News

It is our pleasure to inform you that the Peace Academy is offering the course entitled Building Environmental Movements in Divided Societies.  The course will offer an excellent opportunity for learning about the emergence and development of environmental movements and mobilization for spatial justice and collective action. This course will be offered as an online course where the participants will have the opportunity to attend the course remotely via the Zoom platform. 

The recent years have seen an unprecedented wave of mobilization around spatial and environmental-related issues. Environmental campaigning and ecological concerns have brought together different actors to stage protests and raise their voice for a better environment and the preservation of natural resources. Collective action for the environment has occurred also in societies divided along ethnic lines, where individuals of different background joined their forces to safeguard natural resources. This course aims to provide students with a critical reading of the main debates within the field of collective action in divided societies.  It draws on the literature on social movement studies and on deeply divided societies, with the contribution of scholars, local practitioners and activists engaged in the field inside and outside the region. Bosnia and Herzegovina constitutes a case in point for the study of social movements in divided societies, and in particular of environmental movements, which emerged and diffused nationwide in the last decade. The country represents in fact a critical and strategic case for the examination and understanding of the dynamics of mobilization in divided societies, at times challenging the existing theoretical assumptions, since over the last decade contentious collective action took place in spite of the country presenting a wide range of unfavourable conditions for its occurrence.

We are deeply saddened to hear the news that our colleague, long-time instructor in the Summer Peace Academy and friend, Tonči Kuzmanić, has passed away. 

You will always remain in the hearts and work of countless participants that your work inexorably inspired and shaped. „Think relentlessly!“

The Peace Academy Team

As societies continue to fracture along political, ethnic, and ideological lines, becoming aware of and being equipped to deal with various types of trauma is increasingly relevant for all of us in our families, everyday relationships, workplaces, and communities. Trauma-sensitive peacebuilding requires that we recognize and acknowledge individual, communal, and historical harms and incorporate strategies for healing individuals and societies. This fall from October 4 to November 12, The Peace Academy Foundation, in partnership with Peace Catalyst International, is offering a 5-week online course “Trauma-Sensitive Peacebuilding.” Led by trauma-sensitive peacebuilding trainers, this course aims to contribute to an international conversation about trauma and peacebuilding by providing interactive approaches to recognize and respond to trauma as peacebuilders. This course is intended as an introductory to intermediate training for people in caring professions (e.g. social workers, counselors, teachers, pastors, etc.), students and activists passionate about trauma healing and/or peacebuilding, and everyday people who are interested in getting involved in peacebuilding work in their communities.