Global Challenges
A series of lectures on current issues in world politics - every first or second Wednesday of the month
In this series of lectures experts will provide a broad perspective and qualified background information on these global challenges. Each first or second Wednesday of the month a new present-day issue takes center stage in this series.
This series is a co-production of Studium Generale and the Research Centre of Leiden University College.
In recent years, northern Nigeria has become near-synonymous with violent conflict: from religious riots to Boko Haram and the current farmer-herder conflicts. This lecture sketches out the main causes and trends behind these conflicts and frames them in a context of oil politics and immensely complex intercommunal relations. It then maps out the ways in which Nigerians try to enhance tolerance and cooperation and manage (violent) conflict, with or without the support of the Nigerian state. The emphasis will be on the many social organisations and authorities that operate in the margins of the state: from peacebuilding NGOs to religious leaders, and from youth-based militias to emirs and other traditional rulers. In Nigeria’s cynical political climate, these actors are often most effective at conflict prevention and resolution, and most responsive to the wishes of ‘their’ people; but their influence and authority also faces important constraints. How do we assess the quality of such extra-governmental governance? And what, more importantly, are the longer-term prospects for peace and democratisation in this political constellation?
Speaker
Dr David Ehrhardt, Assistant Professor of International Development at Leiden University College
Time and Venue
November 7
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Auditorium
Leiden University College
Anna van Buerenplein 301
The Hague
All welcome!
Entrance is free.
Limited seats available – please register in advance !
Approximately 10%-15% of the world’s population is estimated to be disabled and this number is expected to rise in the next decades. How did disability become a global concern and how can the concept be understood in a multicultural world? The lecture will show how that contrary to what many people may believe, disability does not equal inaction and passivity. In fact, the incorporation of disability into human rights in the recent decades has been the result of the agency and emancipation movement of disabled people - be it their protest on the streets or their skillful lobbying. The lecture will thus show that disability does not (necessarily) equal suffering, it can be a positive identity, a source of a social and cultural identity. The experience of people with disabilities in the Southern Hemisphere will also get attention, and the lecture will reveal the relevance of disability in international relations, in particular that it may become an issue of ideological rivalry between great powers.
Speakers
Prof Monika Baár, dr Paul van Trigt, Anna Derksen MA and Anaïs van Ertvelde MA, members of the Rethinking Disability research project, Leiden University
Time and Venue
December 12
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Auditorium
Leiden University College
Anna van Buerenplein 301
The Hague
All welcome!
Entrance is free.
Limited seats available – please register in advance !
