CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - WRITING WORKSHOP Amplifying African Voices in Peacekeeping and Statebuilding

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - WRITING WORKSHOP

Amplifying African Voices in Peacekeeping and Statebuilding

A consistently high number of violent conflicts and wars have been taking place in Africa, often attributed to weak statehood and institutional failure. International peacekeeping and statebuilding interventions are also concentrating on the African continent. Despite the concentration of both violent conflicts and peacekeeping in Africa and the significant contributions African countries make to peacekeeping and statebuilding, African voices and perspectives are largely missing in the international academic debate on the topic. As a result, the Durham Global Security Institute at Durham University (UK) and the Department of History, Archaeology and Political Studies at Kenyatta University (Kenya) are inviting East- and Central African researchers and academics to participate in a writing workshop
that aims at Amplifying African Voices in Peacekeeping and Statebuilding Research.

The workshop is supported by the British Academy and will be organised
from 22-24 November 2021
at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVE AND OUTLINE
The workshop aims at building the writing and publication capacities, offers peer review
for papers, familiarises participants with the publication processes, advises on funding
bodies and proposals and establishes a mentoring scheme for selected authors. It will also
provide a platform for knowledge exchange and supports the establishment of an academic
network that connects early career researchers to the wider academic community, including
senior scholars from Europe and Africa, editors of relevant journals, and funding bodies.

WORKSHOP APPLICATION PROCESS
We invite papers from across humanities and the social sciences that focus on peacekeeping and statebuilding. Papers on peacekeeping may include but are not limited to military and civil cooperation in peacekeeping, the protection of civilians, gender and peacekeeping,
infrastructures and logistics of peacekeeping, privatisation of peacekeeping, peacekeeping and political settlements, shared sovereignty or new forms of imperialism, troop
contributing countries, peacekeeping training and conduct, African Union compared to UN peacekeeping or South-South cooperation. The focus on statebuilding is equally widely understood ranging from political settlements to institution building, rule of law, security sector reform; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration; statebuilding in the context of past crimes and transitional justice and effects of international statebuilding.

Interested applicants are requested to submit an abstract of approx. 500 words, and a max. two-page Curriculum Vitae (CV) to jutta.bakonyi@durham.ac.uk and lugano.geoffrey@ku.ac.ke by 30 July 2021. Applicants will be informed by mid-August 2021 if they were selected.

Selected participants should submit their paper (3000-5000 words) latest by 01 November 2021 to give peers, peer-reviewers and organisers sufficient time to prepare comments. We will use the workshop to discuss the paper, identify strengths and weaknesses and provide guidance on how to improve the paper to be accepted by an academic publisher. A mentoring scheme will be established to support the transformation of the paper into a publication.