Leverhulme Research Programme
Compromise after Conflict
4th Annual Report 2012-2013
Preamble
The Programme began in September 2009 and runs for five years. This is the fourth Annual
Report, covering the academic year 2012-2013. This Report will be posted on the
Programme’s website along with the response from the International Advisory Board. The
purpose of the Report is to record the Programme’s achievements over the year and to subject
the Programme’s progress to external review by the International Advisory Board. The
Board’s assessment will be copied to The Leverhulme Trust, Queen’s University and the
University of Aberdeen, along with this Report. (The Board’s assessment is reproduced at the
end of this Report.)
Overview of achievements 2012-2013
If the first year was one of fruitful birth, the second of sustained growth, the third of
emerging achievement, the fourth has been one of fulfilment. Data collection is now more or
less complete, with the final survey data sent from Sri Lanka at Christmas. Analysis is now
well underway. One of the linked projects was completed in the year (truth recovery) and
thus we said goodbye to the Research Fellow (Corinne Caumartin). Three students have been
awarded their PhD, and the fourth is submitting at the end of March. One of the PhD students
folded into the programme but funded from other sources was also awarded their degree in
the year. Several public presentations and conference papers have been completed, and some
publications directly linked to the Programme have appeared in international peer reviewed
journals. The book series based on the Programme, entitled Palgrave Studies in Compromise
after Conflict, with John Brewer as Series Editor, saw its first book appear in January 2013,
written by John Brewer, David Mitchell and Gerard Leavey and is on the role of religion in
transitional justice. Our website is proving very popular and our Twitter account is very
successful in drawing attention to our research, with over 8500 followers, including
governments and international agencies. Two internal Programme workshops were held
during the year, one each in Aberdeen and Belfast, the latter attended by a new member of
the International Advisory Board (Professor Roddie Cowie, who is Queen’s University’s
representative). In addition, in May 2013, the Aberdeen- based team provided an overview
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of their work to Professor Gordon Marshall, Director of the Leverhulme Trust, when he
visited the University of Aberdeen.
It is also important to record that the Principal Investigator and one of the CoInvestigators moved to Queen’s University Belfast during the year, so the Programme is
represented at both the University of Aberdeen and Queen’s University. Brewer, Teeney and
Dudgeon moved to Queen’s, and Hayes and Mueller-Hirth remained at Aberdeen. The PhDs
remained at Aberdeen but continued to be supervised by Brewer. The financial administration
of the Programme moved to Queen’s, whose server hosts our social media, but the
Programme is a joint enterprise. Document Manager runs from Aberdeen University. AT
Queen’s University, the Programme is now located in the Institute for the Study of Conflict
Transformation and Social Justice.
John Brewer was awarded his DSocSci (honoris causa) from Brunel University in
2012 for services to social science, including in part for the study of peace processes. The
University Orator made reference to the Leverhulme Programme in his address.
Some of these matters will be accounted for separately, and expanded, in what
follows.
Internal management of the Programme
This is a very large Programme, with one Principal Investigator, two Co-Investigators, three
Post-Doctoral Fellows, and seven PhD students. It involves co-ordination of fieldwork in
three countries (Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka). Our internal communication
systems are considerably enhanced by the use of Skype. Video conference calling by means
of Skype is used on almost a daily basis between the research teams in Aberdeen, Belfast and
Sri Lanka, creating a smooth and easy method of keeping in touch with distance being
eliminated as a barrier to good working practice and delivery. We also hold twice annual
workshops, where the Belfast and Aberdeen teams meet jointly to discuss progress and report
across the sites. Two were held in the year, October 2012 in Aberdeen, the second in Belfast
in June 2012, at which Professor Jeffrey Alexander spoke on the theme of cultural trauma
following conflict. Contact is maintained with the Sri Lankan fieldworkers through
occasional visits. The team also has a dedicated part of Aberdeen University’s server, called
Document Manager, which is accessed by a unique password known only to members of the
Leverhulme Programme. Using this facility, we upload all data files from the three case
countries, minutes of meetings and internal Programme workshops, other web links and
notable documents, so that they can be accessed by everyone at any time. This facility is
managed by Francis Teeney.
Individual projects
Northern Ireland
The Northern Irish project has been in progress the longest, beginning September 2009 and is
the template for the South African and Sri Lankan cases. The Northern Ireland project was
originally designed to be in three sequential stages: a) qualitative interviews with a sample of
70-80 victims; b) a random sample survey of 500 victims in victim support groups; and c)
general population random sample survey of 1,500 people. Problems in stage 2 meant we
had to proceed out of sequence. Stages one and three are now completed. The second stage
was stymied by the failure to generate a reliable sampling frame because of the unreliability
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of the records of victim support groups (the discovery of which took up much of the first year
of the project), and, with the permission of the Leverhulme Trust, was replaced with followup qualitative interviews with respondents from the national population survey. This has also
been completed. Thus all stages have been completed successfully and data analysis is
underway.
Qualitative interviews
Qualitative interviews were conducted amongst two types of respondents - victims of the
conflict (conducted primarily by Dr Katrin Dudgeon), and policy-makers and public figures
responsible to victim issues (conducted primarily by Dr Francis Teeney). All interviews are
complete. A 52-page draft document has been produced by Dudgeon as a preliminary
analysis of the qualitative data. Teeney is in the process of producing a similar document for
the practitioners.
General population survey
The questionnaire, known as the Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, is
based on a multi-stage stratified random sample and is a nationally representative survey of
the adult population in Northern Ireland, with a response rate of 59 per cent. The target
survey population – 1,500 individuals – was achieved in August 2011. Some provisional
analysis has already been undertaken, and several papers have been published in high-impact
peer review journals (see Publication Record below).
Follow-up interviews with the general population
In January 2012, we decided to replace the proposed random survey of 500 victims in victim
support groups by a series of in-depth follow-up interviews with respondents from the
general survey. The reason for this change was twofold: a) despite many and continuing
efforts on our behalf, we remained unable to generate a reliable sampling frame because of
the unreliability of records of victim support groups; b) because of the fallout from the
PSNI’s request to Boston College for the transcripts of interviews previously undertaken by
leading paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland, many individuals were refusing to
participate in academic research. Thus, permission was given by the Leverhulme Trust to
undertake this change. Katrin Dudgeon was responsible for conducting 50 follow-up
interviews with selected respondents from the general population survey. These have now
been completed and a separate draft document has been produced by Dudgeon giving a
preliminary analysis.
South Africa
The South African project is led by Dr Natascha Mueller-Hirth, who returned from maternity
leave in November 2012. It has qualitative and quantitative parts.
Qualitative interviews
The primary focus of the South African project is qualitative interviews amongst victims and
amongst witnesses and organisers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Two periods
of field work were conducted in South Africa and all qualitative interviews have been
completed. A substantial draft document has been written by Mueller-Hirth giving a
preliminary analysis of this data using the same coding format as in the Northern Irish case.
Quantitative data
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A second stage to the South African case is analysis of secondary survey data sets on victim
issues conducted among the general population. Surveys that include questions that can be
compared with the Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey were selected.
These include the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Afrobarometer and the
South African Reconciliation Barometer (SARB). One annual survey, the SARB, is
particularly relevant for our purposes, and allows comparison over time on attitudes to victim
support, perpetrators, tolerance, race relations, forgetting, memory, affirmative action, land
reform, and variables. SARB Datasets from 2003 until 2011 were obtained from the Institute
for Reconciliation and Justice (IJR) in Cape Town. We have catalogued replicable questions
over the nine rounds of the survey and recoded the data sets. Preliminary analysis of these
data sets has been undertaken with a view to publication of a journal article. This has
examined attitudes to dealing with the legacies of the past (reparations; government
supporting victims; government persecuting perpetrators; remembering the past) and
compromise mediators (hope; trust; inter-group networks). The compilation of this survey
data is still ongoing.
Sri Lanka
This project comes in two parts and both have been completed.
Qualitative interviews
The Sri Lankan project began in September 2010 and focused initially on undertaking
qualitative interviews with victims (stage 1 of the Northern Ireland template). These are now
complete. Eighty interviews were undertaken in local languages. The translation back into
English was checked by fluent speakers in Tamil and Sinhala. Transcription and translation
of the interviews is complete but analysis of the data has not yet begun.
Quantitative survey
With the abandonment of stage 2 in the Northern Ireland project, we replicated stage 3 in Sri
Lanka instead, by researching the general population utilising culturally appropriate questions
from the Northern Ireland questionnaire, translated into the two main Sri Lankan languages.
This retains the ambition to make cross-national comparisons across all three sites. The Asian
Institute of Missiology conducted the survey fieldwork on our behalf, utilising their
experienced team of local interviewers. The deterioration in the country’s political situation
caused delayed the completion of the survey in the heavily militarised Tamil areas of Sri
Lanka, but we have reached our sample size of 500 people and the work was completed in
December 2013. The surveys have been translated back into English and are now being
coded by Katrin Dudgeon, who will work with Natascha Mueller-Hirth and Bernie Hayes in
analysis by SPPS. This is only now beginning.
Widows and orphans project
Following on from John Brewer’s visit to Sri Lanka in February 2012, it was agreed with
members of the Asian Institute of Missiology to engage in a small scale but active civil
society peacebuilding project. The inaugural meeting took place in March 2012 of an
initiative established to bring together Sinhalese and Tamil widows and their children, who
are victims of the conflict, as part of grassroots peace building and reconciliation work in Sri
Lanka. The first two meetings have been funded from within Sri Lanka. The second took
place in December 2012.
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Truth Commissions
This project got underway in March 2011 with the appointment of Dr Corinne Caumartin,
and ran for two years. It was completed in March 2013 and Caumartin left the Programme. A
document was prepared by Caumartin giving a preliminary analysis of the data.
The purpose was to analyse the compromise dimensions of witness testimonies
gathered during various truth-seeking exercises internationally, and to discuss some of the
strengths and weaknesses of truth recovery as a process for dealing with post-conflict
reconstruction and in meeting victims’ needs for justice and truth. For the purpose of this
research, a typology of truth commissions was elaborated by identifying four major sets of
distinctions in the truth gathering process: international versus nationally led processes;
processes undertaken following major political transition versus regime continuation; state
sanctioned and informal processes; and local/community versus national level processes.
A number of case studies representing the major truth seeking exercises identified in the
typology were incorporated in the research – Sierra Leone, Liberia, Peru, Guatemala and
USA (Greensborough).
PhD students
Laura Fowler Graham (start February 2010 – Completed)
The thesis, entitled An Evaluation of Leadership Roles and Social Capital in Northern
Ireland’s Victim Support Groups: Theory, Policy and Practice, was awarded in 2013 and
Laura graduated in July that year. Her external examiner was Professor Brandon Hamber
from the University of Ulster. Laura subsequently obtained a teaching post at Tufts
University in the USA.
Sandra Rios (start October 2010 – Completed)
Sandra’s thesis, Religion and the Social Reconstruction of Memory amid Conflict: The Case
of the Massacre of Bojayá (Colombia) was awarded subject to very minor revisions in
January 2014, with graduation in July 2014. Her external examiner was Professor Andrew
Hoskins from Glasgow University.
Clare Magill (start October 2010 – Completed)
Clare Magill was awarded her thesis following a successful viva in February 2014. Her
research was on the recovered memory project in contemporary Spain and its impact on the
school curriculum. Her external examiner was Professor Tony Gallagher from Queen’s
University Belfast. This is an even more remarkable achievement since Clare is seven and a
half months pregnant.
Rachel Anderson (start October 2010)
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Rachel’s progress was delayed by illness, forcing her to withdraw from her studies for a short
while, but the thesis is due for submission in March 2014. The external examiner is Professor
Roger Mac Ginty from Manchester University. Her research is on the social reintegration of
child soldiers in Sierra Leone.
Other linked PhD students
In addition to the four Leverhulme Trust-funded PhD students, three other PhD students
funded from other sources have been folded into the Programme team in order to add to the
critical mass of students working in the area and to assist in integration and shared learning.
They are:
Dave Magee (started October 2009 – Completed). The thesis was awarded in July 2013. His
research was on the deconstruction of violent masculinities amongst members of the Loyalist
paramilitary organisations. External examiner was Professor Jim McAuley from Huddersfield
University.
Aimee Smith (stated October 2011) is funded by the ESRC and is working on Catholic youth
identity in Northern Ireland post peace process, addressing elements of change and continuity
as a measure of how the peace process is experienced by people. Aimee remains registered
with the University of Aberdeen and is supervised by John Brewer (external supervisor) and
Bernadette Hayes. She is now in her final year and is writing up.
Duncan Scott (started October 2012) is funded by the Commonwealth International
Scholarship scheme, and is working on the role of religion in transitional justice in South
Africa. He is registered with Queen’s University and is supervised by John Brewer and
Cheryl Lawther. He has completed fieldwork and is now undertaking analysis.
IT and public dissemination
Responsibility for managing the presence of our research in social media and the Internet
falls to Francis Teeney. In previous years we relied on Face Book and Twitter with huge
success. Since last year we have introduced a highly successful blog. .
Twitter
Our Twitter following @Compromisestudy has increased dramatically in the last 12 months
and now stands at 8,439 followers. The individual Twitter accounts of John Brewer (1721
followers) and Francis Teeney (1256 followers) increases the reach of the Programme
dramatically. Large numbers of our followers are global figures, international governments,
religious leaders, mainstream media and a wide variety of high quality Twitter users. They
range from the White House to the EU, Downing Street, the UN, Ghandi Foundation, the
Mandela Foundation, the Vatican, NATO, BBC, and all manner of political parties and
pressure groups. In order to use Twitter to its full potential and reach an even wider global
audience we also use Audio-boo, which is a system of disseminating a vocal recording of an
interview.
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Face Book
Our
Face
Book
page
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Compromise-AfterConflict/397300973637278) has 644 ‘likes’ and has a total reach of many thousands each
week due to the high profile of our followers. Face Book allows us to use different mediums
such as video, pictures, and allows for longer comment and in depth discussion. We link our
Twitter and Face Book together in order to achieve full coverage across both mediums
simultaneously.
Blog
Our blog (Compromise after Conflict at http://blogs.qub.ac.uk/compromiseafterconflict/) has
been very successful in terms of message dissemination and public engagement. We started
our blog last July 2012 with the theme of Hope for the Future. It was an instant success and
many leading Northern Ireland politicians, victims groups and church figures have posted.
We developed this theme to include the Haass-O’Sullivan talks, which have dominated the
political situation in Northern Ireland for the last six months as they attempted to deal with
flags, parades and the past. Our contributors consisted of the leadership of all the political
parties, as well as the deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, church leaders and victims.
The blog is constantly being picked up mainstream media, and has featured many times on
the BBCNI. We have run simultaneous articles with local press and even had a two page
spread in the Times Higher Education (see http://bit.ly/GHW4OL). To date the blog has
received in excess of 850,000 hits, and is considered a major contributor to the Northern
Ireland post conflict debate; it attracts thousands of unique visits each month from across the
globe. The blog has not only constrained itself to Northern Ireland as we have also posted
articles on South Africa, the legacy of Nelson Mandela, issues of forgiveness and culture.
Website
We
have
not
neglected
our
website
http://www.qub.ac.uk/researchcentres/CompromiseAfterConflict/. We use social media to point to the presence to the
website and the website still remains the main portal for news items, publications and other
relevant information useful to the public and other researchers. Since our partial relocation to
Queen’s University Belfast, the website has been taken over by that institution but the
University of Aberdeen still maintain a website on their server that points enquirers to the
Queen’s server therefore keeping these aspects under one controlling body.
Document Manager
Document Manager is hosted and maintained by the University of Aberdeen and is username
and password protected. The username is changed periodically as a matter of course. All our
data is stored in this secure online location and is protected by University security systems.
We also store various forms, reports, electronic copies of publications, links to websites, and
PhD material. All this material is independently accessible to everyone on the team.
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Other public and academic outputs and workshops
Anderson, Rachel (PhD student, Aberdeen University)
‘The Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone – A Critical Examination’,
Children and War: Past and Present Conference, United Nations Office of the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict /University of
Salzburg/University of Wolverhampton, Salzburg, Austria, 10-12 July 2013.
‘Finding Families: A Sociological Examination of the Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers
in Sierra Leone’, BSA Annual Conference, London, UK, 3-5 April 2013.
‘Nurturing (In)security? An Examination of Child Soldier Reintegration in Sierra Leone’,
The University of Bradford Postgraduate and Junior Scholars Conference in Peace, Security
and Development, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK, 23 November 2012.
‘Time to go Home? Examining Family Involvement in the Reintegration of Child Excombatants in Post-conflict Contexts’, CRFR Early Career Researchers Conference on
Families and Relationships, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, Edinburgh,
UK, 29 October 2012.
Brewer, John D. (Principal Investigator, Queen’s University)
(with Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney) Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern
Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (new paperback edition).
(with Dave Mitchell and Gerard Leavey) Ex-Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern
Ireland: The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013.
The Public Value of the Social Sciences. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
‘C. Wright Mills on war and peace’, in A. Nilsen and J. Scott (eds), The Sociological
Imagination and the Imagination of Sociology: The Intellectual Legacy of C. Wright Mills.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2013: 183-202
‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’, in Roger Mac Ginty (ed.), Handbook of Peacebuilding,
London: Taylor and Francis Books, 2013: 159-70
(with Francis Teeney) ‘Religion, violence, tolerance and peace in Northern Ireland’, in S.
Brunn (ed.), The Changing World Religion Map, New York: Springer, Forthcoming 2014
‘Culture, class and Protestantism in urban Belfast’, Discover Society: Digital Sociology, 2
November 2013. [Available online at http://www.discoversociety.org/culture-class-andprotestantism-in-urban-belfast-2/]
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(with Bernie Hayes) ‘Victimhood status and public attitudes toward post-conflict agreements:
Northern Ireland as a case study’, Political Studies 61, 2013: 442-61.
(with Bernie Hayes) ‘Victimisation and attitudes towards former political prisoners in
Northern Ireland’, Terrorism and Political Violence, In press, 2014.
The 2013 Annual Academy of Social Science Lecture. The public value of social science,
Academy of Social Science, London, 4 July 2013.
The 2013 St. Oliver Plunkett Talk Series. Religion, conflict and peace in Northern Ireland,
West Belfast Festival, 8 August, 2013.
Public social science: the way ahead, plenary lecture to the inaugural Postgraduate Research
Student Conference, School of Applied Social Science, University of Durham, 25 September
2013.
Public social science, plenary lecture to the inaugural ‘Ka Awatea, the Dawning of a New
Era’ Conference on the Public Value of the Humanities and Social Science, Massey
University, Auckland, New Zealand, 14 November 2013 (by video conference)
The public value of the social sciences, plenary lecture to the ESRC North East Doctoral
Training Centre, Annual Conference, University of Durham, 29 January 2014.
The 2014 Annual Dunleath Lecture. The limits of politics: reflections on a damaged peace.
Queen’s University, 5 March 2014.
The sociology of the Northern Ireland peace process and its travails, public lecture to the
Cambridge University Russell Society, St John’s College, Cambridge, 20 November 2013.
Hayes, Bernadette C. (Co-Investigator, Aberdeen University)
(with Ian McAllister) Conflict to Peace: Politics and Society in Northern Ireland Over Half
a Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
(with Lizanne Dowds) ‘Religion and Attitudes Towards Gay Rights in Northern Ireland: The
God Gap Revisited.’ In Stanley D. Brunn (ed.), The Changing World Religious Map: Sacred
Places, Identities, Practices and Politics. New York: Springer, Forthcoming, 2014.
(with John Brewer) ‘Victimisation and Attitudes Towards Former Political Prisoners in
Northern Ireland.’ Terrorism and Political Violence. In press, 2014.
(with Ian McAllister) ‘Gender and Consociational Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland’,
International Political Science Review 34: 123-139, 2013.
(with Ian McAllister and Lizanne Dowds) ‘Integrated Schooling and Religious Tolerance in
Northern Ireland’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 28: 67-78, 2013.
(with John Brewer) ‘Victimhood Status and Public Attitudes Towards Post-Conflict
Agreements: Northern Ireland as a Case Study’, Political Studies 61: 442-461, 2013.
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Rios, Sandra (PhD student, Aberdeen University)
‘Religious Emotions and Religious Peacebuilding: The Case of Bojayá (Colombia)’, Diskus:
Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions, 15, 2013 [Available online at
http://www.basr.ac.uk/diskus/diskus15/index.html]
‘Religion and the Social Reconstruction of Memory amid Violence in Bojayá, Chocó
(Colombia): Creating Transitional Justice from Below’, in S. Brunn (ed.), The Changing
World Religion Map, New York: Springer, Forthcoming 2014
‘Religious emotions and Religious Peacebuilding: The Case of Bojayá (Colombia’ paper at
the Annual Conference of the British Association for the Study of Religion, University of
Winchester, 5-7 September, 2012.
‘Religion, Social Memory and Transitional Justice from Below. The Case of Bojayá (Chocó,
Colombia)’ at the ‘ In Between Bodies A Symposium’, Interdisciplinary Approaches to
Violence, University of Aberdeen 18-19 June 2012.
‘Black Identity Victim Identity: The Resistance of Afro-Colombians in Chocó’, paper at the ‘
Moving Forward: The College of Arts and Social Sciences Annual Postgraduate Conference’
on the ‘The Use, Misuse and Abuse of Identity’, University of Aberdeen, 23- 25 June 2012.
‘The Role of Religion in the Construction of Social Memory of the Massacre of Bojayá
(Colombia)’, 12th International Sociological Association International Laboratory for PhD
Students, the University of Sydney, July 2013.
‘Colombia: Building Peace amidst Conflict through Social Memory’, in ESRC Festival of
Social Science, Pathways to Peace. 7 November, 2013, University of Aberdeen, UK.
‘Religious Peacebuilding and Emancipatory Peacebuilding: The Case of the Diocese of
Quibdó’, Seminar at the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics. University of St
Andrews, 2013.
(with Thania Acarón) ‘Embodied Space and Afro-Colombian Funerary Ritual. In: The Arts
of Peacebuilding: Film, Theatre and Dance’, Centre for Theology and Public Issues,
University of Edinburgh, 15-16 August, 2013.
‘Multiple Memories and Interpretative Repertoires of the Massacre of Bojayá.’,
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Violence, a symposium, University of Aberdeen, 17-18 June,
2013
‘Religion and the Social Reconstruction of Memory amid Violence in Bojayá’, seminar paper
at the Working Group on Violence and Peacebuilding in Colombia, University of St
Andrews, 19 April, 2013.
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‘Social Emotions in Societies in Conflict: The Case of Bojayá (Colombia)’, paper to the
panel on ‘violence and affective states in contemporary Latin America’, Annual Conference
of the Society for Latin American Studies, University of Manchester, 11-12 April, 2013.
‘Death, Memory and Religion amid Violence: A Case Study on the Massacre of Bojayá’,
paper to the group on ‘ Material Religion’, Annual Conference of the British Sociological
Association, Sociology of Religion Study Group, Durham University, 9-11 April, 2013,
Durham.
Scott, Duncan (PhD student Queen’s University)
'Negotiated denizenship: foreign nationals' tactics of belonging in a South African township',
Social Dynamics 39: 520-35.
(with Swartz, S) ‘The rules of violence: a perspective from youth living in South African
townships’, Journal of Youth Studies, 2013 DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2013.815699
'Teachers as researchers and gatekeepers: Challenges to accessing and acquiring material in a
school-based participatory research project'. Paper presented at 14th Annual Researching
Africa Day Workshop: The flow of research?, St Antony's College, Oxford, 23 February
2013.
Teeney, Francis (Co-Investigator, Queen’s University)
(with John Brewer and Gareth Higgins) Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern
Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (new paperback edition).
(with John Brewer) ‘Religion, violence, tolerance and peace in Northern Ireland’, in S. Brunn
(ed.), The Changing World Religion Map. New York: Springer, Forthcoming 2014
Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict Book Series
A contract was signed with Palgrave-Macmillan in October 2012 to establish a new book
series loosely based on the Programme entitled Palgrave Studies in Compromise after
Conflict, with John Brewer as the General Editor. There is an international advisory board,
which includes the three external members of the Programme’s own International Advisory
Board. The Series Board is, in alphabetical order: John Braithwaite (Australian National
University), Hastings Donnan (Queen’s Belfast), Brandon Hamber (Ulster), Ian McAllister
(Australian National University), Bill Mishler (Arizona), Barbara Mizstal (Leicester), Orla
Muldoon (Limerick) and Clifford Shearing (Cape Town). The series is intended to publish
four major books planned to arise from the Programme, as follows:
What is Compromise?
Author: Brewer, Hayes, Teeney, Dudgeon, Caumartin and Mueller-Hirth
The Trouble with Truth
Author: Brewer, Hayes, Caumartin, Teeney and Mueller-Hirth.
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Victims and Peace Processes
Author: Brewer, Hayes, Teeney, Dudgeon, Mueller-Hirth.
Compromise after Conflict
Edited by Brewer, Hayes and Teeney (to include chapters by everyone involved in the
Programme, including the PhD students).
The series is also intended to publish some of the PhD theses funded under the Leverhulme
Programme and books separately written by the PDFs employed on the project, as well as
other relevant works proposed by authors world-wide. The first book under the series imprint
appeared in January 2013, written by John Brewer, David Mitchell and Gerard Leavey,
entitled Ex-Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of Religion in
Transitional Justice.
The series can be found on Palgrave’s website at:
http://www.palgrave.com/products/SearchResults.aspx?s=PSCAC&fid=96276&sort=or_0
Conclusion
The Programme has had a very successful fourth year. We have not quite kept apace with our
plans and expectations because of periods of maternity leave for two PDRAs and the political
difficulties in Sri Lanka. However, nearly all data is collected, the one exception being the
compilation of the secondary quantitative data from South Africa. Draft reports giving a
preliminary analysis of the qualitative data have been completed, with the exception of the
Sri Lankan in-depth interviews. Progress has been slowest on the Sri Lankan project because
the deterioration in the country’s political situation caused delays in completing the survey in
the heavily militarised Tamil areas. But the survey has been completed and is now being
analysed using SPSS.
Other achievements in the year are noteworthy. Some academic publications have
started to appear in excellent peer reviewed journals; one further article is under review and
others are in preparation. The major book publishing outlet for the Programme has been
negotiated with Palgrave-Macmillan Publishers with the Palgrave Studies in Compromise
after Conflict book series. There has been success also for the funded PhD students. Three of
the funded PhDs have successfully completed their degree and the fourth is nearly ready to
submit.
Our exploitation of dissemination and communication platforms across a diverse
number of social media has realised considerable success, bringing the Programme to the
attention of major universities, international organisations and governments across the world.
The major achievements of the year can be summarised as follows:






Completion of all nearly all data collection in all three case studies
Completion of nearly all data analysis in all three case studies
Publication of some of the Northern Irish survey data in international journals
The establishment of the Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict book series
Extensive public dissemination of the work of the project via workshops, publications
and public presentation
Extensive public dissemination of the work of the project via the website and social
media
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
The successful submission and award of 4 PhDs
Professor John Brewer
28 January 2014
Assessment of the International Advisory Board
1. General
The members of the International Advisory Board (IAB) have considered the Compromise
after Conflict Fourth Annual Report for 2012-13. The members all considered that the report
indicated solid progress. The project has produced significant and innovative findings in its
efforts to understand the roots of past conflict and the prospects for reconciliation and
compromise in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Solid progress has been made despite myriad challenges, including the relocation of the
principal investigator and one of the co-investigators from the University of Aberdeen to
Queen’s University Belfast during the year, and the need to revise the research programs
underway in all three countries in light of unanticipated developments on the ground. The
nimbleness with which the team has adapted to the challenging research environments in
these countries has been remarkable.
2. Overall Progress to Date
The education dimension to the project is progressing well. The IAB was impressed by the
work of the PhD students and their rate of publication. Two students have graduated, with a
third in prospect, and one more scheduled to submit shortly. It is now increasingly possible to
see how the individual projects intersect and overlap to form a whole greater than the sum of
the parts.
This is a large project and considerable co-ordination is required with the fieldwork in the
three countries—Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Two workshops were held
during the year to enhance communication and co-ordination. In terms of the individual
country projects, the fieldwork phase in Northern Ireland is complete and the writing up of
the results is underway. The South African fieldwork is still ongoing, with some preliminary
publications in prospect. The Sri Lanka fieldwork has been completed and the data are being
documented, prior to analysis.
Challenges remain, of course. Principal among these will be identifying ways to integrate and
analyse the data generated across the three countries given that the research designs for each
country, which initially were very similar, have now been revised in ways that make them
more distinctive and less similar. The IAB have been impressed by the way the team has
adapted to the challenges they have encountered, especially with regards to fieldwork and
data collection.
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3. Public Profile
The investigators have made good use of social media to publicize the project and this is
gaining ground with practitioners in the field. This will provide a good base for the findings
from the project, as they emerge, to gain increasing currency among government and
international agencies.
4. Overall
Conducting research involving extensive fieldwork in three societies emerging from conflict
is never likely to be straightforward. The team have responded sensibly and pragmatically to
the inevitable difficulties as they have arisen. The outputs from the project are now starting to
emerge, in terms of publications and completed doctoral dissertations. The dual strategy of
promoting the project’s findings through academic publications and the social media should
ensure a wide dissemination of the major results in the year ahead.
Professor Ian McAllister (Chair)
Professor William Mishler
Professor Orla Muldoon
19 February 2014
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