Projects
STATES OF MIND IN CONFLICT (SOMIC)
The States of Mind in Conflict (SOMIC) project launched in August 2020, and is based in the Centre for Researching and Embedding Human Rights at Birkbeck, University of London. It is due to present its findings in July/August 2021.
The project is led by Professor Bruna Seu with research assistance provided by Dr Dominic Reilly. The project is funded by the Swiss federal government research programme, with subject matter expertise provided by the Human Security Division of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA).
SOMIC is a pilot study seeking to identify where a psychological perspective can help to enhance the insight and efficacy of conflict mediators. The overall aim is to assist the mediator to cultivate an enhanced sensitivity to the psychological register of the peace mediation experience and to facilitate a particular type of encounter between parties to mediation that results in the creation of a ‘safe space’ – one where emotions and states of mind can be acknowledged and digested.
In order to achieve this, the project team at CREHR will be adopting an iterative methodology. Exploratory talks with experienced mediators will feed into the design of further research protocols for one-to-one interviews, which will be thematically analysed. The research team will then work will mediators to user test the creation of a ‘tool kit’ intended to translate the core findings of the research into an applied framework for use in the field.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, REPARATION AND LIVEABLE LIVES; A PSYCHOSOCIAL REFRAMING OF ‘DEALING WITH THE PAST’
This work strand also includes a collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice at the NYU School of Law. The Human Rights, Prevention, and Sustainable Peace Project (the Prevention Project) seeks to transform prevention practices through research, conceptual clarification, and identification and integration of relevant knowledge and expertise.
The project engages diverse stakeholders to develop a comprehensive prevention framework of evidence-based approaches and initiatives with proven preventive potential. The project responds to the need for a systematic approach to prevention practice as proposed by Pablo de Greiff during his mandate as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence from 2012 to 2018, and subsequently, as a rapporteur in the group of experts on prevention appointed by the Human Rights Council from 2019 to 2020. Pablo de Grieff leads the project at NYU School of Law.
DENIAL AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IN MODERN SLAVERY
Denial and Acknowledgement in Modern Slavery is a collaboration with the Irving K Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Economics, Philosophy and Political Science at The University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Canada.
This project focuses on slavery, arguably the most blatant infringement of a human's rights, to develop fluid narratives to study both the internal mechanisms of denial, which are used to cope with the overwhelming nature of human rights violation and the helplessness this might cause, and the structural operations of denial and denialism that distance us from the suffering Other.
In studying modern slavery, we investigate how denial of suffering has been not merely internalised by individuals, but also at a societal level. Acknowledging slavery, particularly in the production of consumer goods in the global south, is inconvenient and distasteful to northern consumers. It causes a cognitive dissonance in those who believe in human rights but also desire cheaply produced goods. We suggest that policy-based international acknowledgement can break through denial with a potentially transformative reparative impact.
HUMAN RIGHTS, MENTAL HEALTH AND RESISTANCE - PALESTINE UNDER OCCUPATION
Human Rights, Mental Health and Resistance – Palestine Under Occupation, is a collaboration between CREHR and the UK Palestine Mental Health Network, Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP) and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP).
In recent years, the project resulted in two conferences at Birkbeck: The Palestinian Childhoods Conference, held at Birkbeck on 8 and 9 March 2019 (view the conference resources, including recordings), and a seminar titled Fanon in Palestine, which explored the potential contributions of the work of Franz Fanon to the Palestinian context.