On 27-29 August, PRIO hosted an academic workshop marking the formal launch of the PRIO Centre on Culture and Violent Conflict led by Øystein H. Rolandsen, Cindy Horst and Jacob Høigilt.
The three-day workshop brought together over 20 international academics with the aim to exchange knowledge on relations between culture and violent conflict. The workshop included papers from disciplines and fields such as anthropology, area studies, literature, history, philosophy, education, political science and religious studies. The topics discussed were amongst other things humanities approaches to culture and violent conflict, violence and conflict transformation, cultures of war, and arts and activism in contexts of violent conflict. The distinct cultures of South African military units during Apartheid, dance as an elective method of conflict transformation, slam poetry as a means to fight oppression, and visual analysis of ISIS propaganda videosare examples of research presented. The participants also engaged in inspiring discussions on the way forward for the centre, and plans for future collaborations were made.
