Peace and Conflict Studies Commons^™

She Who Laughs Loudest: A Meditation On Zen Humor, Andrew Whitehead

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Articulating a Zen Buddhist perspective on humor, this paper examines the Japanese Zen Buddhist response of humor in the face of the suffering of situated existence and the motivations for this response. The examination will take the school of Rinzai Zen Buddhism as its exemplar. I argue that in order to appreciate the function of humor in Zen a number of cultural and historical influences must be considered: correlative ontology; the Buddhist notion of emptiness; the impotence of language; sense and nonsense; and the senselessness of transgression.

The Bubble Economy And The Lost Decade: Learning From The Japanese Economic Experience, William M. Tsutsui, Stefano Mazzotta

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This paper presents a concise overview of Japan’s economic development since World War II, with a particular emphasis on the speculative boom of the 1980s known as the “bubble economy” and the subsequent period of economic stagnation known as the “Lost Decade.” The essay is largely descriptive. It provides an historical contextualization and interdisciplinary synthesis accessible to readers from a wide range of backgrounds, including those with limited formal expertise in economics.

Wasuren! ---We Won't Forget! The Work Of Remembering And Commemorating Japan's And Tohoku's (3.11) Triple Disasters In Local Cities And Communities, Millie Creighton

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Based on estensive Fieldwork, this paper explores the needs of people and communities in hard hit areas of Japan's 3.11 triple disasters including Sendai, Fukushima, Ishinomaki, Kesennuma, Kamaishi, and Yoriage to commemorate the event and their dead, while redirecting efforts to the future. It discusses the activities of Sendai's Wasuren! (We Won't Forget!) Center to document the disaster and Project Fukushima! organized by Fukushima residents to consider the city's future after the nuclear disaster as well as examining memorials (as memoryscapes and mourning work) created by other communities in the region where the disaster occurred. It compares local narratives of …

Global Mapping And Analysis Of Anti-Vehicle Mine Incidents In 2015, Gichd

Global CWD Repository

This report presents and analyses AVM incident data from 2015.

Data in this report stem from field reports from states, mainly national mine action authorities/centres, as well as mine action and other humanitarian organisations, and from media reviews in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and Ukrainian.

Demining Programme Office In The Falkland Islands - Technical Support 2015, Fenix -. Insight Ldt.

Global CWD Repository

The need for exploitation was recognised early during the planning for mine clearance operations in the Falkland Islands. Little was known about the state of the mines some 30 years after the conflict, and it was considered important to understand the effects of ageing, along with the implications for issues such as appearance/recognition, functionality and detectability.

Exploitation was previously carried out during clearance Phases 1 and 3. This report outlines the work conducted during Phase 4a, where samples of the following mines were examined: P4B, SB-33 and SB-81.

Presented to the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) in March 2015.

Healing The Wounds, Hi

Global CWD Repository

The Gaza Strip was exposed to a long term and acute military operation which lasted for 51 days during the summer of 2014.

At least 1,473 Palestinian civilians were killed, including 501 children and 257 women. Many fatalities involved multiple family members, with at least 142 Palestinian families having three or more members killed in the same incident, for a total of 739 fatalities. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 11,100 Palestinians, including 3,374 children and 2,088 women, were injured.

Persons with disabilities (PwDs) are one of the most vulnerable groups in time of crisis, mostly marginalized and …

Introduction To The Special Issue, Daniel J. Paracka, Masako Racel

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Introduction to the issue.

The Ninja: An Invented Tradition?, Stephen Turnbull

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The ninja is a well known phenomenon in Japanese military culture. The popularity of the tradition is centered on the neighboring areas of Iga and Kōka where ninja are a profitable tourist attraction. This paper examines the historical sources on which the ninja tradition is based to see if the pre-eminence claimed by Iga and Kōka is justified. It is shown that they were no different from several other places in their geography or their politics and that only one reliable account of secret warfare can be identified before 1581, the year when Iga Province ceased to exist as an …

Japan's Food Security Issues: A Geopolitical Challenge For Africa And East Asia?, Thomas Feldhoff

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Japan’s food self-sufficiency ratio is remarkably low compared to other industrialized nations. Growing world population, food, water, and energy shortages in combination with climate change and the rising competition for the world’s limited resources are the transnational dimensions of food and nutrition security related risks that are already affecting Japan. This paper analyzes the development and institutional context of Japanese policies related to its food security, particularly in relation to its commitments to support developing countries and to promote food security in Africa. One dimension of particular interest is the Japanese engagement in large-scale land investments in Africa. ProSAVANA, Japan’s …

About The Contributors

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

No abstract provided.

Coalition For Prisoners' Rights Newsletter, Vol 40-Xx, No. 3, Coalition For Prisoners' Rights

Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletters

A Unique U.S. Nightmare: The Carceral State

Sesame Street Ofrece Consejos para Padres Encarcelados

Reproductive Injustice

Voice From Inside

Defeating Isis: The Need For A Cooperative Effort, Sabrina Chikhi

Journal of Interdisciplinary Conflict Science

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of a collective approach in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria also known as ISIS. The approach of the international community had been doomed to failure because it excluded key players in the region. In order to annihilate this terrorist group and the threat it poses to international security, this article proposes a revision of the approach to the resolution of this problem through the inclusion of all the parties susceptible to secure an efficient contribution to that endeavor before the situation becomes irremediable. In order …

Number 3 - Mainstreaming Gender In Mediation Practice, Adeyinka Bruce Omotunde

Peace and Conflict Management Working Papers Series

Cultural difference associated with being male or female can be rich and interesting, and can generate excitement that continually change the nature of human relations. In this respect, African culture is dynamic in the exploration of gender difference/similarities, roles, and stereotypes. The dynamism can be a source of great confusion and conflict. In general, gender debates on the extent to which men and women are similar/different cut across cultures and the conversation is on-going. Similarly, research is strong on the differences between men and women as third party interveners, and how disputants are different on gender styles and standards of …

Chea Vannath [Cambodia, Activist], Chea Vannath

Digital Narratives of Asia

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Chea Vannath fled Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge attempted to arrest her husband. She returned to her homeland 12 years later and began working to help heal her war-torn country. She speaks to DNA about life under the Khmer Rouge, her struggle to come to terms with what they had done to her homeland and what led her to work for the Khmer Rouge to be involved in the reconciliation process.

Link Racial Past To The Present, Jill Ogline Titus

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Americans have been putting a great deal of energy into commemorating the 50th anniversary of some of the key moments of the civil rights movement. This burst of memorialization has inspired one new museum in Atlanta and the redesign of another in Memphis. The Smithsonian and Library of Congress are launching a new oral-history initiative, and films like Selma bring the movement to life for those who rarely read a history book or visit a museum.

This year brings more anniversaries: the Selma-to-Montgomery March, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and the Watts rebellion. And the commemorative stakes are …

Number 2 - The Role Of Western Democratic System Of Governance In Exacerbating Ethnic Conflicts In Africa: The Case Of Ghana's Democratic Dispensation, 1992-2012, David Kwasi Bansah

Peace and Conflict Management Working Papers Series

This paper interrogates the influence of Western forms of democracy on ethnic conflicts in Africa through a case study of Ghana’s adoption of multiparty democracy between 1992 and 2012. It discusses the transition of African traditional systems of government before, during, and after colonization. The paper also shows how democracy, by definition and in terms of governance, cannot solely be a Western idea since many African societies had democratic elements in their systems of government before the arrival of the Europeans. Relying on qualitative secondary data, and the analysis of fierce and acrimonious competition that have characterized multiparty democratic elections …

Causality In Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment And Critique, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Michael Strand, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Thomas Buschman, Meghan Davis, Amanda Varela

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that (1) “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, (2) research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and (3) the use of explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we …

Conversations On Compassion, Colleen Mills, Linda J. Lieder

Citizens for Peace

No abstract provided.

Coalition For Prisoners' Rights Newsletter, Vol 40-Ww, No. 2, Coalition For Prisoners' Rights

Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletters

Survivors of The System of Class and Color

What Have They Ever Done To Us?: What Needs to be Changed Between the U.S. and Cuba

Un Fallo Emitido por un Juez de Derecha Demora el Indulto a Milliones de Inmigrantes Indocumentados

Voices in Solidarity

Share of World's Wealth

Majority of U.S. Public School Students are in Poverty

Gender & Diversity In Mine Action Quality Management, Gichd, Gender In Mine Action

Global CWD Repository

This guide has been developed to assist mine action stakeholders to mainstream gender and diversity in quality management, documentation and practices. This guide is designed for use by a broad range of actors, including:

• National Mine Action Authorities
• National Mine Action Centres
• UN agencies
• Non-governmental organisations
• Commercial contractors

This guide includes a checklist to help ensure that gender and diversity considerations are mainstreamed into the core documentation in quality management, such as: national mine action standards (NMAS), national technical standards and guides, standard operating procedures (SOP), and quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control forms. It also provides mine action …