SPIRe is pleased to welcome five new hires to the teaching and research faculties. Drs. James Cross, Alex Dukalskis, and Aidan Reagan will be joining the school as lecturers strengthening the school’s expertise in European Studies, International Relations and Human Rights. Dr. Tamara Lewis has joined the school through the FP7 FRAME project with Dr. Graham Finaly as a post-doctoral researcher and Dr. Alexa Zellentin will join the school as a teaching fellow in political theory.
Dr. Cross received his PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2011 and has since undertaken post-doctoral work at ETH Zurich and EUI in Florence. Dr. Cross’ research has focused on transparency in the decision making processes of the European Union and has featured in in the Journal of European Public Policy, the European Journal of Political Research, and European Union Politics. Dr. Cross will be joining the School in January, 2014.
Dr. Dukalskis recently completed his dual Ph.D. in Political Science & Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2013 where he was a University Presidential Fellow. During the 2013-14 academic year, he is lecturing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a serving as a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. Dr. Dukalskis’ current research has focused on the ways that ideology influences authoritarian persistence in the contexts of North Korea and Burma/Myanmar, the dynamics of truth commissions and human rights tribunals in processes of transitional justice, and the ways that international human rights norms circulate, with a particular emphasis on the International Criminal Court. His work has been published in Human Rights Quarterly, the Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Review, Communist & Post-Communist Studies, and Democratization. Dr. Dukalskis will be joining the school in August, 2014.
Dr. Regan is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne, and previously was a Max Weber Fellow (MWF) in the Department of Political and Social Science, at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence. Dr. Regan received his PhD from UCD in 2012. Dr. Regan’s research has examined the political economy of social pacts in Europe. Dr Regan’s work has been published in the journals New Political Economy, andCritical Policy Studies and has a forthcoming book on ‘The Politics of Adjustment to the Economic Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe. The Rise and Fall of Irish Corporatism’. Dr. Regan will be joining the school in February, 2014.
Dr. Lewis recently defended her PhD on ‘The Universal Periodic Review Mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council: Transforming the Human Rights Discourse.’ at Maastricht University and also holds a Juris Doctor from Columbia University.
Dr. Zellentin studied in Leipzig and Oxford, where she wrote her PhD on Neutrality in Political Decision Making. Most recently she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Graz researching in the area of climate justice.
SPIRE’s week 9 seminar will feature Dr. Cara Levey, Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, University College Cork on The Struggles for Memory and Justice in Post-dictatorship Argentina Thursday 21st November.
Venue: A106 Newman Building
Time: 13:00-14:00
Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, Argentina has experienced an upsurge in the mobilisation of civil society, notably human rights, relatives’ and survivors’ organisations who have called for perpetrators of human rights violations committed during the most recent dictatorship (1976-1983) to stand trial, and undertaken many projects related to both truth-seeking and commemoration. It is in this context in which I examine the societal struggles for memory and justice in post-dictatorship Argentina, exploring a range of commemorative initiatives in Buenos Aires. First, I consider initiatives to recover sites associated with the dictatorship, notably the many former clandestine detention centres such as the ESMA, Orletti and Club Atletico where so-called “subversives” were held and tortured and from where many were forcibly disappeared. The struggles to recover these sites for societal projects are arduous and complex, mobilising both state and societal actors and raising questions about the way in which the past has been addressed more broadly by successive post-dictatorship governments. In the second part of the paper, I consider H.I.J.O.S (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence) – a group made up of children of Argentina’s disappeared – who have, since 1995, employed the” escrache” to contest the impunity characteristic of post-dictatorship Argentina. “Escraches” are somewhat controversial acts of public shaming during which 300 to 2,000 people invade neighbourhoods and identify the homes and workplaces of “represores” (perpetrators of dictatorship-era crimes), to expose their identities, challenge their anonymity and publicise the crimes of which they stand accused in order to produce moral and social condemnation as a counterpoint to judicial investigation into the past.
This paper argues that the “escrache” and the recovery of sites of repression are used to critique not only the human rights violations committed during the last dictatorship, but to shape collective memory in contemporary Argentina. Moreover, I demonstrate that the struggles for memory and for justice are intertwined. The paper will thus explore the initiatives and their engagement with the political and judicial spheres and potential for challenging impunity in the post-dictatorship period.
Bio
Cara Levey is a Lecturer in Latin American Studies at University College. Her main research area is human rights and memory in the Southern Cone and she has published a range of articles on cultural memory in Argentina and Uruguay. Her AHRC-funded doctoral research (completed in November 2010) explored contested commemorations of human rights violations in Argentina and Uruguay and she has published a number of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on this topic. She is currently working on her monograph, entitled “Commemoration and Contestation in Post-dictatorship Argentina and Uruguay: Fragile Memory, Shifting Impunity”. Her next major research project is an exploration of the politics of memory of the Falkands/Malvinas conflict, which in particular examines commemorative initiatives and narratives undertaken in the UK since 1982. She is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English. She holds a PhD from the University of Leeds and MA from the Institute for the Study of the Americas.
SPIRe’s Dr. Melanie Hoewer compares the experiences of women in the post-conflict peace processes in Northern Ireland and Chiapas in a new paper at the International Journal of Conflict and Violence.
Abstract
Violence against women occurs in peacetime, intensifies during wartime, and continues in the aftermath of armed conflict. Women sometimes make gains during
conflict and their efforts to break the pattern of violence have led to a greater awareness of gender-based violence. However, a lack of acknowledgement
of transformations in gender identity at the macro-level during peace processes may create conflict in intimate partnerships. This study brings to light the
complexity of changes occurring during peace processes in a multi-level analysis of women’s perceptions and positioning towards the state, their community,
and their intimate partnership. This comparative analysis of fifty-seven female activists’ narratives from Chiapas and Northern Ireland demonstrates how a
one-dimensional peace process (Northern Ireland) can limit the space for addressing women’s concerns, while peace processes that transcend the ethnonational
dimension of conflict (Chiapas) can open a dialogue on issues of contention in male-female relationships.
Q&A with Jeffrey D. Sachs Director of Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York. President of the Global Masters of Development Practice Association on his Kapuscinski Lecture on Sustainable Development:
Moderater Patrick Paul Walsh UCD School of Politics and International Relations Chair of the Academic Council of the Global Masters of Development Practice Association
Online (Worldwide), 11 December 2013, 8:00 EST/13:00 GMT/14:00 CET.
More information at kapuscinskilectures.eu.
See Youtubes
SPIRe’s week eight seminar will feature SPIRe PhD Student David Hallinan, this Thursady (Nov. 14th), 1-2pm in G317 speaking on ‘EU Trade Policy in Northeast Asia’
Abstract
This paper consists of an in-depth case study of the pursuit and implementation of EUKOR, the EU-South Korean FTA.1 EUKOR is the first FTA implemented by the EU since the launching of the Global Europe strategy in 2006.2 It is also the first agreement to be implemented under the new Lisbon-treaty rules, entailing co-ratification by the EP. The EU has actively pursued and successfully achieved fully open market access with the Republic of Korea (ROK). However, the ROK is a major producer of automotives, textiles, electrical goods, machinery, and other high-technology products. The prospect of a full FTA between the ROK and the EU presented head-to-head competition for European producers in these key sectors, resulting in vocal opposition from sectoral interest groups concerned about increased import-competition and the overall effects of the agreement on European production and employment. The onset of the crisis in the Eurozone begs the question of how the EC managed to deliver on its stated commitment to trade liberalization vis-à-vis the ROK, despite direct competition in key sectors and societal opposition to the agreement. This paper will seek to explain the key actors which drove the pursuit and implementation of EUKOR, examining the roles and motivations of the EC, the European Parliament, trans-European interests groups and their lobbies, and particular EU member states (MSs).
The next meeting of the Dublin Political Theory Workshop will take place at noon on Friday, 15 November in G316, Newman Building, UCD.
Adina Preda (UL) will discuss her paper ‘Are There Any Conflicts of Rights?’. Participants are asked to read the paper in advance of the session. Anyone who wishes to attend should please email John William Devine at (devinejw@tcd.ie), who will be happy to forward the paper to you.
The UCD School of Politics and International Relations and The UCD Human Rights Network cordially invite you to the screening of the documentary
‘The Value of Women in The Congo’
Which will be followed by Q&A with film director
Dearbhla Glynn
Thursday, 28 November 2013, 16:00-17:00
Venue: Theatre O, Newman Building, UCD
The documentary looks at the effects of the sexual violence perpetrated with impunity against women and girls in war-torn Eastern Congo. The director, Dearbhla Glynn, is an accomplished documentary filmmaker, specializing in explorations of conflict and its effect on women and children. She won for this documentary her second Grand Prize at the fifth annual Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) Human Rights Film Awards, having previously taken the honours in 2010 for her exposé of conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip.
We are looking forward to seeing you there and to have your active participation in the discussion.
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UCD SPIRe G311 on Monday, November 11th at 1-2pm.
All Welcome
There are 1 in 8 people hungry in the world today, yet here in Ireland we are taking food
from developing countries and burning it in our cars as biofuels. Biofuels are fuelling hunger,
pushing up global food prices and causing land grabbing in countries across Africa, Latin
America and Asia.
Bio: Silas Siakor is the Director of Friends of the Earth Liberia, one of Trócaire’s partner
organisations in West Africa. Silas is an internationally renowned human rights advocate,
environmentalist, international development expert, and winner of the 2006 Goldman
Environmental Prize, an award which recognises individuals for sustained and significant efforts
to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk.
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