BU Research Blog

Staff, students and colleagues are warmly invited to an inspiring and engaging half-day conference on Wednesday 9 October from 1pm (BG11, Lansdowne Campus). Speakers include visiting colleagues from Kosovo and BU academic staff. The conference opens with an informal networking lunch, followed by presentations and panel discussion.

The focus of this conference is to discuss and debate whether issues of gender, violence and conflict that have heightened visibility in post-conflict environments, can be recognised similarly in the UK. By asking what we can learn from questions of gendered violence in a fragile international context and whether these can be applied to our social environments in the UK, the aims are:

To de-exoticise gendered violence in war and post-conflict contexts abroad by going beyond stereotypical assumptions and representations;
To interpret contemporary UK conceptualisations of gendered violence through an alternative lens inspired by international experience.
We are fortunate to have the opportunity of the Erasmus-funded presence of two visiting Kosovar colleagues who are presenting at this event. Dr Linda Gusia and Assoc. Prof. Nita Luci are the founders and directors of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research at University of Prishtina, Kosovo. They are highly active for women’s rights in the public sphere of in Kosovo. This poses unexpected challenges to equal rights not only arising from classic patriarchal cultural legacies but also from masculinity reiterations in the totalising field of international, post-conflict intervention.

We are also joined by two BU criminologists of the Department for Social Sciences who are working in related fields of gendered gang crimes: Jade Levell on gang crimes in the UK) and Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari on questions of human trafficking in Nepal. This conference arises from our own academic interests in questions of gendered hate crime in the UK (Dr Jane Healy) and on transnational and post-conflict questions of social justice (Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers).

1.00: Arrivals and networking lunch

2.00: Welcome by Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, WAN, and by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Centre for Marginalised Voices

2.15: Jade Levell, BU: “The competing masculinities of gang-involved men who experienced domestic violence/abuse in childhood”

2.45: Nita Luci, Univ. of Prishtina: “Researching Gender in the Balkans”

2.55: Break for tea and coffee

3.15: Linda Gusia, Univ. of Prishtina: “Recognition of Sexual Violence in Kosovo after the War”

3.45: Shovita Dhakal Adhikari: “Exploring Child Vulnerabilities: pre- and post-disaster in Nepal”

4.00: Panel Discussion: “Inverting the gaze: Juxtaposing gender and conflict in transitional societies abroad and the UK”

5.00: Close

Please register at: https://genderconference.eventbrite.co.uk/

Event Date: 09/10/2019

Event Description: Women’s Academic Network & Centre for Seldom Heard Voices present: Gender in Conflict Conference

Contact Details: jhealy@bournemouth.ac.uk & sssievers@bournemouth.ac.uk

Wednesday 9 October: BG11 1-5pm: ALL WELCOME

Please register at: https://genderconference.eventbrite.co.uk/