The Slifka Program, Coexistence International, and Theatre Without Borders present:

Acting Together on the World Stage:Setting the Scene for Peace
Actuando Juntos: Trabajando Por la Paz en el Escenario Mundial

October 4-8, 2007
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA



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Pieces of the Coexistence Puzzle: Part II



Transitional justice efforts in West Africa


The workshop will build on experiences and challenges of transitional justice practitioners in West Africa.  We will generate ideas for maximizing the impact of creative and complementary approaches among those involved in transitional justice, human rights, and coexistence and cultural work in several countries in West Africa that have recently emerged from violent conflict.  We will explore and imagine how culture and the arts can strengthen transitional justice processes and make them more sensitive to cultural differences.


Questions for Discussion:

  • How can creative approaches help to humanize official transitional justice processes and make them accessible so that ex-combatants and victims alike are not afraid to participate?
  • How can creative approaches help synthesize and broadcast the effects of transitional justice processes in the long term through expressing the new shared cultural/historical memory?
  • What combination of transitional justice and creative approaches would foster long-term healing and unity in a post-conflict society?
  • How can creative approaches specifically contribute to addressing gender dynamics of transitional justice?
  • How can creative approaches help minimize the 'politicization' of transitional justice processes, and how can we prevent them from being manipulated or politicized themselves?
  • Can hip-hop music/theatre and other resources already on the local cultural scene be adapted to support transitional justice processes?


Background Reading:


Participants:

  • Dan Terris (Facilitator) is the director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and Associate Vice Provost for Global Affairs at Brandeis University
  • Susan Lanspery (Rapporteur) a Scientist at the Center for Youth and Communities at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis, has more than twenty years of experience in conducting evaluations and other studies in partnership with nonprofit organizations and public entities.  She earned her doctorate in social policy at the Heller School.
  • Isha Wright (Rapporteur) is a native of Sierra Leone and a student in the MA Program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University.
  • Alidu Babatu Adam, from Ghana, is a MA student in the Sustainable International Development Program at Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis.
  • Daniel Banks is a full-time faculty member in the Department of Undergraduate Drama, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University and is Director of the Hip Hop Theatre Initiative at Tisch, which has worked with youth across the U.S. and in Ghana and South Africa.
  • Catherine Filloux is a French-Algerian-American playwright whose work often explores themes of human rights and intercultural connection and reconciliation, particularly among post-genocide Cambodian communities.
  • Jane Hale teaches French and Comparative Literature at Brandeis. Her areas of interest include twentieth-century French literature, theater, education, and West African and Caribbean Literature. She is currently writing on portrayals of literacy in world literature.
  • Franklin Oduro is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Carleton University, and former Head of Programs, Ghana Center for Democratic Development.
  • Olajide Olagunju, a native of Nigeria, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis.  He is a graduate of the MA Program in Coexistence and Conflict.
  • Marie Pace is a former Program Advisor in Governance, UN Development Programme Nigeria.
  • Joyce van Dyke is a playwright who wrote A Girl’s War about the contemporary Karabakh conflict, partly inspired by her Armenian grandparents who survived the genocide of 1915.
  • Kristin Williams is Program Coordinator for Coexistence International at Brandeis University.