Author Archives: Olivia Anderson

Can Peace be a Profession?

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When I began my Peace Studies major, I imagined a career in Peace & Justice had to pertain to international government and relations. This was probably due to the global emphasis in many of my classes. However, while I am still very interested in learning more about the international realm and being involved in international peace-building, peace as a profession does not have to fall into that single path. Not only have I come to understand many of the challenges of carrying out international humanitarian work, but I have also become inspired by local and domestic humanitarian work. Being a peacebuilder doesn’t mean you need to make significant, global-scale changes. Making a difference in one’s community or workplace is equally important and meaningful.

During my sophomore year, I started working in Chapman Disability Services at the Testing Center. Although working at a testing center does not seem like an obvious career in peace & justice, it is somewhat. I have always been passionate about advocating for people with disabilities after growing up with a sister who has a learning disability. I have seen firsthand how the education system does not accommodate those who think and work differently than expected. Therefore, it is incredibly meaningful to help make people’s educational experiences easier by assisting them to use their accommodations. Additionally, working with the Disability Service Center has inspired me to advocate for accessibility for everyone, not just at Chapman.

Another form of peace-building I have learned at Chapman is the art of storytelling. While I would not have guessed that storytelling would be one of my favorite forms of peace-building, it has become one of my main passions within Peace Studies. It began when I took “Ethnofiction Through Contemporary Narratives” with Professor Garcia during my freshman year. This class gave me the skills and confidence to write the stories I was passionate about sharing. In my junior year, I took “Unsung Stories and New Expression,” in which I made a film for Nadia’s Initiative about Western media’s portrayal of Yazidi women as victims instead of survivors. While I felt weary about being in a documentary class with zero film skills, I still felt like I had an essential role due to my background in Peace Studies. Since I had more experience studying the region and international conflicts, I helped us research more deeply. Additionally, our film embodied my Peace Studies background’s ethical and moral standards, providing a new perspective on how the group was portrayed. Recently, when these films were screened, my group was told that our “female gaze” shined through our film. I felt honored that others could see our intentions in portraying the Yazidi women in a more empowering manner. Making this film has made me want to be a part of sharing new stories.

Through these experiences and classes, I have shifted my perspective on what a career in peace can look like. Although I tend to tell people I aspire to work at the United Nations or some other international body when asked what I want to do with my degree, I have moved past this generic answer. Working on a smaller scale in local matters makes peace-building more achievable and it is an essential step towards world peace. I plan on exploring careers in journalism and storytelling as a part of working towards a more peaceful and just world.

In Between by Between East Event

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BETWEEN EAST Events and Tickets | Eventbrite

Last month I attended “In Between: A Cultural Creative Experience” by Between East which is “an entertainment company and community that celebrates Middle Eastern & North African art, creativity, music, and culture to reveal a new global identity.” Below is their mission described on their website: 

Between East“Hollywood and the media have created extreme and often dangerous stereotypes about people from the MENA region and Arab world. Therefore, we choose to highlight stories and work with creators or brands who are actively breaking these stereotypes by diversifying the range and perception of Middle Eastern and North African people. Our goal is to be a bridge between cultures by honoring the complexities, betweenness, and humanity of people from the MENA regions or diaspora.” 

I stumbled upon this event after researching Franco-Algerian content makers and singling in on Lina Soualem, a panelist at In Between. Soualem created the touching film “Leur Algérie,”  which documents the story of her paternal grandparents who came to France from Algeria. This film discusses their experiences with French colonization, immigration, and their ties to Algeria today. Just last year, Soualem released a new movie called “Bye Bye Tiberis,” which is about her Palestinian mother, famous French actress Hiam Abbass. Because of this Palestinian film’s relevance at this time, much of the content of her panel was centered around this aspect of her identity. However, much of what she talked about was very insightful and helped confirm the direction of my capstone project. She spoke about how her experiences as Palestinian-Algerian-French are different from the experience of the MENA diaspora in the US because of the other standards in French society regarding national and ethnic identity. It helped me to hear her state her point of view directly rather than just deducing it from her work in films, podcasts, etc. Overall, this event was really inspiring and made me really grateful to live so close to L.A. where such amazing cultural events occur so often.

Through Lina, I have found numerous resources and figures to utilize as data in my capstone project. Additionally, I found out that she helped organize an event celebrating Algerian independence right across the street from where I lived in Paris at La Fleche d’Or. Even though I wasn’t in Paris at the time of this event, it is kind of wild to me that we could have easily crossed paths at some point. It excites me a lot to do this research when I know that it isn’t something entirely distant or out of reach for me. I could go back to Paris and know where to find the sort of hubs for the communities I am really interested in learning more about.

Interview with Dr. Petrovic

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Dr. Bojan Petrovic

For my interview assignment I interviewed Professor Petrovic. I took his course “Psychology of International Conflict” my sophomore year and was fascinated by how much knowledge he had about the topics we discussed and specifically the Middle East. Professor Petrovic is from what is formerly known as Yugoslavia and has experience traveling around the world. He speaks Serbo-Croatian, French, and English. His journey of interest in the Middle East began from learning the negative consequences of foreign rule over the Balkans in school growing up. He researched primarily focused on Europe at first and became more interested in the Middle East after 9/11.

After getting a Bachelor’s in law, he became interested in international law then international relations. In graduate school he became passionate about both international relations and comparative politics. Before becoming a professor he worked at a foreign policy think tank in Yugoslavia. There he focused on ethnic conflicts then moved religious conflicts, which he teaches and writes about today. He said that his career now as a professor just fell into place and that he actually thought he would be a researcher. However he finds that being a professor allows him to research and teach at the same time. His favorite part about being a professor is interacting with the students. It excites him when students become interested in the content of his classes. However, grading is the worst part as it becomes repetitive. Being a professor has also given him the opportunity to write a book on Afghanistan. After he was assigned to teach a course on the subject, he enjoyed putting the pieces of information together and decided to write a book about it. For his research for the book he used a lot of secondary sources along with interviews.

Overall he has found that traveling has helped him learn about his research subjects. Through his travels, he has become convinced that there’s always more to learn beyond just the reading. He has traveled all over both Western and Eastern Europe, South America, East Asia, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf area. His most valuable experiences traveling have been the interactions with locals, enjoying the food (particularly street food), and people watching.

Professor Petrovic said that beginning a career in this field is not easy to get by simply applying as there is no strict path. Instead it is important to develop an interest where you can become an expert and then you will become in demand. The more niche the topic is, the better as there will be less competition. He suggests talking with colleagues for clues to issues or concepts that are in demand to be researched and understood. He said to develop your own impressions, not only in terms of us foreign policy, but also other frameworks. Additionally he suggests trying to learn the local languages, which I am in the process of doing as I have learned French and am now trying to learn Arabic. In regards to my project and interests, he said it would be interesting to contrast what diaspora communities are saying versus the natives of the diaspora who remain in their country.

I asked if he finds it challenging to have a work life balance as I sometimes feel like as a student in this field that I have to constantly be up to date on events and the world. He said that it is a busy time of the world right now as there are a lot of moving parts and everything seems to be changing with Russia and Ukraine, China, fears of nuclear war, dooming climate disaster, etc. which makes the Cold War and the 90s seem lazy and predictable. However today, since the world is so dynamic, it can also be seen as exciting because there is more to talk about. He said to just find your own pace and that it is impossible to know everything about one event. Eventually you will catch up with interactions with colleagues and friends or through social media.

Additionally I asked Professor Petrovic what he enjoys doing outside of work. He told me he enjoys playing piano, seeing live music, cooking, driving around the U.S., visiting National Parks, snow skiing, modern dance, and modern art. I told him that I also love art and museums so he gave me a list of art galleries to visit. Overall, I found his advice about research and becoming an expert in whatever I am interested in to be good advice. I feel like this is especially important if I do want to become a professor in the future as it would make me an attractive candidate. It also is another incentive for me to travel the world. I also really appreciated his advice about staying up to date with the world. Overall he said to not panic and give myself time, which is a good reminder.

“Continuing to Learn and Educate for Shared Humanity” Reflection

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The discussion last week between Mira Sucharov, a Jewish professor at Carleton University, and Omar Dajani, a Palestinian-American professor at McGeorge School of Law, provided new perspectives that I had not heard in other discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before. Since less time was spent explaining the background and context of the conflict, the speakers got into a more nuanced and productive discussion. Many other events I have attended related to this conflict begin with a lot of historical context that takes up much of the event. While this educational and contextual part is essential, it can become repetitive, and then time runs out to move past just the surface level. Therefore, I am glad that this event at Chapman differed from just explaining the history from two perspectives. Perhaps this is because it was a Peace Studies event or maybe it was because the speakers assumed that at this point in the conflict, almost everyone is aware of what is happening in Israel/Palestine. At the same time, I felt like this event was not as long as needed. Unfortunately, time constraints are inevitable. However, it takes some time for speakers to warm up and get to the heart of the conversation. Therefore more time would have allowed for an even better event, as I was interested in hearing more of their insights and perspectives.

Throughout the discussion, I thought there might have been deliberate partisanship in terms of each speaker only speaking for their respective communities instead of acknowledging the other community’s experiences at some points. With their close relationship, I had thought they would have presented their perspectives in a different, more holistic manner. However, it still felt polarized. This may be the reality of their positions, which is understandable. I personally came to this talk trying not to assume anything about the speakers so I could listen to each of them with the same amount of trust and understanding. Still, I felt myself taking sides and making assumptions if I disagreed with what one person said, so I understand the almost unachievable neutrality in this conflict. In general, I wonder if neutrality is no longer a goal to aim for, especially in conflicts with such depth as the Israeli-Palestinian one. As we have seen, even the way history is presented is almost never neutral. So how can we expect to find any neutrality in the people involved in the conflict. For one to be able to ignore their emotions around the conflict may be impossible. Instead, working with emotions while allowing space for both sides to feel validated in their feelings and experiences.

Despite my optimism about being able to work with people so different from yourself, I still struggle to fully grasp how they do it due to how extremely opposing their views are, which can sometimes negate another’s entire identity. They discussed how they still get frustrated with one another; however, the fact that they still maintain their relationship despite this is inspiring. Most other people would want to put in less effort to understand one another. I suppose that having a common goal is something that unites them. Neither of them wish suffering on the other side, which is something not all can say in this conflict. Overall, I appreciated their honesty and humility in listening to someone else’s perspective and conversing.