OLD Annual Festival of Politics and International Relations 2018

Festival of Politics & International Relations

**PROGRAMME SUBJECT TO CHANGE, PLEASE CHECK FOR UPDATES**

The annual Festival of Politics & International Relations involves a programme of talks, debates, workshops and other events providing opportunities for argument and discussion on a range of social, political and economic issues – contemporary and historical, national and global.

Leeds Beckett University

Festival of Politics & International Relations 2018

November 12-16

All underlined sessions are free and open to the public

Check for updates & additions

https://festivalpir2018.eventbrite.co.uk

https://leedspage.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/festival-of-politics-and-ir-2018/

Monday 12 November

Visit to Imperial War Museum North, Manchester

‘Lest we forget’ exhibition https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/lest-we-forget

Tuesday 13 November

1000-1100

Calverley

CL311

The Contested Nature of Knowledge

Dr Tom Houseman & Dr Robin Redhead

How do we know what we know? What assumptions do we make about the sources of information we draw on every day? In this session we will look at how knowledge is produced and explore the often subconscious ways we interpret certain types of information as fact.

1100-1200

Woodhouse Building WHG01 Lecture Theatre 1

Tackling FGM

Masooma Ranalvi

Chair: Dr Oriel Kenny

Eliminating FGM from the world is a Sustainable Developmental Goal. Yet a global drive to eradicate female genital mutilation (FGM), a custom commonly associated with Africa, will fail unless efforts are extended to tackle the hidden ritual in parts of Asia.

India as a country has never been the focus or even a mention in any anti fgm campaign. Yet FGM exists in India Pakistan, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Malaysia ,Thailand and several other Asian countries. The immigrant populations from Asian and African countries have taken the practice to Western nations. It is estimated that 137000 women and girls are affected by FGM in England and Wales alone with London recording the highest prevalence rate of 21 per 1000 population.

WeSpeakOut, the organisation founded by me is the largest survivor led movement in India working towards eliminating FGM. As a movement for social reform it seeks to prevent FGM in practicing communities through empowering women and girls, education and mobilisation.

As a global issue there is a need to collaborate across borders and create synergies between peoples. I would like to share with you all my experiences in building a movement which started from my community but has now become transnational with alliances and collaborations across borders with various stakeholders and partners who are an integral part of a global anti FGM front.

Masooma Ranalvi currently works as trainer on issues of gender and sexual harassment and is a social activist. In 2015, she took the bold step to be vocal about her views on the practice on FGM, and how having been a victim of the practice when she was young, it impacted her deeply and mobilised support to start debate and discussion over the taboo issue in her community.

Since then she has been at the forefront of a wide survivor led campaign in India to end FGM in the community. She has inspired women and young girls across the country of openly speak about their experiences with regard to FGM and to actively engage in a campaign against the practice.

She spearheaded a signature campaign asking the Government of India to ban FGM in India and the petition has mobilised 150000+ signatures so far. She is actively involved in exploring and researching the legal and policy level changes and options that would work in India to effectively end FGM here.

She has built a movement of women by actively using social media and technology to let the voices of girls and women be heard across the nation. The facebook Group: Speak Out on FGM has over 3000 followers and the whatsapp group of over 100 women engaged in daily conversations on FGM.

She has actively mobilised media to support the end FGM campaign with hundreds of articles being published regularly on FGM in India in various languages, and more importantly calling for members to question and be critical of the blindly followed tradition.

1200-1330

Rose Bowl RB263

The Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US military

Dr Aggie Hirst

Lecturer in International Relations Theory and Methods

Department of War Studies, King’s College London

Chair: Dr Tom Houseman

Dr Hirst’s research is situated in the fields of IR/political theory and critical military studies. She is Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Trust/British Academy funded project titled 'Producing Soldiers in a Digital Age', which explores of the US military’s use of wargames and simulations to teach and train service members. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted on military bases and developing novel analyses of play and immersion, this presentation explores the political and ethical implications of these immersive training technologies.

1400-1600

Broadcasting Place

BPA101

Dissertation supervision café

Dr John Willott & supervisors

An opportunity for all final year dissertation students to meet their supervisor prior to submitting the outline assessment at the end of the week.

1600-1730

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre C

Negotiating Battlefields

A talk by Rae McGrath followed by Q&A for which he will be joined by Dr Rachel Julian

Chair: Dr Steve Wright

This talk sets out to put humanitarian response in modern conflict within a realistic framework and argues that the current response structures - the so-called humanitarian architecture - are ill-equipped to provide the most basic life-sustaining needs of non-combatants trapped within complex wars where combatants either intentionally or carelessly ignore the restraints required by International Humanitarian Law. McGrath argues that internal priorities and unrealistic aims of implementing agencies, the all-encompassing War on Terror, the shifting and often Kafka-esque rules imposed by major donors, irrelevant and outward-facing conflict analysis and the reluctance of the international humanitarian community to demarcate specialist roles all conspire to defeat our best intentions; to help those most vulnerable to death, injury and displacement in conflict. McGrath explains the realities of negotiating today's complex war zones in order to deliver food and essential aid across frontlines to displaced and beseiged communities and calls for an urgent review of how the international community responds to this most basic human duty.

Rae McGrath served for 18 years in the British Army as a military engineer before he began working with humanitarian aid organisations, initially delivering food aid to communities in Darfur Province of Sudan during the famine of the mid-1980's. He worked throughout Africa and Asia and, responding to the daily toll of victims, established community-based landmine clearance programmes in Afghanistan in 1988. He was the founder and first Director of the UK-based international NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the author of many key reports and two books on the impact and effective response to landmines, cluster munitions and unexploded ordnance. In the period leading up to the 2005 Peace Agreement in Sudan Rae was instrumental in a number of innovative crossline projects funded by the European Community and IGAD Partner Forum and initiated the first landmine clearance programme in the Nuba Mountains. McGrath has also established and directed field programmes responding to natural emergencies, including Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, and in Java following the 2006 Bantul/Yogyakarta earthquake. He is an active civil society campaigner and was a founder member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), representing the campaign when it was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, he delivered the Nobel Lecture. McGrath played a key role in the Cluster Munition Campaign (CMC) which resulted in the treaty banning the weapons in 2008, he was author of some of the key technical papers and a member of the CMC international steering committee. From 1997 he was an associate and visiting lecturer at the Post War Reconstruction and Planning Unit (PRDU) at York University where he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2014. In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Leeds Beckett University for his work related to International Humanitarian Law. Rae worked as Senior Programme Manager for emergency response for Save the Children UK from 2009 to 2012 and led responses to emergencies in Ethiopia, West Sumatra, Somalia, Liberia, Tunisia, Libya and Jordan/Syria. In early 2013 he became Country Director for North Syria and Turkey for Mercy Corps, responsible for high volume cross-border food aid to civilians in opposition and contested areas of North Syria, he also initiated refugee and migrant response programmes in Turkey. Since leaving Mercy Corps in 2017 McGrath has been UK-based, working on a book and advocating for a renewed international commitment to addressing the needs of civilians in conflict. He lectures widely on conflict and humanitarian issues.

Wednesday 14 November

0900-1100

Broadcasting Place

BPA301

Volunteering presentations

Dr Sophia Price

Current Level 6 (3rd year) students will give assessed presentations for the Active Politics and Volunteering module. Current Level 4 (1st year) and Level 5 (2nd year) students are invited to attend in order to find out more about the types of volunteering undertaken by PIR students and how the level 6 module is assessed

1100-1200

Rose Bowl RB310

Focus Group

Dr Robin Redhead

All Politics & IR students are invited to attend this focus group meeting with Robin Redhead to discuss how things are going on your course: what you like, what could be improved, and any actions that need to be taken.

1230-1345

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre E

Microfinance – Marxist Feminist perspectives

Dr Sophia Price & Brett Byatt

Microfinance has been at the forefront of attempts at a variety of levels to marry gender empowerment with economic growth through entrepreneurialism. However this ‘Smart Economics’ of financial inclusion has come under widespread critique. Both presenters will explore specifically Marxist Feminist approaches to understanding the underlying forces that have driven the widespread adoption of microfinance and the impact this has on gender relations in the Global South

Brett Byatt is currently in his 3rd year of studying Politics BA(Hons) at Leeds Beckett University and has recently published an article ‘The case of Kiva and Grameen: Towards a Marxist feminist critique of ‘smart economics’’ in Capital and Class

Sophia Price is Head of Politics and International Relations at Leeds Beckett University. She has recently published an article 'The Risks and Incentives of Disciplinary Neo-liberal Feminism: The Case of Microfinance' in the International Feminist Journal of Politics

1345-1500

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre E

Lehman Brothers 10 Years On

Speaker to be confirmed

1515-1630

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre E

Marx@200 – What relevance does Marx have today?

Dr Sophia Price, Dr Tom Houseman & Dr Tom Purcell

On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, major western international newspapers were awash with praise for a 19th century radical thinker and communist revolutionary. An opinion article in the New York Times announced ‘Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!’ and another article in the Financial Times ran with ‘Why Karl Marx is more relevant than ever’. However, this begs the bigger questions - what Marx was right about, and what exactly is he still relevant for? Marx himself famously declared that, “If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that I am not a Marxist”. In this special Marx@200 event for the Politics and International Relations Festival, three self-identifying ‘Marxists’ will provide different answers to what it means for them to think with and beyond Marx in 21st century conditions of financialized, racialized, and gendered forms of contemporary capitalism.

1515-1630

Broadcasting Place BPA 201

How to Get Heard: Experiences of Women in Politics and International Relations

Dr Robin Redhead & Dr Sophia Price

The notion of the ‘old boys club’ is prominent in the practice of politics and international relations. Women continue to struggle to find ways of getting their voices heard within public office and behind the scenes in the inner sanctum of parliament and diplomatic circles. In this session we will look at ways that women have used activism to mobilise support against the ‘old boys club’ mentality. We will explore women’s empowerment and the persistent struggle to be taken seriously, on their own terms, in their own voice.

1630-1730

Venue TBA

Level 6 Chill Out Session

Dr Robin Redhead

Feeling the pressure of your final year of study? Want to do well, but not sure if you can? You need to de-stress. Come and take a break with tea and cake.

Reward yourself for taking some time off! You deserve it…

Thursday 15 November

0900-1030

Woodhouse Building

WH135

Volunteering briefing

Dr Sophia Price, Alex Webster, Sophie Moody

This session is designed for current Level 4 and 5 (1st & 2nd year) students to go through the requirements for the 100 hours of volunteering required for the Active Politics and Volunteering module. All current Level 4 & 5 students should attend.

1100-1230

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre G

How to be a Space Invader

Paul Routledge, Professor in Contentious Politics and Social Change, Deputy Director of Leeds Social Science Institute, and Co-Convenor of Leeds Social and Environmental Justice Action Network

School of Geography, University of Leeds

Chair: Dr Sophia Price

Donald Trump in the White House. Growing inequality worldwide. Forty million people affected by catastrophic flooding in South Asia. The media is full of stories of the rise of authoritarian politics; economic inequality; and the effects of climate change. It can sometimes feel that the world around us is dangerous, unpredictable, and in permanent crisis.

However, beyond the mainstream media’s obsession with ratings, celebrity and spectacle, people around the world are attempting to challenge economic and social injustice and fashion alternatives to the current state of affairs.

Professor Routledge argues that protest always poses political interventions in the political order that determines what is visible and what can be said and heard in political discourse and the places in which this occurs. Protests call into question the structuring principles of that order by making visible the inequalities and lack of freedoms (or wrongs) inherent in it.

Being seen and heard through protest involves a keen understanding, and creative use of geography - whether that be through transforming landscapes, using, occupying, defending or abandoning territory or developing solidarity and communication networks. In this talk Paul will draw upon his scholar activism from the past 25 years to show how protestors draw from and deploy a strategic geographical imagination to make sense of the world of protest and build effective campaigns.

Paul’s research interests include critical geopolitics, climate change, social justice, civil society, the environment, and social movements. He has long-standing research experience concerning development, environment and the practices of social movements in the Global South, particularly South Asia and Southeast Asia, and in the Global North. In particular, his research has been concerned with two key areas of interest: the spatiality of social movements in the Global South and Global North; and the practical, political and ethical challenges of scholar activism. Paul’s research involves politically engaged and committed research that is practice-based and conducted in horizontal collaboration with social movements. This has included work on: transitions to democracy in Nepal in 1990 and 2006; the anti-roads (environmental) movement in Scotland; anti-dam resistance on the Narmada river, India; anti-tourism/environmental struggles in Goa, India; the alter-globalisation movement, especially the People’s Global Action network of Asian farmer and indigenous people’s movements. Paul’s most recent book is Space Invaders: radical geographies of protest (Pluto Press, 2017) https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745336244/space-invaders/

1300-1430

Rose Bowl RB 437 Lecture Theatre B

Paths to Justice, Truth and Memory in Argentina

Dr Ayeray Medina Bustos

Chair: Dr Steve Wright

Argentina has been following different paths to deal with its worst past repression after the dictatorship that ended in 1983. Attempts at truth and justice were the creation of the CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) in 1983 and the condemnation of nine Argentine junta members.

However, three amnesty laws were created afterwards: Full Stop, Due Obedience and Pardon (‘Indulto’) laws. The creation of those laws caused negative reactions among most parts of the Argentinean society. They felt betrayed. As stated by Webb and others (2010) ”the former military leaders called for amnesty whereas almost all the victims believe that reconciliation and justice can only be achieved through punishment of the perpetrators” (pp.26-27).

After 42 years Argentina succeed in prosecuting its worst perpetrators as an institutional response to repression and public trials are contested in many cities of the country. I had the great opportunity to work as a psychologist at those trials in Bahia Blanca, by assisting hundreds of victims and witnesses, as part of the Ministry of Justice.

This presentation will argue that public trials might contribute to truth, justice, memory and also to reconciliaton at national and personal levels.

Ayeray Medina Bustos is a Pychologist from Argentina. She gained her Masters in Sweden (Eramus Mundus scholarship) and completed her PhD at Leeds Beckett University.

She assisted and accompanied victims of the last genocide in Argentina at the public trials of crimes against humanity as part of a team at the Ministry of Justice and after that, in the Protection of International Human Rights, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship in Argentina.

1500-1730

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre D

About a War –A film

Directed by: Daniele Rugo and Abi Weaver

Film screening & talk by Daniele & Abi, followed by Q&A

Chair: Dr Rachel Julian

'About a War' presents compelling testimonies of ex-fighters from the Lebanese Civil War who bravely volunteer a rare glimpse into the trauma, regret and redemption of a militiaman.

Through extensive interviews, rare archive material and an evocative original soundtrack, the film explores the personal motivations and choices, the harrowing battles, international interventions and political power struggles that transformed their lives.

Daniele Rugo is a filmmaker/scholar and Senior Lecturer in Film at Brunel University, London. His research has been funded by AHRC, ESRC and British Academy. He is the author of two feature-length documentaries and his publication include: Philosophy and the Patience of Film (2016), James Benning's Environments (2018). He is an affiliate of the Centre for Lebanese Studies and has been an associate of the American University of Beirut.

Abi Weaver is a BAFTA award winning producer/director who has worked across a range of visual media from independent feature documentaries and online shorts through to programming for major UK broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5). She has been funded by TECHNE, Arts and Humanities Research Council UK to undertake a PhD at the University of Surrey. Her publications include: Dark Beirut: The (in)visibility of electricity (2017) and 100 Years of Futurism (2018).

1745-1915

Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre D

Around the Wall: Bend It like Bethlehem – Women's Football in the West Bank

Documentary film + talk and Q&A

Tania Aghanian (Politics & IR) & Chris Webster (School of Sport)

This documentary film follows a group of women footballers from the UK and Germany on their second football trip to Palestine. The film highlights key cultural issues surrounding local women’s participation in sport as well as the struggle to remain in their homelands.

Friday 16 November

0900-1130

Rose Bowl

RB B437 Lecture Theatre B

Volunteering presentations

Dr Sophia Price

Current Level 6 (3rd year) students will give assessed presentations for the Active Politics and Volunteering module. Current Level 4 (1st year) and Level 5 (2nd year) students are invited to attend in order to find out more about the types of volunteering undertaken by PIR students and how the level 6 module is assessed

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