Find all the latest CUSP news stories and blogs below:
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Noyam African Dance Institute Performs at Birmingham Festival 2022
BY NII-TETE YARTEY & ESTHER ADOBEA AKUAMOAH
In 2021, the Noyam African Dance Institute teamed up with ME Dance Company and Conception Dance Africa from UK and Grenada respectively with support from the British Council.
The collaboration leveraged available technology to produce Oceans of Independence, an experimental dance piece that was performed simultaneously with three different countries across three different time zones in the COVID-19 era.
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Discursive construction of “feminicide” in Mexico
BY BERNICE GONZÁLEZ
TRANSLATED BY ALINE ACEITUNO
The term “feminicide” commonly refers to the gender-specific killing of women. Diana Russell and Jill Radford define “feminicide” as: ‘the set of acts and violent behaviours against women because they are women, which sometimes lead to murder’ (Diana Russell and Jill Radford cited in Lagarde (2006a: 2020)). This definition was further articulated in Mexico by the anthropologist Marcela Lagarde, so it would not be confused or lost in translation from English to Spanish as feminicide or female homicide; in other words, it would not only be considered a feminisation of the concept of homicide – the killing of a person by another person or group of people.
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"We want us alive"
BY CAROLINE BUENROSTRO & BERNICE GONZÁLEZ
TRANSLATED BY ALINE ACEITUNO
March the 8th is without a doubt a very important day for women all around the world, because it recognizes the struggles that women in different parts of the world have faced to overcome the inequalities they endure on a daily basis. Despite improvements for some, there are still millions of women who continue to suffer from gender discrimination, inequity, poverty and violence.
Photo credit: Alma Berenice González Marín
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"Were tha born in a barn?"
BY ALISON PHIPPS
I was born and grew up in South Yorkshire. A county of dialects and proverbs and poverty. The City I am from – Sheffield – declared itself – like Aotearoa New Zealand – to be a Nuclear Free Zone. We had our own folk traditions, popularised by the singer Kate Rusby in Christmas Carols, of singing at Christmas in the streets in local pubs, local radio stations, into care homes, and community centres – taking cheer and traditional Yorkshire carols into places of hospitality and care.
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The parallel fight - Echoes of resistance
BY RAJAA ESSAGHYRY, RACINES AISBL
In Morocco, there is a common popular expression “Lmra Hachak” that can be translated to “woman, with all due respect”. My first reflex was to look at the definitions of the expression “with all due respect” that are suggested by Google. The first one I found is: “If someone prefaces a sentence by saying “with all due respect”, it’s a sign that they are likely to unleash something negative or critical, and sometimes quite vulgar and highly disrespectful”[1]. You would probably tell me: Why do we even have to add this sentence after pronouncing the word “woman”?”. Technically, according to some kind of archaic traditions, being a woman is an “insult” or an “aberration”, thus requiring adding this expression so as not to “offend” anyone.
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Cuts destroy, hurt, kill: a critical metaphor analysis of the response of UK academics to the UK overseas aid budget funding cuts
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE
On 11 March 2021, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) body, which leads research funding across the UK, announced a substantial reduction in the international development research budget as a result of the UK government decision to cut the overseas aid budget.
In this article, we analysed news, blogs, interviews that UK-based academics wrote in response to the announcement of the cuts, from 11 March 2021 to 30 April 2021, through Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA). Metaphors are powerful tools to express concepts and shape reality.
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Publication: Gender Based Violence in Morocco
BY RACINES AISBL
In Morocco – where Racines aisbl is project partner for CUSP, the work focuses mainly on women as leaders for social change, education and transmission of knowledge. The focus for the Morocco work package will be placed on artistic practices of women in Morocco and the role arts, culture and intangible heritage play in conflict transformation.
Image credit: Rajae Hammadi
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Exploring teacher agency and identity through the Tree of Life approach
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE
Led by Maria Grazia Imperiale, Lecturer in Adult Education at the University of Glasgow, and previously CUSP Academic Coordinator, Stephen Mander, and Damian Ross conducted a participatory research project as part of The British Councils Widening Participation programme.
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Abolishing War is Needed
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE, ANDREA CAGLI, DIEGO LOMBARDI
On 13 August 2021, Italian surgeon Gino Strada, founder of Emergency, died at the age of 73.
A surgeon is how he defined himself when he received the Right Livelihood Award in 2015; a pacifist, or more precisely as he said himself ‘I am not a pacifist, I am against war!’; an activist who spent his life curing and treating people in war zones; a thinker, who once wrote that wars do not only destroy infrastructure but destroy human relations; a father, a husband. Gino Strada was a model of humility and perseverance that shaped humanitarian health and a culture of peace since the foundation of Emergency in 1994.
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Peacebuilding and Books as Mirrors, Windows and Doors
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE
In the fourth episode of our CUSP Podcast series, Prof. Evelyn Arizpe, Dr Giovanna Fassetta and Dr Julie MacAdam joined Prof. Alison Phipps for a discussion on peacebuilding in relation to the work they do as educators, researchers, and members of their communities. In the contexts in which Evelyn, Giovanna and Julie have worked and are working, especially the Gaza Strip and Mexico, physical violence occurs on a daily basis. Gaza is a context of protracted conflict with an ongoing blockade and recurrent military aggressions; and in Mexico, gender-based violence is acute, in particular the incidence of feminicidio (Castañeda Selgado, 2016).
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Conflict Transformation or Conflict Resolution?
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE
In CUSP we frame our work within ‘conflict transformation’, inspired by the work of Jean Paul Lederach. Lederach the father of conflict transformation, was one of the first scholar-practitioners that started to use and conceptualise conflict transformation as opposed to conflict resolution.
In the early 1990s, conflict transformation as an idea was not that common among peace studies and theorists. There was rather a focus on conflict resolution and conflict management.
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3. ‘Feelinguistic deficiency’ of trauma dramatic monologue of a linguist in occupied Palestine: To be Free
BY NAZMI AL MASRI
“Sorry, although I’m an applied linguist with an education and psychology background, I can’t do anything, I can’t do nothing, I can’t identify or specify my current feelings, I can’t describe my feelings for these 11 days. I feel that I may have caught a Feelinguistic Deficiency.”
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Are we all vulnerable? Reflections on the term ‘vulnerability’.
BY MARIA GRAZIA IMPERIALE
‘Vulnerability’ is a contested term. In our project, we work with youths, children, minorities, women, people who have escaped wars and conflicts; those are usually identified as ‘vulnerable groups’. However, overall, within our team we tend not to use this word much, perhaps because the idea of vulnerability is often associated with the stigma of victimhood and risk.
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2. Palestinian Babies
BY NAZMI AL-MASRI
Please listen to me and to my soft gentle voice,
Please listen to my truthful pen and fact-based writing,
Please listen to my broken and tearful heart but brave and peace-longing,
Thank you for listening to a sample of my One Thousand and One real stories,
Kindly lend me your ears and open your heart and mind,
Kindly read these recent and current fact-based stories happening in Gaza in May 2021
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Loch Tay Retreat
BY CUSP
Back in a snowy February 2020 a group of young people from Ignite Theatre Group spent three days at Loch Tay, Scotland.
The focus of the retreat was to examine issues around conflict transformation and how the arts can help survivors cope with past traumas. The retreat centred around four different workshops, each looking at a different element of the arts: Words, Music, Adinkra and Improvisation.
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CUSP - Palestine
BY ALISON PHIPPS
The role of cultural institutions, as opposed to political and intergovernmental organisations, is vital in promoting ways of imagining peace and pathways to justice. Whilst political and legal institutions are vital for upholding laws and making laws, cultural institutions are where peace and inclusion can be imagined, promoted and built effectively.
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1. Why did they kill my dad -Baba?
BY NAZMI AL MASRI
“WHY did they Kill my father?”
Cried sadly Aya Muin Al-Aloul who miraculously escaped certain death when Israeli warplanes, in just a few minutes, fired about 50 heavy bombs on Aya’s house and neighbouring residential buildings at Al-Wehda Street in Gaza, Palestine.
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Loch Tay Retreat
CUSP
The role of cultural institutions, as opposed to political and intergovernmental organisations, is vital in promoting ways of imagining peace and pathways to justice. Whilst political and legal institutions are vital for upholding laws and making laws, cultural institutions are where peace and inclusion can be imagined, promoted and built effectively.
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