The Taliban take over of Afghanistan in 2021 has had a severe impacts on the country’s higher education system, with systemic threats to Academic Freedom accompanied by specific threats against scholars, students and activists (particularly women and ethnic minorities). In response, we have seen an increased demand for ‘scholarly resettlement’ pathways which would see Canadian Higher Education institutions responding to this crisis through academic placements, scholarships, and other forms of support for Afghan scholars, students and activists. This talk will present the work of on project that has sought to respond to this demand: an IDRC funded project ‘Placement, Preservation and Perseverance’ which seeks to improve supports for Afghans resettling within Canadian Universities whilst also providing pathways for preserving Afghan knowledge(s) and networks more generally. Speakers will include the project’s Research Director (Dr. Elham Gharji-Carleton), the lead of the project’s student arm (Dr. Jenny Peterson-UBC) and a UBC student researcher who has conducted research in support of the project.
Jenny Peterson joined the department from the Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute (Manchester) where she worked as a lecturer from 2009-2013. She is broadly interested in the politics of international aid with her past work analyzing process of liberal peacebuilding and critiques thereof. Finding much of this critical work homogenizing of a diverse range of processes she has recently began exploring conceptual and empirical deviations from the liberal model. Engaging with debates on pacifism, agonism, resistance, hybridity and political space she is now exploring diversity and innovation, both local and international, in peace/justice movements. She has conducted research and led student fieldtrips in Kosovo, Sri Lanka and Ghana. Her teaching interests include peace studies, international relations, humanitarian studies and human rights.
Elham Gharji received his PhD with distinction (Magna Cum Laude) in International Politics and Conflict Resolution from University of Coimbra in Portugal in 2021. Elham has taught subjects in IR and Central Asian politics in Afghanistan, and has guest-lectured in various universities in Europe and North America. He has been a Davis Center fellow at Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Center on Governance at University of Ottawa, among others. He currently based at Carleton University, researching and coordinating the research component of an IDRC-funded collaborative project involving Carleton U and UBC, and supporting at-risk scholars, activists and students from Afghanistan.
Please join us to explore what is currently happening in terms of this project, related concerns regarding the scholarly resettlement of Afghan scholars and students in Canada, and the implications this might have for the Higher Education sector in supporting scholars and students from other crises such as Ukraine, Iran and elsewhere.
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