HCPB MEMBERS BLOG
Exploring the role of grassroots hip hop organizations in engaging youth in peacebuilding in Medellin, Colombia
By Teresa O Bradaigh Bean and Ruth Daniel, In Place of War Introduction Hip-hop culture, consisting of four artistic elements of breakdancing, MC-ing, graffiti and DJ-ing, is a global phenomenon with local scenes across the globe. As a form of popular culture, it does not immediately appear to be a suitable tool or strategy for building peace, often regarded as a youth subculture, a fashion or a fad. However, within the field of peace and conflict studies, there is an increasing body of...
The role of communication technologies in Adivasi protest at Silinger
By Sreedhar Nemmani[1] & Rashmi Kumari[2] It was in the wee hours on 8 August 2021, in the interior parts of Bastar region in the southern part of Chhattisgarh State in India, when faint notes of a tune in the local Gondi language wafted towards us. As we walked further away from the settlement and towards the forest, the tunes grew louder. While we could not comprehend the language, we could identify those tunes to be part of the genre that is often played in the tribal areas of Bastar –...
Women on the walls in Belfast: murals and representations of women in conflict
By Marie Migeon, University of Basel Introduction In Belfast, political debate has been taking place through visual representations and especially through murals since the 1980s (Jarman 1998; Rolston 2003). They fulfil a variety of roles, spreading political claims in public space, featuring wishes for the future of Northern Ireland, and showing specific memories of the conflict. Like most representations of conflict, these murals tend to leave out women, as they are expected to be ‘outside’...
Community Media, Youth Participation and Conflict Transformation: Towards Critical Peace Literacy
Derya Yüksek, PhD Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Derya.Yuksek@vub.ac.be) Peace education, in a broad definition, refers to pedagogical efforts to provide people with knowledges, skills, and values that support non-violent relationships and peaceful co-existence within and across societies. Oftentimes targeting children and youth in formal and informal educational settings, the aim of peace education is to initiate a learning process to dismantle direct and...
The curious case of the Russian ‘propaganda bullhorn’
By Ilya Yablokov The idea to write a book on RT (Russia Today as the channel was called before 2010) came in 2013 when the channel was growing as an international broadcaster interested in fringe opinions and alternative facts. This was before the catch phrase ‘fake news’ was added to the daily vocabulary of both average news consumers and academics. A decade ago, RT pioneered the usage of controversial opinions (packaged as the manifestation of the freedom of speech), alternative facts,...