Community Building Meeting
Thursday, March 5
1:30-3:30
Community Room (UCC 269A)
University Community Centre
Please RSVP by Friday, February 28.
Background: Faced with the spectre of widening global conflict, peace becomes an increasingly important goal. Building peace is also a ‘wicked problem,’ fraught with multiple, complex, interactive, and interconnected contributing factors.
Together, researchers at Western hold a great deal of knowledge, and can produce much more, that can help to address these challenges. Our community includes scholars focused on policy and governance, researchers working on healthy societies, developers of technologies that could be deployed for peaceful ends, teams that examine the root causes of conflict, and many, many others whose research touches on, and can be used toward, peacebuilding. Across the Western community, these scholars have been working—often in isolation—on research that could help to promote world peace. In order to leverage this work to make a meaningful contribution to building peace, we must find each other and build a network – a network of researchers across campus interested in contributing their part, and their expertise, to a research initiative focused on peace. We want to bring together those whose research, and research interests, intersect with the issues of peace and peace building. At this stage, the commitment is small, and our goal is simple: to spark conversation. If the possibility interests you, we will trade an hour and a half of your time for lunch and the opportunity for exchange with like-minded colleagues. Bring yourself, your enthusiasm, your curiosity, and your willingness to both share and listen. We will provide the space, the food, and a framework for the discussions. Together, let’s see what possibilities – ideas, connections, plans – emerge.
To gauge interest and brainstorm about what this kind of network could look like, and what kinds of things it could do, please plan to attend.
Questions can be directed to Aïda Juodis
photo credit: knowinspiration [148/365] DSC_1200 via photopin (license)
