, and will also be shown online from 22–31 March (booking opening soon).

La Fiesta

10.00 am on Wednesday 20 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

La Fiesta is a piece inspired by the findings of the research project Art That Protects and performed by Harlequin and the Jugglers. Witnessed by 600 spectators at the renowned Pablo Tobón Uribe Theatre of Medellín on 17 May 2023, this magical piece transported the audience into a realm of wonder. Among them were members of artistic-cultural organizations from vulnerable urban areas, underscoring the transformative power of art in communities affected by urban violence.

Water Conflicts

4.00 pm on Friday 22 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

We will show short films that explore rivers and the filmmakers’ relationships with them, the social / environmental problems that surround them, and our responses to this. The event will include screening of the films and an informal discussion between filmmakers, artists, and activists.

Water Conflicts

These three films emerged from a research project that explored water conflicts around the rivers La Paloma (Argelia), Santo Domingo (San Francisco) and Dormilón (San Luis) in the Oriente region of the department of Antioquia, Colombia. Peasant communities and organizations in the region have a history of social mobilization against extractivist projects such as hydroelectric power plants, mining, and construction works in protected areas. These projects, often backed by armed actors, have changed the landscape and agricultural lifestyle of many municipalities. Community self-protection in these contexts includes cultivating social practices and relationships aimed at caring for water and life. These films were produced as part of the research project Water conflicts, violations and forms of self-protection.

Cutting the Crap

This session will also include a showing of Cutting the Crap, which was produced independently of the Creating Safer Space network. Details TBC.

nodens

This session will also include a showing of nodens, which was produced independently of the Creating Safer Space network by aim king, PhD student at Aberystwyth University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies. nodens (2023) follows Afon Hafren from source to mouth, exploring what is both strange and familiar through walking with river ecologies. It expresses the feeling of knowing and unknowing, continuously, and simultaneously, with the ever-changing iterations of water.

Exhibition

Participants are welcome to join a Special Event of the Creating Safer Space Exhibition that will take place directly afterwards.

Stories of Unarmed Civilian Protection

2.30 pm on Sunday 24 March, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

This series of films is about civilians harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces for a dignified life. Drawing from real-life experiences in Colombia, Nigeria, and Palestine, these films are born from projects commissioned by the Creating Safer Space research network. Developed collaboratively by academics, communities, and accompaniers, they delve into the practice of unarmed civilian protection, showcasing historical resistance and innovative approaches to imagining, implementing, and sustaining peace. We are excited to also be hearing from two of the principal investigators who initiated the creation of the films:

Dr Marwan Darweish is the Principal Investigator of the project Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta).

Dr Piergiuseppe Parisi is the Principal Investigator of the project ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict: A collaborative visual ethnography of the cultural and spiritual protection practices of the Nasa people in Colombia

Survive among violence. Stories of the Nasa people in Colombia

The Nasa ancestral people of Colombia have lived amidst the Colombian armed conflict for decades. Armed groups, illicit economies, and economic conglomerates target them, jeopardising their survival, and endangering their ways of life. Through Ana Deida, a Nasa woman leader from Resguardo de Huellas Caloto, the Ritualising Protection project team journeys to understand the risks faced by the community and their historical resistance processes. This film was produced as part of the research project ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict.

Minga

This film explores the history and meaning of a community-based socio-cultural and political practice known as Minga, an indigenous form of protest and resistance. The film looks at Minga in the context of armed conflict through the experiences of resistance of the Nasa indigenous communities in the department of Cauca, Colombia. It was created by a group of local researchers from the Indigenous Community of Caldono, Resguardo San Lorenzo, Ancestral land Sath Tama Kiwe in 2023. This film was produced as part of the research project Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia.

Civil protection to stay on our land: Palestine

Produced by local film makers, this film documents the experience of Palestinian farmers and shepherds with civil protection in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta). It explores the efficacy of unarmed civilian protection and how to strengthen self-protection against the threats of expulsion and dispossession by Israel and the settlers. This film was produced as part of the research project Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta).

Caring for community life

In Caring for Community Life, the Senú indigenous people of the Almendros 2 reservation in El Bagre, one of the municipalities hardest hit by armed violence in Colombia, tell how they have been organizing to resist armed groups and remain in their ancestral territories. This film was produced as part of the research project The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca.

Inter-regional learning on UCP in Nigeria (Online Only)

This 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. This film was produced as part of the research project Unarmed civilian protection through collective impact.

For more information and to book, please see the WOW Film Festival website. Please contact creating-safer-space@aber.ac.uk with any questions.

The Creating Safer Space project ‘The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca’ has recently finished.

The project team is pleased to share a multimedia tool that contains the results of the project, available on the organisation’s website: https://cjlibertad.org/psgbajocauca/

An event was held to present the results to relevant organizations and national and regional authorities responsible for the protection and guarantee for social leaders and human rights defenders and indigenous authorities. It sought to generate commitments for the protection of life and guarantees for the work of leadership. State authorities recognize the serious risk situation for social leaders and human rights defenders and indigenous authorities, but are unable to commit to strategies that provide protection and guarantees to the work of social leaders.

The Creating Safer Space network held a three-day Final Regional Event for Africa and the Middle East in Nairobi, Kenya, from 24–26 January 2024. The event was hosted by Strathmore University’s Business School.

The aim of the event was to bring researchers, practitioners, artists, journalists, and policymakers together to share unique research methodologies, research findings, and their implications for violence prevention, protection, and peacebuilding initiatives.

From the many learnings about unarmed civilian protection (UCP) and community self-protection in Africa and the Middle East arising from the presentations and discussions, three overarching learnings stood out:

1. UCP is embedded in, and emerges from, traditional and cultural practices. Findings across different projects are thereby fundamentally challenging and changing the literature on “who does UCP” away from international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) to local people.
2. UCP involves many more activities than had been acknowledged previously. This is because, in protecting people, communities start with what they have, be that signs and symbols, community media, or traditional mechanisms.
3. Early Warning is understood and carried out in most places at risk, but Early Response can be further developed so that the community can choose to de-escalate, use relationships, or other mechanisms. There is a need for better support for developing early response and strategic de-escalation.

Other high-level themes arising from the discussions included, among others:

• That lots of communities and grass-roots organisations do UCP, without calling it such or having heard of nonviolent protection;
• The centrality of the collective and of solidarity in UCP/community self-protection;
• The important role of women and youth;
• The positive role the arts and artivism can play in UCP and community self-protection;
• The growing importance of online media in civilian protection;
• The role of UCP with regard to the looming threat of conflicts brought about or acerbated by climate change, which require early intervention to prevent them.

The event brought together over 60 participants from at least eight countries. Distinguished speakers included Prof. Jacqueline McGlade (Professor at Strathmore University and University College London, formerly Chief Scientist of the UN Environment Programme and Executive Director of the European Environment Agency), Ambassador Frederic Gateretse-Ngoga (Ambassador of Burundi; Senior Advisor for the AU Border Program and Regional Security Mechanisms in the Office of the Commissioner for Political Affairs and Peace and Security of the African Union Commission), Dr Caesar Mwangi (Executive Dean of Strathmore University Business School), Ms Rosemary Kabaki (Nonviolent Peaceforce Head of Mission, South Sudan) and Dr Vincent Ogutu (Vice Chancellor of Strathmore University).

Each of the 10 Creating Safer Space projects in Africa and the Middle East sent at least two representatives to the event, which involved detailed presentations and discussions on research findings and synergies between projects:

• Exploring Unarmed Civilian Self-Protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone Conflict (Gordon Crawford and Nancy Annan of Coventry University, UK, and Bernard Sakah of Big Steps Outreach Network, Cameroon)
• Unarmed Civilian Protection Through Collective Impact: Learning from the Jos Stakeholders Centre for Peace (JSCP) for Enhanced Civilian Protection in Maiduguri, North-Eastern Nigeria (Sukanya Podder of King’s College London and Hamsatu Hajja Allamin of the Allamin Foundation for Peace & Development, Nigeria)
• Gender-Just Landscapes: Gender Based Violence and Community Protection in Land, Natural Resource, and Climate Conflicts (Aliyu Salisu Barau and Zainab Nuhu of Bayero University Kano, Nigeria)
• Strengthening Local Capacities for Unarmed Civilian Protection in Uasin Gishu, Kenya (Clinton Gwako and Emmanuel Birech of Rural Women Peace Link, Kenya)
• Nonviolent Activism Against Police Brutality in Kenya (Martha Okumu and Rachel Akinyi of Peace Tree Network, Kenya, and Elias Opongo of Hekima University College, Kenya)
• Strategies for Safety and Solidarity: Understanding Protection Through Creativity in South Sudan and Colombia (Kara Blackmore of London School of Economics and Political Science, José Fernando Serrano-Amaya of University of Los Andes, Colombia, and Rebecca Lorins, South Sudan)
• Safety and Dignity: Enhancing Unarmed Civilian Protection Amongst Palestinian Communities in the South Hebron Hills (Marwan Darweish of Coventry University and Mahmoud Soliman of Coventry University and Al-Shmoh Cultural Centre, Palestine)
• Visualising Early Warning and Preparedness in Civilian Protection: Investigating Local Vernaculars of Community Adaptations to Insecurity (Diria Vicky Thomas of Community Aid for Relief and Development, South Sudan, and Haji Elias Hillary of Lomore Development Organization, South Sudan)
• Understanding Community-level Spontaneous Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP): A Comparative Study of Initiatives in South Sudan, Myanmar and Colombia (Luke Abbs of University of Winchester, UK, and Moses John and Flora Francis Bringi of Organization for Nonviolence and Development, South Sudan)

The event also involved a Roundtable on Reporting on Civilian Protection. Speakers included Arthur Okwemba and Ruth Omukhango (African Women and Child Feature Service, Kenya), Philip Muhatia (Pamoja FM), Alex Chamwada (ChamsMedia) and Abjata Khalif (Journalist, Northeastern Kenya). They shared experiences of peace reporting in Kenya, through vernacular community media, especially local radio stations, the strong role of women in this alternative media reporting, and how it contributed to unarmed civilian protection and conflict prevention in different settings and situations.

Participants also visited the Creating Safer Space exhibition. The exhibition brings together objects, images, and voices emerging from the network’s projects to show how civilians around the world harness the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces for a dignified life

Recordings of the event are available here:

Keynote Speech, Prof. Jacqueline McGlade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHbWjZbavpw

Livestreaming of Day 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIThcfsg7zg&t=2216s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfX1ZYdMMk

Livestreaming of Day 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVR3jHedVPg&t=11903s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd8zujysQgA&t=195s

Livestreaming of Day 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHbWjZbavpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynty4sHKCJk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DL2HyN13eo

This is the first of our three final events. The final event for Asia will take place in Thailand in February, and the final event for Latin America will take place in Colombia in June.

Gweler y ddolen we hon am wybodaeth yn Gymraeg

What happens when civilians choose unarmed action to protect themselves from violence? How empowering is nonviolence in shaping peoples’ presents and futures?

Aberystwyth Arts Centre, 11 – 28 March 2024
OPENING EVENT: 6 pm on Friday 22 March

The exhibition CREATING SAFER SPACE explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. It shows how protection is being thought of and practised by ordinary people without the use of weapons, and what transformative ways of imagining, doing, and living it enables, but also what its limits are.

With most deaths in wars sustained among civilians and a record high of over 110 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, the protection of civilians from the harms of war, violence and persecution is a pressing issue of our time. But answers are still mostly imagined as either armed protection from violence or as humanitarian assistance to protect people legally and socioeconomically. By contrast, the people featured in this exhibition show us that and how nonviolent, civilian alternatives of protection from physical violence work.

CREATING SAFER SPACE draws on unarmed civilian protection experiences from Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Thailand, where civilians are harnessing the power of nonviolence to create safer spaces and work towards alternative presents and futures. The objects, images, and voices originate from a selection of 26 research projects conducted in collaboration between academics, self-protecting communities and nonviolent civilian accompaniers, that explored how nonviolent civilian protection works. The experiences they have captured invite us to reflect on our own ideas and biases of who can protect and how.

CREATING SAFER SPACE challenges its visitors to undo commonly held beliefs about vulnerability, agency, and choices in war. It invites us to imagine possibilities for the protection of civilians differently. And it inspires us to take action and contribute to this change.

OPENING EVENT

6 pm on Friday 22 March

Join us for wine, food, music and to learn more about the exhibition. Opening remarks by:

As part of the Creating Safer Space project “Community Strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP) in South-West Colombia” the research team, under the leadership of Dr Natalia Campo, organised the 1st International Festival of Participatory Video and Community-based Cinema at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO) in the city of Cali, Colombia, between 15 and 16 Nov.

The festival received 178 applications from 25 countries and its academic agenda included a series of in-person workshops on UCP strategies with community members from the three sites of the project: Buenaventura, Caldono and Lerma, as well as a conversation with Prof. Beatriz Arias about art-based strategies for UCP.

A massive thanks to our UAO-based colleagues and generous hosts of the festival: Prof Jesus Alfonso Florez, Dr Campo, Jimena Andrade and Dr Adrian Alzate; and to the students of Dr Campo’s module Participatory Video and Community-based Cinema, who made a tremendous contribution to the festival. A well-done to our local partners from Buenaventura, Caldono and Catatumbo, whose films were shortlisted. To the winners of the festival, a massive congratulation. You can read more (and see pictures) about the Festival and the winners here:

https://www.instagram.com/festivalcineando/?hl=es
https://www.facebook.com/festivalcineando
https://filmfreeway.com/IFestivalInternacionalCineAndoconmigenteVideoParticipativoyCineComunitario

We are happy to share the Creating Safer Space brochure, with information about our network, our activities and our research.

This version of the brochure shares initial research findings from each of our 26 research projects in Africa, South-East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. A new version of the brochure will be published in autumn 2024, with the final research results.

The brochure is available for download here.

The Creating Safer Space network has two research projects in Palestine. The research teams leading both projects highlight that while the world’s attention is understandably focused on Gaza, there is also a tragic situation unfolding in the West Bank.

The project Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills is led by Marwan Darweish (Coventry University), together with Mahmoud Soliman (Coventry University & Al Shmoh Cultural Centre, Palestine) and Andrew Rigby (Coventry University). Drawing upon their research, they have published an article in Rethinking Security entitled Settlers turn Soldiers: The imperative for international presence and protection in the West Bank. The team argues that there is an urgent need to deploy a civilian multinational presence to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from armed and empowered Israeli settlers. The team also report on the arrest of their film maker:

“Mahmoud Makhamra is a young film maker from the South Hebron Hills (SHH), Palestine, who has been contracted by the project to make a ten minute film about civilian protection in the area. The aim is to use the film as form of discussion among community and other actors to elicit insights and exchange views about the effect of local protection mechanisms. Mahmoud also co-produced the film On Our Land about cultural protection in SHH.

Mahmoud was arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on 29 Dec 2023 at about 12:00 in his village Jinba, while he was filming a shepherd. Mahmoud told us later that “they arrested me and took me to a military camp, and kept me outside in the cold for six hours, my eyes blindfolded and hands tied behind my back”. After that the army took Mahmoud to a military detention centre in Kfar Etzion near Bethlehem. He was released on 2 January without charges. The Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory have no civil rights and will be charged in military courts.”

The project Assessing the impact of unarmed civilian protection in the South Hebron Hills between 2018-2023 is led by Operazione Colomba. They report:

“From October 7th the level of violence escalated: all the Israeli settlers wear a uniform and hold weapons, and behave as a sort of militia, supported by the legitimization of the Israeli government. In this worrying context, Operazione Colomba’s staff has a crucial role to protect Palestinian civilians in danger and to monitor and report human rights violations in the area. The staff suffered direct threats by settlers and the Israeli army on many occasions. Operazione Colomba even witnessed an attempt by an Israeli settler to murder a Palestinian man in the middle of the street in the village of At-Tuwani (South Hebron Hills), that has been recorded and reported to the media and Israeli NGOs and lawyers. Luckily the victim survived, after many medical treatments. Please see: https://news.sky.com/story/israel-hamas-war-how-attacks-by-settlers-on-palestinians-in-the-west-bank-have-risen-during-gaza-conflict-12986997

From the beginning of 2024, the level of violence is always very high. Operazione Colomba is on the ground, together with other groups of activists (Palestinian, Israeli and international) who perform unarmed civilian protection. More than 18 Palestinian villages (almost 1000 people) have been forcibly evacuated by Israeli armed settlers and army in the region. Operazione Colomba witnesses daily arrests, violence, destruction of properties and land-grabbing, recording all the human rights violations.”

The Creating Safer Space project ‘Development of civil protection capacities in women displaced by the armed conflict through popular communication and Community Legal Empowerment‘, led by Masterpeace Cali, shares one of the key outputs from their research: a Transmedia Booklet co-created with the project’s research participants.

The research participants are women in Colombia who have been displaced by armed conflict, and who now reside in contexts characterized by social and urban segregation in the city of Cali. In these environments, the women remain exposed to multiple forms of violence linked to fear-based political dynamics. The booklet communicates the key research findings and shares innovative protection strategies. The aim is to encourage the adaptation and replication of these strategies in other regions and communities affected by fear-based policies.

The booklet is available in English and Spanish.

We are very pleased to announce three new Creating Safer Space projects. These projects will pilot a new participatory evaluation and learning methodology for Unarmed Civilian Protection and Accompaniment (UCP/A).

Creating Safer Space is aware of the sensitivities connected with UCP/A and how traditional methods of evaluation are often top-down or output-focused and therefore risk missing important nuances connected with civilian protection efforts. A group of practitioners and scholars have therefore discussed good practice approaches to evaluation, and developed principles that should inform evaluation design. More information is available here: https://creating-safer-space.com/participatory-evaluation-and-learning/

Creating Safer Space held a funding competition in Summer 2023 to pilot this approach to evaluation and learning, and we are happy to announce the three projects that received funding:

Contributions of grassroots organisations to the implementation of unarmed civilian self-protection strategies in violent urban contexts

Masterpeace Cali received funding for the project Contributions of grassroots organisations to the implementation of unarmed civilian self-protection strategies in violent urban contexts: Towards the security of diverse and vulnerable populations in socio-segregated environments. This project investigates the impacts of actions carried out by grassroots organisations in violent and socio-segregated urban contexts in the city of Cali, Colombia.

Assessing the impact of unarmed civilian protection in the South Hebron Hills between 2018-2023

Operation Dove / Operazione Colomba received funding for the project Assessing the impact of unarmed civilian protection in the South Hebron Hills between 2018-2023. This project aims to assess the impact of the ongoing collaboration between international volunteers and the Palestinian community in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank.

UCP and Migrants in the US / Mexico Borderlands

Meta Peace Team received funding for the project UCP and Migrants in the US / Mexico Borderlands. Using a participatory action research design, this project will engage with organizations serving migrants at the United States/Mexico border to develop tools for evaluating the impacts of unarmed civilian protection and accompaniment to protect migrants in the North American border region.