S-CAR Speaks: The School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution's Weekly Video Podcast Project

As students, faculty members, scholars, and practitioners of the S-CAR community, continue to look to engage in and undertake initiatives to tackle both domestic and global issues, the focus of the weekly video podcast project, dubbed S-CAR Speaks, will look to engage with those individuals about their work and their efforts in both the field and in academia.  

This project, which was started in the Spring of 2012 by Cassie Ammen, the Communications and Events Associate at S-CAR and Kwaw de Graft-Johnson, a PhD student at S-CAR, was designed to be a monthly video podcast series. Their work for that academic year included a session with students talking about the KONY 2012 video, a discussion on Somalia's current problems, the Russian elections and subsequent riots, and an initiative to create a platform for talking about gun regulation in the state of Virginia, among many others. With the popular and a very successful first year of the S-CAR Speaks project, the format was changed from a monthly podcast series to a weekly one, due to the number of initiatives that students and faculty were undertaking. This expansion also led to Catherine Walsh and Soolmaz Abooali joining the team.

For this academic year, S-CAR Speaks will primarily focus on projects as well as commentaries from individuals familiar with current developments surrounding issues such as the ongoing 'Arab spring' unrest still unravelling in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, the breakout of civil war in South Sudan, the religious conflict taking place in the Central African Republic between Christians and Muslims, and, more recently, the unrest that turned most parts of the Ukraine into a war-zone. As scholars committed to conflict resolution, we must engage in conversations, analysis, the study and the reflection of actions and inactions in order to develop better develop theories or revise old ones to continuously improve upon our work. Thus, S-CAR Speaks is a platform for the S-CAR community to discuss and analyze current conflicts and their resolution as well as present their projects that they are engaged in all over the world. The vison is that one would be able to apply theory to practice from the classroom experience to a real life event. In the words of Nelson Mandela, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

S-CAR Speaks is usually recorded on Monday or Tuesday. The videos are edited and put on the website and are usually about 15 - 20 minutes long. Individuals can also publish their analysis and projects in S-CAR News following the podcast. for this academic year, the format for S-CAR Speaks will be modified to accommodate individuals who are not affiliated to S-CAR but whose work are related to the field and the school. Individuals can also personally reach out to such individuals and either decide to interview them or have one of our hosts do it. For more information, please contact Patrick Hakizimana at [email protected] or The John Burton library at [email protected].