Life lessons learned from role-playing games- Or how I discovered Flowgame!

by Mathilda Wehling

I love role-playing games. For a few months, I played a red-headed character named Freija in the pen-and-paper[1] Call of Cthulhu, and I loved playing K in Numenera, another pen-and-paper. As K, I could lit my skin on fire— pretty cool, huh? In a world that was so different from mine, I could be another person and explore and develop their characters entirely to my liking. But as cool as slipping into another role is (and being able to light my skin on fire, sometimes do magic and being an excellent markswoman), it was not the only reason why I enjoyed it so much. I like role-playing games because there are always other people with me, they keep this fantastique world up with me. I could feel the fear of ‘exploring the dungeon in a spaceship’ by the way my friend shrieked when an unexpected drop of water hit his character’s head. Discussing with my friends, who among others played a posh lady from the city, an insane black magician and a nun, how we could force our enemies into a stone grinder brought a special kick to (board) game night.

But what is this special kick exactly? Luckily there are researchers out there who already pondered this question before me. Unsurprisingly, playing games, especially role-playing games, help to build communication and relationship skills (p.4). How else are you supposed to fight a mystic monster, which none of you know? It is a problem you have never experienced in your real-life before (I hope), and you need to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses and knowledge of the comrades in your mission to find a solution. Who knows spells? Who has a book about magic creatures? And who carries a gun? All of these could become a question of life or death. It lies in the games’ design to force you to talk with each other (p.33). And it gives you the opportunities to take a risk you would never have taken in real life (p.4). Who would have thought that the posh lady from the city, who in real life was a posh lady from the city, would have had the life-saving idea to crush a bunch of monsters in a stone grinder? Definitely, not me, and she is, after all, my maid of honour in real life (she did not get the job because of the stone grinder, btw). It is true, changing the medium of communication can change the communication (p.35).

When you have friends that like to go on imaginary adventures with you, you already know that you have great friends. But playing together brings out more than that. It forms a communita. Communita is Latin and means a group of equal or like-minded people in an unstructured community. What a fantastic idea! Playing together enables you to see beyond the self and sharing meanings and dreams (p.10). While my friends and I always were like-minded people, we still have different aspirations and dreams in our lives, but preparing ourselves as best as we could in the 1920s to go on our next adventure, to hopefully succeed, was unifying beyond every university presentation we did together.

All great role-playing adventures are upheld by their players but created by their host. The host is the storyteller within the rules of the game (p.7). The host or game-master creates this particular story in space and time and accompanies the adventurers. The space-ship dungeon I mentioned earlier came alive because I could hear the water running down the walls, and even though they looked like stone, the droplets caused a metallic sound when they hit the floor, not because I was there, but because my host created this scenario for me. There are specific rules in an adventure, but the players can always create meaning or explore unexpected behaviour. It was certainly not planned that I tried to stun rats by swinging a dead rat by its tail, because what else was I am supposed to do when I run out of ammunition?- but it happened, and my host extended the space of the game, to find room for the “rat-bat.”

You see, boardgames offer so much more than just a fun experience. They force you into unusual and meaningful conversations; you are creative with your friends with the same goal in mind. And to put the cherry on top, there is someone who created this space for you and guides you. It is a unique safe place in time and space. That is the special kick role-playing gives you.

Now imagine that all these “special kick” elements are taken and assessed by their abilities. Do you know what these elements are really good at? Creating dialogue! And when we clutch these elements with their dialogue abilities in our arms (like we would clutch the books about magic creatures when we by a hairs width escape a fire) and step back into the world of games, we find Flowgame. Flowgame, is a table-top game, which entails the advantages of communication and connection a role-playing game has, without the adventure part of typical pen-and-papers. Nonetheless, the game takes the player on a mission. The mission of bringing clarity and dialogue into their lives.

Flowgame was developed in 1998 in Denmark. Played by usually 4 to 6 participants and facilitated by a host, the game aims to answer a meaningful question each player brings to the table. To explore this question, every player has a figurine travelling down the streams on the playing map. The map is travelled by rolling a dice. The die decides which card you will pick, and the card either poses a question or shows a picture that the participants will reflect on. Always while having the questions in mind this particular player brought to the table. The dice’s six sides are connected to the indigenous medicine wheel’s six directions: North, South, East, West, Heaven and Earth (Bojer, et al., 2012, p. 72). Each of the directions has a specific connotation, which guides the questions on the card. The North stands for leadership, the East for deep vision, the South for community, the West for Action, Heaven for the divine touch, and Earth for grounding and nature. Individuals, teams and communities can play the game, and each setting provides a different set of cards.

The game got its Flow- prefix because it intends to bring flow to a particular area of life by developing clarity and insight about your question. It is a semi-structured game, outlining the path players move and giving the prompts for dialogue, but at the same time, it leaves enough room for the participants to explore and reflect on their own concerns and the questions of others.

But how does all of this relate to pen-and-papers, you might wonder? After all, this game sounds more like Trivial Pursuit, it even has a Circle on the playing board, and you try to answer questions. I have to admit the similarities in the gameboard and the playing mechanisms are uncanny, but in Flowgame, you are not only answering your own questions, but you also answer everyone’s questions. And not only that, you spend hours, sometimes even an entire day, answering a question. The one question that is close to your heart (Unlike naming the Canadians who won Olympic Curling Gold in 2006). Which makes it much more like a quest in pen-and-paper that you try conquering with the people around you and much less like Trivial pursuit.

You are still not convinced that Flowgame is the dialogic elevation of role-playing games? I found more similarities! Having a host holding and facilitating the conversation creates a place in space in time. Or, as it is called in dialogue theory- a container (Isaacs, 1999, pp. 397-399). “The space of play is separate in some way from the rest of the world” (p.5), a description that can apply to a role-playing game by being in a fantasy world or Flowgame. Participants of Flowgame describe finding unusually deep meaning in conversations, sometimes even with strangers, and that the group developed a feeling of togetherness. Remember how I described getting ready for a quest? That is the feeling of togetherness. And togetherness is created through meaning. Suggesting using the “rat-bat” might seem trivial, but it is revealing a side of you, unknown to your friends, which is a way of creating meaning.

But Flowgame is not a role-playing game. You are not someone else. You do not get to hide your quirks and insecurities behind flaming skin. You are yourself. This is the point where Flowgame takes the advantages of a role-playing game and elevates them. You still get to converse with the other players, and with the help of the host, you create meaning, but being yourself, these conversations requires much more courage and honesty. Flowgame encourages being our authentic selves, and by listening and giving advice, the players create a collective consciousness. While in pen-and-paper, meaning and dreams are shared through a shared (read common) mission, in Flowgame, meanings and dreams are shared with each other while still having ownership of the thoughts. Sharing your intimate thoughts is similar to sharing food. Afterwards, you feel a connection and safety that you have not felt before. It actually makes it easier for you to talk constructively with these persons because you are connected to them and care for them now (Dessel, et al., 2006, p. 304).

Flowgame evolves around questions. Questions that the game provides and questions that the players ask each other. On the Flowgame website, we find the bold statement that the “world has a low questions literacy.” We tend to look for answers, not for questions. And I agree! Even in role-playing, that is the case. We are looking to finish the quest and level-up our characters, but not to question and transform ourselves. But Flowgame does, and it begins with the question every participant brings to the game and continues with every question the game poses. Flowgame.net describes questions as a doorway, leading to a new perspective: “It stimulates you. It tickles you. It might even make you tremble. But if you have the courage to stay in the fire with it, that could change everything! Are you ready for that?”. The importance of questions highlights the dialogue aspect of Flowgame. Dialogues live of asking the right questions, questions that do not entail an implicit powerplay or already insinuate the expected answer (Ciaramicoli & Ketcham, 2000, p. 48). Flowgame helps its participants by posing meaningful questions that might help heighten a low question literacy through a good example.

I must admit, there are indeed differences between Flowgame and role-playing games, namely, that you do not play a role in Flowgame. Being yourself and talking to the other players facilitates dialogue. Dialogue is the intention of the game, intending to answer questions. In pen-and-papers, the goal is to have fun and enjoy yourself, which can positively affect some dialogic features (the kick I described beyond the fun). Things crucial in role-playing games, such as talking to each other and exploring together, serve the game’s goal. In Flowgame these things are part of the game, but they serve the purpose of self-exploration and helping others seek answers. I know it might sound bland to take the “fun” part out of an activity to make it all serious, but when I think about Flowgame as a dialogue technique and not a game per sé, Flowgame does everything right. Using aspects such as rules, a host, a mission and inter-player communication, it translates everything research deemed as beneficial social aspects of role-plays into a dialogue setting. Without going on a quest and having firey skin, I think the “kick” Flowgame gives you is not the same. Instead, I imagine it as a calmer, explorative, life-changing experience, with little hints of pen-and-paper joy! Once we all can leave our houses again, nothing can stop me from going to London or Toronto (my closest Flowgame Hosts are located here) and playing it! I will let you know how it goes!

About the Author

Mathilda is a second-year international student in the MPACS program with a passion for the relationship between social justice and education. Once the pandemic ends she will start looking for a role-playing-game group.

References

Bojer, M. M., Roehl, H. & Knuth, M., 2012. Mapping Dialogue: Essential Tools for Social Change. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Institute Publications.

Ciaramicoli, A. & Ketcham, K., 2000. The Power of Empathy: A practical guide to creating intimacy, self-understanding and lasting love. New York: Penguin.

Cohen, Peter (2019) Flowgame- Field Notes. https://medium.com/@petecohen/flow-game-field-notes-61e63dcc4d3

Copier, M., (n.d.). Connecting Worlds. Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Ritual Acts and the Magic Circle. DiGra Conference Paper. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/06278.50594.pdf

Dessel, A., Rogge, M. E. & G. S. B., 2006. Using Intergroup Dialogue to Promote Social Justice and Change. Social Work, Issue 51, pp. 303- 315.

Flowgame.net (2020). How does Flowgame Work? http://flowgame.net/#earth

Flowgame.net (2020). How does the Flowgame Work? http://flowgame.net/earth/#more-17

Flowgame.net (2020). Where could Flowgame Take Me? http://flowgame.net/heaven/#more-26

Flowgame.net (2020). Who hosts the Flowgame? http://flowgame.net/community/#more-37

Flowgame.net (2020). Where is Flowgame being played? http://flowgame.net/leadership/#more-15

Insidehub.co (2020). Flowgame https://www.insidehub.co/flow-game-online-english

Isaacs, W., 1999. Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: a Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life. New York: Currency.

The Flowgame (n.d.) Flowgame Flyer. http://www.meadowlark.co/pdfs/flow_game.pdf

Treher, E., (n.d.). Learning with Boardgames. Play for Performance.Tools for Learning and Retention. https://www.destinagames.com/pdf/Board_Games_TLKWhitePaper_May16_2011r.pdf

Tychsen, A., & Hitchens, M. (2008). The Many Faces of Role-Playing Games. http://www.ijrp.subcultures.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/hitchens_drachen_the_many_faces_of_rpgs.pdf

Zagal, Jose & Rick, Jochen., 2006. Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games. Simulation & Gaming – Simulat Gaming.

[1] Check out Joris Dorman’s explanation of Pen-and-Paper in the International Journal of Computer Game Research 6 (1), to find out what a Pen-a-Paper is. http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/dormans

Gender equality standards in music

By Jesse Matas

Over the past decade there has been a movement towards gender equality in music. Recently, standards and official organizations have started to appear. What began as an idea that “we need to see more women on stage” has now started taking official shape. Organizations like #bookmorewomen [1], Keychange [2], and databases like Future Music Industry [3] are at the forefront of writing and publishing standards. Keychange’s manifesto is especially helpful [4]. Pitchfork magazine has done extensive tracking [5]. This being said, the numbers on stage and in the studio still aren’t near equal. In general, it seems like we are in an early stage (but an active stage) of standards and adoption of these into policy.

The idea is generally simple, that women, especially young aspiring musicians, need to see other women on stage. They need to see that they could be up there. When attending a festival, or a concert where it is entirely men on stage, the subconscious message is quite clear.

There has already been agreements from a number of festivals to commit to a timeline for gender balance (I’m sure COVID and festival cancellations have put a wrench in this movement too). Nevertheless, there has been no shortage of coverage (Rolling Stone [6]; The Conversation [7]; BBC [8] to name a few) and thus some pre-emptive accountability for the festivals who are agreeing to these standards.

In my opinion, an effective visual tool has been #bookmorewomen’s poster campaign (above) [9]. They remove any male headlining acts from their posters. What is left is quite powerful. Book More Women also has a great section on their website with links for organizations that can act as resources for booking more women and non-binary acts [10]. Resources like this make it impossible for festivals to profess excuses like “it’s too difficult to find female acts”.

I am interested in where this movement is going. 15 years ago, when I was very active and touring, I remember going to North by North East (NXNE) in Toronto and noticing how much of a dude-fest it was. The folk music scene has always had slightly better representation than, say, rock or hip-hop (though not close to equal by any means) and it was a shock to play a festival where there only women on stage over an entire night of music was our bass player. Not surprisingly, there weren’t many women in the audience either. I remember having conversations with friends about this and talking about festivals in Sweden who had committed to 50% representation. I remember our bass-player talking about how she had noticed the profound effect it had on the younger female audience members.

Today, NXNE is one on the ever-elongating list of festivals who are committing to better gender/non-binary representation. I am hopeful that in another 10 years it will be taboo to not be on this list. Also worth mentioning are the background elements of the music industry. Most of these gender-balance lists are based on the headlining act being female or non-binary. This doesn’t include: the band members, most of whom are exclusively male (often a female singer will be backed up by 6 men playing instruments); sound technicians (I have met very few female sound techs in my years of touring); booking agents, festival and concert admin and owners (Executive Directors, Artistic Directors, Board Members, Volunteer & site coordinators, etc…); recording industry personnel (mixing, mastering, recording engineers, session musicians, printing and manufacturing, PR); Songwriters; Label teams and executives; streaming CEOs. The list goes on. In a study, USC Annenberg concluded that “ratio of male to female producers … is 47 to 1”[11].

Personally, as a male songwriter and musician, I’ve struggled with this. In practice, I’ve committed to gender equality (whenever I’m not hired to play a solo show, but also trying to hire a female lead instrument whenever possible… or touring with/splitting a bill with another female solo performer). Personally, at this point in my career, I’ve concluded that if I can’t achieve a base gender parity I won’t undertake a project. Fortunately, I play with a great female drummer and sometimes a female bassist and have many great female musicians that I can play with in other capacities (violin, piano, banjo, etc). In reality, it just takes a bit of conscious commitment to not turn help turn this boat around a bit. And it’s a learning process: during the production of my last album, I had a mixing engineer who, at the last minute, brought in a male assistant to help with some of the process. Little things like this can throw off the balance and I realized that conversations about equality need to be up-front with everyone involved in a project, which is sometimes difficult when you’re contracting out parties. I took that as motivation to lay out these terms in advance of recording another album, and to make sure to let all parties know the goals. Fortunately, after a talk about this, my recording engineer had another female assistant who he was able to bring in for another session, which tipped the balance back. A lot of these practices I have learned from female musicians who have had the goal of gender equality for their recording.

These Standards and resources such are also pushing governments to act. An article by Dazed states, “Keychange also focuses on work that national governments can do, like introducing mandatory gender pay gap reporting for companies of all sizes, and offering assistance in how to fix parity – this is similar to what Iceland and the UK, to some extent, already do. They’re also asking governments to invest in education campaigns to encourage young women into music, and make policies that stop tired and sexist marketing campaigns that objectify women.On what the European Parliament and European Commission can do, Keychange is calling for a fully funded initiative report into gender balance and diversity in creative industries, as well as further funding for mentoring programmes and commissioning research studies” [12].

References:

[1] https://www.bookmorewomen.com/

[2] www.keychange.eu

[3]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-UBfSpbT_HBhJTxMcAiqQZ9gQeoI1rrel8gsT6-0e_g/edit

[4]https://writeaboutpeaceandconflict.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/fd3c6-1052-keychange-a5-v15-web.pdf

[5] https://pitchfork.com/features/festival-report/tracking-the-gender-balance-of-this-years-music-festival-lineups/

[6] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/over-45-music-festivals-band-together-to-fight-gender-inequality-204534/

[7] https://theconversation.com/music-festivals-how-to-get-more-women-on-stage-and-its-not-just-50-50-quotas-119970

[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43196414

[9] https://www.bookmorewomen.com/

[10] https://www.bookmorewomen.com/organizations

[11] http://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inclusion-recording-studio-2019.pdf

[12] https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/42294/1/music-industry-gender-inequality-manifesto-keychange-europe

Featured Image Source: #BookMoreWomen

Community Radio:Donations

Last fall, I spent 3 weeks north of Wakefield, Québec assembling a very interesting cabin for an architect from Ottawa. Every morning we would wake up at 5:30 and drive 40 minutes on dark, windy, bumpy gravel roads through Québec’s hills to the job site. We would work a 12-hour day without breaks and then drive 40 minutes home, also in the dark. Then we’d eat a very big meal and go to sleep. I did this 7-days-a-week for 3 weeks. The entire time we would listen to 106.1 Chez-FM. Chez is the kind of radio station that plays AC/DC 150 times a day.

This particular cabin was to be made of CLT: Cross-laminated timber panels pre-manufactured in Germany. These panels should all fit together like giant LEGO pieces but one day some of the panels wouldn’t fit together. After a few phone calls, it was decided that someone needed to drive half way to Montréal to pick up a skew-notcher in order to precisely modify some of the panels on-site. I left the next morning at 6:00AM and scanned excitedly through the Ottawa radio stations until I found something I liked. It was a reggae show on CKCU 93.1FM, a campus and community station out of Carleton University. After a few songs, the DJ came on and talked about the station. It was their funding drive week.

College and Community Radio Stations are listener supported. Annually, they make a good bulk of their money from listener donations (CKCU’s goal is $250,000, approximately. one quarter of the station’s annual operating budget). The vast majority of these community donations are accepted during a week-long telethon event (kind of like the one in the Muppets Movie, but a week long). Often, the station offers donation incentives like hoodies or t-shirts. Sometimes bands donate records for draw packages (in-kind donations). Bands I’ve played in have donated albums to community stations in the past.

Upon hearing that this was CKCU’s fund-drive, I called in immediately and donated. I have always loved community radio. It appeals to a different demographic than corporate radio. It provides a wide range of diverse shows. I donate whenever I can. On tour, I have often done interviews at these stations. Often, they’ve sponsored a show or festival I’ve played at. Something to put on a CV is a placement on the Earshot! College Charts, which helps musicians with marketing or applying for grants and awards. In Winnipeg, I was quite involved with CKUW and UMFM.

Perhaps I was compelled to donate that day because I was so sick of You Shook Me All Night Long. Perhaps it was hearing DJs talk non-stop about why community radio matters. Perhaps I really do believe in community action and community spaces (including the airwaves) and wanted to contribute. Perhaps I donated out of a feeling of collective identity of which I was a part. Perhaps it was a really good reggae show (it was). Perhaps it was that driving in the opposite direction of Ottawa’s commuter traffic and a beautiful sunrise put me in a good mood. Perhaps I was away from home and homesick, and felt like contributing to an organization that reminded me of home. Perhaps, I was making OK money for the first time in a while and was feeling ‘spendy’. Perhaps, I was making a decent wage and knew the vast majority of musicians played on Community Radio were not.

As I write this, I am currently wearing a hoodie from the CKUW 2013 Fundrive. It was their 50^th anniversary as a radio station and they had a great gold logo on the breast that I liked. The hoodie was a donation incentive. Without the hoodie, I would have donated anyway, but I wouldn’t have donated as much. At the time, I wouldn’t have wanted to donate 250$, but the hoodie pushed me over to that amount. This hoodie acts as a reminder about the station, but also shows that fundraising takes creativity and investment.

It is also worth noting that TONIGHT marks the start of CKCU’s 2020 Fundrive. Even if you do not donate, I recommend listening in to what the DJs have to say this week. There is a sort-of open-hearted-story-telling about the station and people involved that happens during Fundrives and it is quite fun to be a part of: LISTEN IN

About the Author: Jesse Matas is a current first year student in the MPACS program. He has spent most of his professional life at work in music, poetry, and carpentry. With music, he has released 4 albums and toured in 11 countries (you may find his music on spotify). He also has a degree in International Development Studies from the University of Winnipeg.

Featured Image: Used with permission from Rob Schmidt, the station manager at CKUW.

Arab Spring countries and speech freedom repression pandemic

This is not the COVID-19 tracking map. This is the Global Press Freedom map by the Freedom House. The deterioration of speech freedom is not less contagious than the COVID-19 pandemic. The Arab spring is a term used to refer to the wave of the revolution sparked in 2011 against dictatorship regimes in the Middle East and Africa. Countries of low immunity and fragile like Libya, Yemen, and Egypt are the most vulnerable and should not underestimate the influence of their neighboring countries that are still governed by authoritarian policy such as Saudi Arabia. An alarming sign of the speech freedom recession unfolded in the tragic incident of assassinating Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi; a journalist working for The Washington Post. He was targeted by the Saudi government; because of his writings against the government.

As looking at the map published by Freedom House website on freedom of the press 2019, I can see the world map reflecting on the survey scores with red shades from light red to dark red. It reminded me of the COVID-19 world status tracker. The area around the darkest shade is all red, yet the farthest from those red locations, the more the shade gets lighter. The survey asked people if there are free and independent media. On a scale of zero to four from worst to best, Saudi Arabia scored zero as worst in free and independent media as well as influencing Yemen to score zero too. Egypt and Libya scored one point better than Saudi Arabia; however, Egypt and Libya still behind the highest score.

According to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, Libya rank is 164 out of 180 countries, and it significantly declined in comparison to 2013 in which Libya scored 131. The only provided ranking is from the year 2013 to 2020; however, 2012 and 2013 are the first years of the Arab spring countries after their uprise that took place in 2011. In other words, this indicates the reduction of press freedom to reach its worst rank by 2020. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia scores 172 out of 180 countries in 2020.

Finally, assuming a world that is COVID-19 free, people would not need to cover their mouth and wear masks. So as well, a world in which freedom of speech is respected, people would not need to shut their mouth and fear to speak up. Repression of speech freedom is a virus, and people should immune themselves and be aware of their rights to defeat the disease. As long as this disease is spreading around, the Arab spring countries will be threatened, and the Arab Spring will definitely be Arab Autumn, as some people call it these days.

***

About the Author: Rima Ashawesh is a current first year MPAC student. She is an experienced Program Development and Grants Specialist and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language from University of Tripoli in Libya. She has a passion for peace making and worked on varied projects in Libya on empowering women, supporting civil society organizations and promoting peace and unity.

Featured Image Credit: Freedom House

From awareness raising to peer pressure: How I decided to register as a potential bone marrow donor

Each week, Peace and Conflict Studies students in the Building Civil Society course are asked to reflect on a key issue discussed in class. What I have found fascinating are the powerful and inspiring stories of why we are part of the MPACS community. This week we are continuing to learn stories of students reflecting on civil society organization whose fundraising campaign motivated them to take action. What follows is the reflection from Mathilda Wehling, reflecting on the fundraising campaign of DKMS, a German organization trying to find as many bone marrow donors for leukemia patients as possible.

When I was in elementary school, I loved reading our local newspaper, mostly because it made me feel like a grown-up. Occasionally, I stumbled across articles, always with the picture of a happy smiling child, which has leukemia and needs a stem-cell donor. The articles always called to become a registered donor, to go the gymnasium of school XYZ in the afternoon for donations and registrations.

The articles moved me because I also was a child and could relate to a certain extent, but at the same time, I knew that getting registered as a donor was something for grown-ups. Little did I know that while the articles were written usually by parents for the local newspaper, they usually cooperated with DKMS (German bone marrow donor file- they facilitate around 40% of all bone marrow donations worldwide). This was my first contact with the organization, and it took me some years to make the connection.

During my teenage years, I saw many billboards with actors and musicians advocating for registration and donation, and I saw many videos where young cancer survivors talked about how a bone marrow donation changed their lives ( I am not entirely sure, but I think I saw them on TV as part of their awareness-raising campaign). The poster campaigns, the videos and the articles showed their effects, not only on me but on everyone else. A certain kind of peer pressure developed about getting a registered donor.

People talked proudly in school about how they turned 18 and immediately ordered their registration kit. So, a few weeks after I turned 18, I had my self-registration kit, stuck a giant Q-Tip in my mouth, and sent it away. By registering as a donor, I automatically signed up for the DKMS newsletter- the German health insurance does not pay for the analysis of the saliva sample I just send them, even though it just costs 35 EUR (around 55 CAD). And then, I donated the exact amount of money because it gave me the feeling that I paid for my sample analysis.

All the information I received over the years, how the registrations process was administered (the send you something via mail- exciting! you get to use medical equipment on yourself- exciting! [or maybe that’s just me], you are urged to keep your contact information always up to date because from now on, you could be contacted every day to save a life- incredibly exciting!) connected me to the organization.

I felt like I committed to something and that I became part of a group. And I think the constant awareness-raising created this feeling, an omnipresence of our obligation to get registered, an emotional connection built when I was too young to register, but that stayed until I could. So far I was not contacted to donate bone marrow, but if I ever will I would use as many exclamation marks, as I did describing the test kit.

***

About the Author: Mathilda is a second year student in the MPACS program with a focus on peace education. Before that, she studied integrated social sciences with a focus on International Relations.

The AIDS Committee Of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo & Area

Each week, Peace and Conflict Studies students in the Building Civil Society course are asked to reflect on a key issue discussed in class. What I have found fascinating are the powerful and inspiring stories of why we are part of the MPACS community. This week, students reflected on civil society organization whose fundraising campaign motivated them to take action. For example, to donate, volunteer, intern, or work alongside these organizations. The key questions that guided their reflections included: What was the organization? What communication method did they use to grab your attention? Was it commercial advertising, mail, word of mouth, career fair etc? And, why did it appeal to you? What follows is the reflection from one of the students, Gabrielle McInnis, reflecting on the experience with the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo Area.

The Beyond Borders Program offered through St. Jerome’s university is a three month service learning internship offered to undergraduate students. In Winter of 2020 I was an undergraduate student in my third year of a double degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and Legal Studies. My final year was within my reach and so was an international placement that would occur in a few short months. As a student in the program, I suddenly found that I had found out that I would be traveling to Kampala, Uganda to work in collaboration with Reach Out Mbuya, a Parish HIV/AIDS Initiative which sought to alleviate the effects of HIV/AIDS on low income populations in rural communities. In order to participate in the program, students are required to secure a short-term internship placement within the KW region that shares similar values and goals as our international placement. It was early January when I discovered that my local placement was with The AIDS Committee Of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo & Area, better known as ACCKWA.

The first time I heard about ACCKWA was nearly a year earlier during the 16 days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. It was during this period of time where the university joins in solidarity with a multitude of groups, governments and organizations across the globe to promote taking every-day actions against gender-based violence, that I had a very influential conversation with an individual who was involved with (ACCKWA). What started as an extraordinarily ordinary conversation with an individual, would become an incredibly short period of time which would drastically change how I perceived sex work, drugs and addiciton and HIV&AIDS in my community.

Society approaches sex, HIV/AIDS, drugs, and addiction in the same fashion that it approaches things that are different: with an unsubstantiated fear of what it is not repeatedly exposed to and/or forced to confront. These realities exist all around us, they’re not new subjects, but we consistently choose not to discuss them and instead, write them off as taboo subjects which hold no place in polite, civilized society. These subjects are then left to the likes of scientists and researchers to explain and treat, while those who are afflicted by them are seen as victims of their own circumstance, and often find themselves to be surrounded by the unspeakable and the unwantable. It was in a moment of epiphany that I realized If this is what our society is to look like, I do not wish to be a part of it. ACCKWA chooses to challenge it, and so should we.

The harm reduction programs offered at ACCKWA serve to support individuals in a variety of ways. It is important to understand that the idea of support is not always synonymous with change. ACCKWA offers opportunities for medical testing, program support, group support, and a safe-needle program which works to reduce the harm of unsafe sex and drug use. Addiction is not easy to overcome, but harm reduction isn’t about overcoming; it’s about recognizing the long and hard process of overcoming and validates that going clean is not met with immediate success. Sometimes, the most productive tool for harm reduction is simply having access to safe, sanitary, and controlled drug and substance use. As a result, I spent three hours each week for three months preparing harm reduction kits; these included instruments such as syringes, pipes, lighters, condoms, lube, etc. The goal is that, if we cannot cure addiction, perhaps we can shift addiction into being less lethal. Similarly, sexuality is a fundamental part of human life and the reality of HIV/AIDS is a pandemic in its own right. We can close our eyes and pretend it isn’t there, or we can try to understand why, how it works, and work within its community to reduce suffering and support members of the KW area who are affected by it.

Once I completed my internship, I was left with questions: What do I do now? The answer seemed simple; I would go and do my international placement In Uganda where I would see a very different side to the HIV/AIDS epidemic… but it’s more than that. The things I learned had to transition across cultures just as much as they transitioned across oceans. When they did, I was surprised to learn that the mission and goals were very similar: it’s not about ‘fixing’ what we see wrong with the world; instead, it’s about changing the degree of harm that we create by ignoring it.

My experiences at ACCKWA taught me that it is crucial to normalize and validate sex and individuals who live with HIV/AIDS, drugs, and addiction. ACCKWA has taught me many things, but the most important is also perhaps the only one that society already knows: the logical statement that the world is made up of human beings who are deserving of being treated as such. Each individual who works at ACCKWA is there because something specific draws them there, be it a passion for LGBTQIA+ issues, a desire to end stigma, a passion for wellness, or the desire to listen. Each person, be it staff, volunteer, or client is simply willing to share with others the gifts and experiences which they have been given. These are values I hope to carry with me in my own life.

About the Author: Gabrielle McInnis is a fall 2020 incoming MPACS student. In June of 2020, she completed her B.A degree with a double major in Legal Studies and Peace and Conflict studies from the University of Waterloo. Her academic and personal interests include Restorative Justice and Conflict Mediation as well as an interest in conflict history.

Reflection Journal:Peace Education in Primary and Secondary Schools

“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”- Martin Luther King Jr

Reflection on the Ugandan Experience

What would Ugandan lives be like collectively if peace education was infused into our education curriculum from pre-school to secondary schools? What it would be like if we made humans, girls, and women’s abuses and rights visible earlier on in our academic spaces? What if teachers learned about “positive discipline” earlier on in their everyday life experiences in their homes; would that have an impact on how they interact with and discipline students in their teaching journey? Also, what if we learned about equality of all kinds in primary and secondary schools; would that not only shape higher education learning experiences, and eventually have a significant impact on the leaders we get to govern in our society? Would it not guarantee the protection of victims of different indignities, accountability of perpetrators, and equal participation in decision-making processes that define not just the wellbeing but also the un-wellbeing of Ugandans? And would it not impact our current government authoritative tendencies towards citizens?

And, what about learning about the role of civil society in creating a culture of peace and peacebuilding in general? What if this language was introduced to us earlier on in our classroom spaces, what impact would it have on the country’s culture of violence? I think the impact would be tremendously positive.

I have been thinking about these questions and many others as I was working on availing the peace education curriculums for students in primary and secondary schools in Africa on Learning for Humanity’s e-learning system, Tusitawi. I was particularly thinking about how my life would be like if I had been socialized to a culture of peace earlier on. And if I had not learned earlier on how to act from a flight or fight mode whenever I felt that my life, dignity, and existence was attacked or in danger. I have also thought about how my life would be like if I engaged in spaces that could help me acknowledge and heal my trauma; the trauma that I believe puts me in the “flight or fight” mode. As I was thinking about all of these, I observed that this experience is not mine alone; it is almost the experience of every Ugandan I know (of).

I think in general, there is no denial of the existence of a culture of violence in my home country, Uganda. Different forms of violence can be identified in our everyday experiences at home with domestic abuses that are embedded in parent-child or husband-wife power dynamics; at school with physical and sexual violence embedded in teacher-student power relations; in political, social, and economic institutions/systems that abuse and marginalize the powerless and ethnic minority groups; and in our violent relationship with the natural environment. Some of these forms of violence are overt and direct towards people and our environment. Others are passive and indirect in every societal space. All these manifestations of violence have created a vicious cycle of violence, passed onto every single generation knowingly and unknowingly. Humanly, the result of it is largely unrecognized and unhealed generational trauma. Thus, the overarching question for me is, can peace education in primary and secondary schools be part of the solution to this complex problem?

Reflection on Internship Activities with Learning for Humanity

In the 7th and 8th weeks as a Peace and Conflict Researcher/Intern with Learning for Humanity (L4H), I continued to conduct secondary peace education research on teacher and student resources for students in all grades. Although this time, I focused on resources addressing peace education in an African context such as Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe where L4H is working.

I found the teacher resources for primary and secondary schools in Uganda from Global Peace Hut Director, Margaret Huber, to be particularly fitting for children of all ages in primary and secondary schools in Uganda. While the Global Peace Hut as an established peace education organization is no longer existent, the peace curriculums developed for schools in Uganda are still as relevant as they were at the time of on-going direct violence between the state and the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in Northern Uganda. And I think the need for these curriculums in the absence of war goes on to prove why Ugandans need to confront and engage with the ongoing negative peace, which sustains the presence of political violence, and systematic violence in every sphere of our society.

As a nation, we need to aspire for a positive and just peace so that every act and culture of violence can be rooted out in our communities. And I observed that the peace education curriculums from Global Peace Hut are instructive in how teachers and students can be part of both the solution to the 0n-going negative peace and of processes that would lead us to unlearn the culture of violence. This was specifically indicated in how the curriculums are prioritizing endogenous and/or traditional practices and knowledge of peacemaking such as the use of folk tales, skits and drama, traditional music and images, and storytelling for teachers and students to elucidate concepts of peace, and non-violent direct actions in their learning processes. While the curriculums do not necessarily avoid including Western knowledge or interpretations of peacebuilding/peacemaking and/or conflict resolutions, I think by largely centering endogenous/traditional pieces of knowledge of peacemaking and co-existence rooted in the Bantu African concept of Ubuntu, that affirms the humanity of us all, and the balance of relationships, the curriculum has the ability to confront and challenge the widely implemented neoliberal-top-down peace-making strategies and skills taught in higher learning institutions in Uganda.

Beyond the affirmation of endogenous pieces of knowledge on peace values and peacemaking, I found that the curriculums are also rooted in the preventative holistic approaches and tools for building a culture of peace in Uganda as opposed to the neoliberal responsive approaches that largely focus on the existence and aftereffects of a direct conflict (often an armed conflict). These preventative approaches include teachers, children, parent tools that not only reduce negative behaviors such as bullying in schools but also increase positive behaviors such as positive discipline on the part of teachers and parents; and anger acknowledgment, communication of negative and positive feelings, consideration of feelings of self and others, positive dialogue and active listening skills on the part of students. They also include the value of a collective positive relationship with each other, God, parents, teachers, and the natural environment from school to home/community spaces. In short, students learn about respect for self, others, of differences, of the environment, and respect of the supernatural being(s) behind all creation.

At national and international levels, the curriculums include lessons on how to articulate collective peace, love, respect for human rights, honesty, humility, cooperation, individual and social responsibility, tolerance, just freedom, happiness, and unity. Of course some of these disciplines I and other Ugandans have learned in primary and secondary curriculums on social studies, geography, or religious education, but they were not articulated within the language and framework of peace education, which I find useful in undoing and unlearning the culture of violence. In short, the secondary research I have found on peace education in primary and secondary schools seems to cast the possibility of undoing a culture of violence in Uganda if we as a nation prioritized peace education in all of our academic spaces not just in higher education institutions like Makerere University. However, we should not make peace education as yet another resource or discipline that can only be accessed by rich kids who can make it to higher learning institutions. Rather, we should aim to make peace education accessible from below, that is, from primary through secondary education, such that when some kids are not able to make it to the top (because not all of us are going to have access to university education), they too have had a chance to be accustomed to values and impact of peace education.

In Uganda, I would like to think that the oppressive political actors are fully aware of this power and possibility of peace education, and that they may be intentional in not making peace education a priority in our education system. I wonder though if our political leaders have got to this level of socio-political consciousness to intentionally limit peace education in my country. My role is to keep pushing the conversation in that direction until peace education materializes in all communities in Uganda. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war”. In Uganda, I think this can be done if we prioritize re-organizing our education system so that it centers and ends with peace education because our collective healing depends on it. And this can be done if the means and the goals of each primary and secondary subject/curriculum are peace education and positive peace respectively.

***

About the Author: Ndagire Brendah is currently a graduate student of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Waterloo’s Conrad Grebel University College, focusing primarily on the reality and/or role of women at the grassroots level in peacebuilding. Previously, she lived and served with Mennonite Central Committee Colombia, for two years in Chocó, Colombia, where she accompanied women and small-scale farmers in peacebuilding processes lead by the local Mennonite Brethren Church.

Anti-racism includes unlearning the histories of the land

It is somewhat ironic that the Land Back Camp underway at Victoria Park is just a short walk from the Schneider Haus on Queen Street.

The Land Back Camp is where a group of local Indigenous activists began occupying a small area of the park on National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21). They are claiming land that was a traditional meeting ground for Indigenous peoples, used for trade, ceremony, and relationship building. The land was taken away by white colonizers and settlers, but in 1784 the Haldimand Tract (10 kilometres on each side of the Grand River from end to end) was granted by the British to the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations), to support them in perpetuity.

The Schneider Haus – a national historic site – was built in 1816 by the Schneiders, a Pennsylvania German Mennonite family who were among the first white settlers in this region. It now functions as a museum, with vibrant programming that educates children and adults about how Mennonites and other nineteenth century white settlers farmed, gardened, cooked, preserved, played, and sustained themselves on the land.

For a long time I knew a great deal about the Schneiders and very little about the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous peoples who were here – the Huron-Wendat, Attawandaron, Anishinaabeg. I have been teaching the history of Mennonites, and that of other immigrants and refugees, at University of Waterloo for close to 25 years. I taught the familiar and comforting narratives of Mennonite migration that included stories of flight from persecution, seeking freedom, and pioneering new lands.

Because pacifism is among their religious beliefs, Mennonites are often viewed as benign actors in the displacement of Indigenous peoples, but they too are complicit in the physical and systemic violence of colonialism, in Canada and elsewhere, then and now. Over the years I have attempted to alter my teaching, my language, and my scholarship to acknowledge this.

I still tell stories of my Mennonite grandparents who arrived in Canada in 1924, having left their homes in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of violent civil war, famine, and overwhelming community losses. (By the way, Mennonites were also European colonizers that displaced Indigenous people in the Russian empire). And the stories of my parents-in-law who came to Canada as refugees following the Second World War, having lost many family members to execution or imprisonment under the Stalinist regime.

I teach these stories because they are about who I am and about what Canada is. But it is essential that I also help students understand the Indigenous histories of the land that their ancestors and my Mennonite grandparents settled on. And that Indigenous people continue to live and work and experience injustice on this land. In the case of my four grandparents, it was Treaty 1 Territory and the land of the Métis Nation in southern Manitoba, and the land of the Chippewas Point Pelee in southwestern Ontario.

My own anti-racist learning and teaching journey continues. Another gap in remembered history points to this. A few years ago my family purchased a cottage in Mapleton Township, Wellington County. Along with adjacent Wellesley and Woolwich townships, this area is often described as ‘Mennonite country.’ Recent and long ago research by others has helped me understand the history of Black settlement in this area. Many Black peoples, freed from or escaping enslavement in the United States, created farm communities before the Mennonites. Indeed, the Mennonite enterprise was made easier, in some cases, by the earlier work of Black farmers who felled trees and tilled the soil.

I now point out to my visitors the many sites, marked by often forgotten and ignored plaques, of churches and cemeteries founded by Black settlers, near towns like Yatton, Wallenstein, and Glen Allen. These sit amongst the more commonly pointed out Mennonite meetinghouses and parochial schools. If there are plaques or other signs that also acknowledge this as the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg people, I am unfamiliar with them.

The great thing about history is that while the past itself may not change, the way in which we understand, interpret, and teach the past changes immensely. As do the choices we make about what to forget and ignore, and what to remember and commemorate. Indeed, real learning about the past necessitates unlearning what we think we know about the past.

Unlearning also involves action. That is why I think the City of Kitchener should honour the claims of the Land Back Camp activists, by returning a space of Victoria Park to Indigenous peoples, as recognition of their traditional territory. As a resident of Waterloo, I think we should do the same.

***

About the Author: Marlene Epp is a professor of History and Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo. She lives, works, and plays on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat, Attawandaron, Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples.

Featured Image Source: Lori Campbell’s twitter, showing the land back camp at Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ontario.

Remembering the past, dishonoring the present

June 4th marks the thirty-one-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre— one of the most horrendous acts of an authoritarian government in contemporary history. On June 4, 1989, university students and young adults stood together in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and across China to demonstrate for greater state accountability, constitutional reform, freedom, and democracy. In response, the central government declared martial law that sent 5,100 armed Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops and several dozen tanks to suppress and kill activist voices.

Since then, every year Hong Kong has organized vigils to commemorate those who died. This year, however, Hong Kong’s Tiananmen-Remembrance vigil is canceled due to Chinese government censorship under the guise of pandemic measures. Despite the oppressive National Security Law, refusal to grant gathering permits, and risk of arrest, thousands of people reportedly defiantly went to Victoria Park to mourn the massacre. The reason was simply put by a protestor: “Instead of being silenced, I’d rather sacrifice myself for freedom. If we have no freedom, it makes no difference whether you’re in jail or not.”

As Hong Kong becomes a little more suppressed every day by the silencing grip of mainland China, Hong Kongers and Americans alike look to champion Donald Trump to ward off China without fully acknowledging his agenda As we in the ‘free’ and democratic West weep in remembrance of the lost lives who stood bravely for justice against tanks thirty-one years ago, we witness a new era as US President, Donald Trump threatens to shoot Black activists in the United States while they fight to honor the unjust murder of #GeorgeFloyd and countless other black lives at the hands of police brutality. This threat became more visible on June 2^nd, when Donald Trump deployed more than 2 dozen HMMWV vehicles and over 1500 national guards into downtown Washington, the capital, to allegedly “protect the White House”. The same has been ordered to several other major cities. As a people, we once again bear witness to the supposedly free and just United States threatening justice-seeking protestors with the same silencing powers of militarized force— in Communist China.

To White America and Hong Kong immigrants across North America who claim to value democracy, freedom, and justice— it is fair to be cautious and draw some parallels of the US government’s violent response to peaceful protests and Communist China’s response to the same activists in Tiananmen Square. The irony is that Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2019 condemning Chinese state-sanctioned police brutality and totalitarianism. Fast forward to 2020, we are observing that he himself is ordering police brutality by agitating state governors to use heavier force against largely peaceful protestors. The US president has continued to actively invite gun-toting racial slur-spouting militants to threaten protestors in the name of ‘protection’ just like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who signed the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020.

What does the US government’s violent response to peaceful protestors mean for a supposedly free and fair democracy?

It seems like the US president is leading his country down a slippery slope to authoritarianism. With the help of the US news media, looting is at the center of understanding the #blacklivesmatter protests. The hyper-focus on looting by the media has also proven to be the fuel for Trump and his right-wing supporters’ antics for state-sanctioned violence against peaceful protestors. This hyper-focus that mainstream media has had on looting has also misled some people in the US and beyond to forget about a large number of peaceful protestors, who are dedicated to seeking justice for the victims of police brutality and to systemic change in North America.

The news media has power, and its blatant disregard of peaceful protestors has also led to many pro-Hong Kong-democracy crowds in North America to ignorantly chant in support of Trump’s violence. This support situated within the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, philosophically goes against what we as Hong Kongers stand for. It is interesting to observe that the same people in Hong Kong who condemn the Chinese Central government’s use of police brutality, are in support of the US government’s violence towards Black America. The question then, what do pro-Hong Kong-democracy who are also Trump supporters truly stand for? What do they support? And what “democratic” values are they interested in?

While they continue to lament the massacres in the Tiananmen Square in the last thirty years, and deliberately defy CCP’s order to ban the commemorations in the name of COVID-19, the same pro-Hong Kong democracy seem to be disconnected and apathetic to the lamentations of our Black brothers and sisters who standing up for their right to exist. There is something strange with being so connected to the injustice of the past, namely, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and being so disconnected from the injustice of the present, namely, state-sanctioned police violence towards Black men and women in North America.

To the Asian Canadian community, if this has been a moment of epiphany to the violence our Black neighbors experience at the hands of White police officers, there is still time to denounce our complacency with White supremacy, and unlearn our indifference to the injustices Black people in North America experience. We need to acknowledge that Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for racism and violent response to largely peaceful protestors are similar to what peaceful Hong Kongers have been protesting against the HKSAR government. What is interesting is the US president allowed these violent responses to peaceful protestors in Washington D.C in the same week that marks the anniversary and remembrance of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This invites us to rethink our definition of freedom, justice, and democracy. We must ask ourselves, what have we learned from remembering the Tiananmen Square Massacre? And what is it teaching us about the freedom and justice of our Black neighbors? In Canada and the US, we are people of color too, we must do better in standing in solidarity with our Black neighbors.

***

About the Author:

Sherwin is an Asian Canadian MPAC student who is interested in interrogating Hong Kong and China political relations and the positionality of the Asian community in Canada.

Featured Photo: Demonstrators march past a military humvee as they protest the death of George Floyd, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in Washington. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Part II Q&A: On Language, Power, Privilege, and Peacebuilding

This is Part II of the interview I conducted with Dr. Jennifer Ball, continuing the conversation on her experience studying women at the grassroots level in Uganda who are contributing to peacebuilding in ways that are not often recognized by peace researchers and practitioners at national and global levels. In this interview, Dr. Ball reflects on language, research, peacebuilding, publication challenges, and the power and privilege she holds as a White Canadian woman conducting research in an African context.

Brendah Ndagire: Given your work and experience with women at grassroots in Uganda and Zambia, and your awareness of how peace practitioners from the global North construct gender and women’s role in peacebuilding processes in the Global South in ways that universalize or homogenize the experiences of women, how can peace practitioners best construct the role of gender and women at the grassroots level in peacebuilding processes in Uganda?

Jennifer Ball: I think what is important is to provide a platform for women’s stories. And so one of the things… because women have very diverse experiences. There are some commonalities for sure. Those are important to look at. But also the diverse experiences. What I am hearing in your question is like how do we present the diversity of experiences that we have in Uganda? How can we best talk about those diverse experiences, and their contribution to peace and conflict?

BN: Right.

JB: Well, I think it is about creating a platform for them to tell their story and collecting those stories. So in the literature, in the peacebuilding literature and the women and peacebuilding literature… There is not a lot of literature generally, relative to other disciplines. But you typically find most literature is about post-conflict reconstruction and women’s experiences there. So when the war has happened and it is over and now we are reconstructing, and how women have been impacted by extreme violence. And that is important. But there is much less literature about women at the grassroots in terms of the more holistic definition of peacebuilding. So, you know, like in Kampala, one of the women that I profiled was working with kids on the street – by providing services and homes for the kids on the streets. Where are those kids coming from? Conflict areas. But what would a person in peace and conflict typically think about or would they think about street kids as like a conflict to work in or a contribution to peacebuilding? Of course, it is, but in [a] more holistic way. So I think that the stories need to be documented. And one of the things that I did in my research, which I think is quite unique, is that I maintain the women’s stories as they told them to me. So, typically when you are working with a narrative methodology, partly for the convenience of the length of the document, researchers will often summarize, pull out themes and then provide direct quotes. But what I was wanting to experiment with was keeping the women’s stories intact as they told them, so that when the reader reads the document and reads the book, you could do your own analysis. So I may provide my analysis as a researcher, but as the reader, you can also do your own analysis… because I am speaking English from a particular background. I am not a Ugandan and Ugandans speak English in a particular way. And as a Ugandan, you will read those stories and you will hear them in a different way than I will hear. Because even as I was in Uganda for a couple of years, my understanding of the women’s stories changed over time, as I deepened in my knowledge and awareness of the particular local experiences or the particular ways that people use English and express themselves in English. So it’s not just on the surface of what somebody said. It’s understanding how it is used in Uganda. How is it spoken in Uganda? And so, as a Ugandan, you will hear things in those stories that I even can’t hear right now. I limited myself to women who could speak English because I’m acutely aware that African languages cannot be directly translated into English. I know it’s fine if you want to ask for numbers and how many kids you have or whatever – you can translate that. But there were conceptual elements of peace that I was looking for and it would take a very skilled translator and they’re hard to find because most people want to translate efficiently.

BN: Right. Yeah, efficiently and quickly.

JB: So then they make the translations the way people want to hear them, not necessarily what the person is saying. And so I was hoping that my research would be an impetus for other researchers at Makerere University and other students to then take that model and say, ‘This is a legitimate way of doing research’ and ‘How could I go and do that in my own language?’. Because there are so many women who do not speak English, who have stories to tell and who are making significant contributions to peacebuilding. But they need to be able to tell their stories in their own language. And then only those of you who speak those languages have access to those stories to run with it.

BN: And I mean, that’s also a challenge, because even if you gather those stories in a local language, there’s a critical question: Who do you choose to be your audience? And how is it beneficial to you and the audience?

JB: Right. And you transcribe those stories. You know, you just know that you are not going to be publishing those stories for an international audience. Once again, we are not dealing with English. But, is there value? What is the value? That is what I would put to you in having those stories documented in Uganda for people who can speak those languages and highlighting the contributions that those women are making relative to peace – because people are aware of peace. Uganda’s had such a history of violent conflict and people have an appreciation of the word peace. Whereas here [in Canada] it is different because we don’t have that history in the same way. But I think what I feel, if we even just go broader in the African context, I think there is a lack of stories of women’s experiences and women’s contributions to peacebuilding in a holistic way, not just like post-conflict. The war is over, but all those other things that women are doing that kind of get captured in the development literature – community development or international development – that they want to have, that is where you find those stories. But there is not a peace lens on them or a peacebuilding lens. And so my challenge to people is how do we develop a peacebuilding lens when we are looking at what we would typically call development, community development, women’s roles and community development, that is peacebuilding because those [issues] are the base. Those are the deepest roots of conflict and are around identity, relationships between clan and tribe and family and food, like basic food and resources, land, education. And those are areas where women have the most influence. Men have a lot of power. But women have the most influence in that context. And what I came to learn is that a very powerful woman at the village level is a woman who knows the network of relational connections that she has. She knows her clan. She knows her husband’s clan, her mother’s, and her father’s. She knows all the ways in which she is connected through clan and tribe because those relational webs are what she can access to have influence and power. She may not have the same power over that we might think of in the West and that men do have. But a powerful woman is a woman who knows that network [of relationships] very well and not all women do. But there are women who know their network very well. For example, my friend who was in the hospital, who I was caregiving for… His mom traveled from Uganda, from the village to come here to see him when in hospital. And meeting members of the Uganda community here, [none of whom she’d met before], she could pull in connections because relationships must be reciprocal. She could make connections between her mother’s and her grandmother’s clan with people here who were of the same clan, which then put them in a relational obligation to her. So here she is, in this foreign country and she doesn’t speak English well, but she is not completely disoriented because she knows how to create and activate the web of relationships and their obligations. Do you see what I mean?

BN: Right.

JB: You know, but that was fascinating to me to be able to find language for it because I was like, it is not just women who have a lot of influence, but it is that [human] relational web. If you don’t make it your business to know how your grandparents, your grandparents’ clans, and how they are all interconnected, you can’t activate that resource. But women who do that, they are powerful. Would you agree?

BN: Yeah, I do. I agree. I think so much about my grandmother in that way and how she was able to raise her 9 children after losing their father when they were still so young. She activated that relational web which enabled her to raise her children. It is powerful to think about the relational aspects of women, and how that relational capability contributes to peacebuilding. It is powerful and I think that is what is also not studied enough, as well as the power of female-headed homes in Uganda to aid peace and stability in the country.

JB: There was some research on that, but it is not enough within the area of peacebuilding and community transformation.

BN: Right. Okay, let’s talk further about the stories you draw out in your research and the book you published. Why is this book important to you? And how is it important to peace practitioners or the peace and conflict studies students at Makerere University? On my part, I think it is fascinating that you documented stories of ordinary Ugandan women. It kind of sets precedence for me and other Ugandan women to be able to continue from where you stopped. To continue telling these stories. Let’s also talk about language. Given that Uganda is such an ethnically diverse country, with more than 54 languages, and since the book is centering on grassroots women, who often do not understand English, I am wondering how the book’s language of choice, English, is impacting its readership, especially thinking about the intended audience? I am also wondering if you have been able to distribute the book within Uganda? Or have you been able to utilize the relationship you have with the folks at Makerere University?

JB: When I was in Uganda, I was quite connected to the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Makerere University. And there was a prof there who basically acted as my supervisor when I was in the country – informally. And it was actually his… one of the women was his cousin. Anyway, so through that connection, there was a newsletter through that department and I published a summary of my research a couple of times in that newsletter. There’s a publisher in Kampala – I forget the name – anyway, I tried to work with them and it did not work out. So then I kind of was despairing. And then I tried some publishers here that didn’t work out. Finally, the time was passing and I was really deeply committed to getting the research published so that the women could read their stories. So, after I finished the research with each woman, I transcribed her interview. And I printed it up and I bound it with her photo on the front, with a title and everything, and I gave it back to her. And so each woman had their own story for themselves. And that was something, too. I went back – because I lived with all of the women except one, the one in Kampala. So I couldn’t really live with her, but we spent a lot of time together. But I lived with each of the women in their home. And then I went back after the research to sit with them. And then they would read. I had sent them the research and then they would read through page by page by page, word by word, and basically tell me what to change and what not to change. So it was edited by them afterward. And my commitment to them was that I would publish it. So, after trying and trying, it did not work out. Then I decided to self-publish. So, I self-published the book under a different title than this current book. And then I took that back to Uganda and I got it into Aristoc and Fountain, two different bookstores. And I gave the book to each of the women, and then also to the professors at the university for the library, the peacebuilding and conflict library. So I distributed it quite widely in Uganda. But then, because I haven’t been back on a regular basis, I haven’t distributed further. It hasn’t been possible to restock. That said, I felt really good that those who needed to get it, like in terms of the women, their communities, the researchers, they all have it. And then some others in Kenya and Zambia. And then when I came here, I started this teaching job but, because of the academic system, self-publishing is not considered credible. So it was made very clear that I needed to republish it.

BN: That is a very interesting journey, full of challenges.

JB: So that is why the second book has come out under a different title. That was good. It was a great opportunity to do that and I’m proud of the book. But the thing that frustrates me is that the price of the book would mean that it would never be bought in Africa anywhere. And it would only be bought here. So, I can only feel good about that because I have already distributed the other book. I mean, I still have some additional copies of that, but I have distributed it under a different title here. But that was my commitment to the women, that I would publish it because… I mean, you talk about power and privilege and I speak about it in the Prologue for my book. For many years, I did not work in Africa because I was very aware that, as much as I had a lot of experience, I knew there were educated African people who could do a better job than me. But after many years of watching and watching and seeing a bunch of White people go over there who had no experience, there was a part of me that said, “no, no, like, I know that I have at least something to contribute.” It is something more than people who know nothing. In engaging in this research, I was very conscious of my power and privilege. And then thinking through very clearly, how was I going to use that for the benefit of the African women. How was I going to create a platform for the women’s voices to be heard on their terms? Not through my own interpretation. I would do my own analysis, but that was why I was very clear that I wanted their voices to speak in their own terms. So, it makes it more challenging for a Canadian reader to read a couple of interviews with the women because the spoken English written in the book is different from how we speak here. But for a Ugandan audience, they will get it right away.

BN: As a Ugandan woman, a student of Peace and Conflict, and who is also interested in observing the role grassroots women play in contributing to peace-building and community transformation, I am very much empowered by Dr. Ball’s experience in centering underrecognized women in Uganda. I am very much inspired to dare to create spaces for Ugandan or Afro-Colombian women at the grassroots to tell their stories in a language they understand, be it Luganda, Chocoano Spanish, or any other language in my country. Women peace and conflict scholars from the Global South have a role to play in creating this space with the grassroots women who are decentered in the understanding of conflict and peace-building in communities they occupy.

***

For a detailed study of grassroots women experience with peacebuilding and conflict in Uganda, find Dr. Ball’s book in this link here: Women, Development, and Peacebuilding in Africa: Stories from Uganda.