Opening Up: A Conflict Transformation Podcast

Sarah Stroup
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Opening Up: A Conflict Transformation Podcast Podcast

Opening Up is a podcast series that features faculty, staff, students, and community members engaged in the Conflict Transformation (CT) Collaborative at Middlebury. Learn more at our website: https://www.middlebury.edu/conflict-transformation

  1. 5 DAYS AGO

    "We live with love for each other" - Hindu and Muslim Women in Middle-Class India

    In this episode, Caroline Harding ’24 interviews Professor Jennifer Ortegren, associate professor of religion at Middlebury and a 2022 CT faculty grant recipient. Ortegren is author of Middle-Class Dharma: Women, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism (2023, Oxford University Press), which examines the intersections of gender, religion, and class among upwardly mobile Hindu women in Udaipur, Rajasthan. In her CT-supported project, “"'We Live with Love for Each Other': Navigating Neighborhood Relationships between Hindu and Muslim Women in Middle-Class India," Ortegren examined how Muslim women experience upward mobility in ways that are both similar to and distinct from Hindu neighbors, and how these shifts shape, and reshape, relationships between Hindu and Muslim neighbors. In particular, it asks if and how young women are meeting and supporting one another in the same ways their mothers did or if they are connecting in other ways that are rooted in their shared middle-class lifestyles. Learn more about Prof. Ortegren here: https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/jennifer-ortegren Learn more about other research projects supported by the CT Collaborative here: https://www.middlebury.edu/conflict-transformation/supporting-faculty-research

    32 min

  2. 23 AUG

    Transforming Campus Conflicts

    At the beginning of the fall semester, we invite you to join a conversation about conflicts on college and university campuses. This episode was recorded late in Spring 2024 and features some of our Conflict Transformation (CT) interns - Mandy Berghela, Teyonce Allison, Agnes Roches, and Caroline Harding - and Sarah Stroup, the CT director and college faculty. The launching point of this discussion is a 2023 report from the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI), "Transforming Conflict on College Campuses." CDI uses the conflict transformation framework of Lederach and others to understand the many different types of conflict that can arise on campuses, and to suggest actions that can foster more constructive dynamics. As they describe their research, "[w]e embarked on this research project to better understand free speech issues on campuses, but what we heard from many participants was that the framing of free speech situates the problem in an abstract national debate that hinders, rather than facilitates, problem-solving. What participants emphasized instead was the increase in conflict that stemmed from competing community values and stakeholders who lack the skills and vocabulary or will to discuss and integrate these competing values." You can listen in without reading the report first, but we strongly encourage you to check it out! The download is free at their website: https://constructivedialogue.org/articles/transforming-conflict-on-college-campuses

    41 min

  3. 23 JUL

    Campus Conflict: Lessons from a Speaker Shutdown

    At a time when campus conflict and protest is in the national spotlight, we revisit an important moment for Middlebury College - the March 2017 visit of Charles Murray - through the voices of ten Middlebury students. This episode was created in 2019 and hosted by Sarah Stroup. She interviewed a group of students with different experiences and perspectives. Each student agreed to be recorded and to have their first names used. Each student was asked four questions: (1) Where were you on March 2, 2017? (2) Which person or view frustrated you the most? (3) Under what conditions would you be willing to talk to that person or engage with that view today? (4) What is the biggest take away for you today? To Lily, Pete, Charles, Porter, Zorica, Adam, Mike, Trey, Charlotte, and Alex - thank you. For more student perspectives on Murray and campus protests and conflict, see our student newspaper, the Middlebury Campus: https://www.middleburycampus.com/  For a 2018 report from the Committee on Speech and Inclusion, see: https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/news/2018/01/committee-speech-and-inclusion-issues-report-recommendations

    56 min

  4. 17 JUN

    Addressing Conflicts in Tackling Poverty: A SHECP Conversation

    In this episode, we talk with longtime Middlebury partner, the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP). SHECP assistant director Jen Handy invited CT leaders Kailee Brickner-McDonald and Sarah Stroup to join the "SHECP Talks" podcast to discuss how the CT lens can enhance experiential learning opportunities for students concerned about privilege and poverty. We are cross-posting the episode in our feed here. SHECP encourages the study of poverty as a complex social problem, by expanding and improving educational opportunities for college students in a wide range of disciplines and career trajectories. Through its programs, SHECP and its member institutions prepare students for a lifetime of professional and civic efforts to diminish poverty and enhance human capability, while also supporting connections among students, faculty, staff, and alumni engaged in the study of poverty. Learn more about SHECP at their website: https://www.shepherdconsortium.org/about

    50 min

  5. 17 MAY

    Democratic Decline and Possible Responses

    Democratic institutions can serve as a powerful mechanism for channeling constructive conflict, which makes a recent wave of democratic decline particularly concerning. In this episode, we hear from Sebnem Gumuscu, associate professor of political science and head of the undergraduate "pillar" of the CT Collaborative at Middlebury. Gumuscu is an expert on Turkey and teaches classes on threats to democracy, politics of the Middle East, and comparative politics. She is also trained as a facilitator in reflective structured dialogue. She is author of two books, most recently Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia (Cambridge University Press) focuses on Islamist parties and their democratic commitments in power. Learn more about Prof. Gumuscu here: https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/sebnem-gumuscu  The audio for this podcast is generously shared with us through the Faculty at Home webinar series, another Middlebury initiative. You can see a video recording of this talk and others in the series here: https://www.middlebury.edu/provost/faculty-home/spring-2024-recorded-series.

    44 min

  6. 2 MAY

    Peacebuilding and Reconciliation in the Balkans

    On today’s episode, we are excited to share a story of an experiential learning opportunity for exploring peacebuilding and intercultural competence (ICC). The CT interns lead a conversation with professor Thor Sawin. At the time of recording, Sawin was associate professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and has since taken on the role of Associate Dean of Language Schools for curriculum. Sawin has 20 years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the United States, Lithuania, South Korea and China, as well as in summer secondary-level programs in Korea, Taiwan and Albania. Sawin has led several experiential learning trips to the former Yugoslavia to explore national identity, education, language, and culture, and how these and other factors fuel tensions and conflict within each country. This is a longstanding course at MIIS and offers an invaluable opportunity to see and understand post-conflict reconstruction, language and communication, and national identity in process. ·        For a story on the 2022 trip: https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/advancing-your-career/career-guide/field-work-students-share-photos-immersive-peacebuilding-course ·        For information about the most recent trip: https://sites.miis.edu/balkans/ ·        About Thor Sawin: https://www.middlebury.edu/announcements/announcements/2023/04/thor-sawin-appointed-associate-dean-language-schools ·        About Thor Sawin:https://www.middleburycampus.com/article/2023/04/thor-sawin-named-new-associate-dean-of-middlebury-language-schools-for-curriculum

    51 min

  7. 22 APR

    Mediation: Transforming Relationships to Reshape Global Conflicts

    As we have started teaching "Conflict Transformation Skills" at Middlebury, we have been fortunate to have a leading global mediator as a guest speaker and teacher. Francisco Diez is senior mediation advisor at the United Nations (UN). He has contributed to the UN’s efforts to foster dialogue and reconciliation in Bolivia, and provided expert advice on conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy in Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela. From 2014 onwards he worked with the Kroc Institute to set up the Colombia Peace Accord Matrix to monitor and support the implementation of the peace agreement between the Colombian Government and the FARC, and assisted dialogue processes in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Mexico.  This episode starts with introductions from Julian Portilla, mediator and co-instructor of the CT Skills class, and Caroline Harding, CT Collaborative intern. Diez gave this talk remotely in 2023, and we were lucky to have him back in January 2024 to lead trainings for students.  For more on Francisco Diez, see: https://franciscodiez.com.ar/ For a video recording of this talk, see our video library: https://www.middlebury.edu/ct-video-collection

    42 min

  8. 12 MAR

    Restoring Justice, Cultivating Hope: A Scholar Practitioner Conversation

    Restorative justice, transnational activism, and communication across cultures are all spaces in which conflict transformation can inform the long work of social change. In this episode, restorative justice leader sujatha baliga and civil society scholar Sarah Stroup discuss the foundations of their work and its connection to the CT Collaborative at Middlebury. The conversation, held at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey in September 2023, was moderated by Netta Avineri, the leader of the Graduate Pillar of the CT Collaborative and a scholar of intercultural communication.  You can watch a full recording of the talk in our Video Library here: https://www.middlebury.edu/ct-video-collection/restoring-justice-cultivating-hope-scholar-practitioner-conversation  Learn more about sujatha baliga here: https://www.sujathabaliga.com/

    44 min
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Opening Up is a podcast series that features faculty, staff, students, and community members engaged in the Conflict Transformation (CT) Collaborative at Middlebury. Learn more at our website: https://www.middlebury.edu/conflict-transformation

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