Building Resilient Communities: Responding to the New Realities of Newcomer Trajectories in Canadian Cities
2019-04-11 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Toronto) | In Person, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
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Community representatives and researchers share their experiences with responding to challenges, crises, and change in relation to migration. The panel will discuss community and institutional level resilience, illuminating strategies for responding to shocks and change as communities and individuals cope with changing realities of migration in Canada.
Confirmed speakers include:
Jenna Hennebry
Tara Bedard, LIP Chair / KW City Network BRMC (Facilitator)
Ana Luz Martinez, KW Multicultural Centre
Peter Donahue, Laurier International
Rana Aljaroudi, Canadian Arab Women’s Association
Fran Hannigan, University of Waterloo
With opening and closing remarks by Jenna Hennebry and Valerie Preston.
A reception will follow the discussion.

Waterloo Symposium on Technology and Society: Disruptive Technology - Do Robots Want Your Job?
2019-04-16 19:00 - 21:00
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The Centre for Security Governance is hosting the Waterloo Symposium on Technology & Society, and we are excited to announce our first speaker in the series, futurist and New York Times best selling author, Martin Ford. This keynote lecture, “Disruptive Technology — Do Robots want Your Job?” will explore the ways in which AI and automation (robots) are outpacing humans in a range of sectors, from education to law, agriculture to healthcare, management and beyond. Ford will discuss the implications of a new industrial revolution and role of basic, guaranteed income as automation displaces a human workforce. He offers a realistic view of what the future of work — and your place in it — will look like. Beyond pragmatic concerns, Ford addresses a bigger question: can accelerating technology disrupt our entire economic system to the point where a fundamental restructuring is required? This next industrial revolution, Ford argues, will not be like the last one. In the past, even as jobs were eliminated, jobs were created to replace them. Increasingly, new machines will be able to take care of themselves, making fewer jobs necessary. Will basic, guaranteed income be implemented?
Martin Ford is a futurist, New York Times Bestselling Author and Silicon Valley Entrepreneur. He is a leading expert on the Robot Revolution, Artificial Intelligence, Job Automation, and the Impact of Accelerating Technology on Workplaces, the Economy and Society. He is the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm and the author of three books: Architects of Intelligence, the New York Times bestselling Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future. Martin has over 25 years of experience in computer design and software development, and holds a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a graduate business degree from UCLA. He has written for publications including Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Project Syndicate, The Huffington Post and The Fiscal Times. Ford has also appeared on numerous radio and television shows, including programs on NPR and CNBC.
The Waterloo Symposium on Technology & Society seeks to promote public discourse in Canada and beyond on the societal challenges and opportunities created by innovations in four primary areas: artificial intelligence, robotics, big data and social media.
For more information, visit the CSG website, or reserve a ticket here. If you have any questions, please reach me at mbunch@secgovgroup.com.

PhD Dissertation Defence: Governing Chinese Engagement with the Hydrocarbon-Rich Countries; Examining Chinese Investment in the Hydrocarbon Sector of Canada and Russia
2019-04-24 08:00 - 11:00
Anastasia Ufimtseva‘s PhD Dissertation Defence.
Advisor: Derek Hall
Committee: Bessma Momani and Hongying Wang
Internal/external examiner: Jörg Broschek
External examiner: Gaye Christoffersen, Johns Hopkins University, Nanjing China
Abstract

Inclusive Trade: Justice, Innovation or More of the Same?
2019-04-24 19:00 - 20:30
The notion of “inclusive trade” has taken hold in the policies of many national governments – Canada, Chile and New Zealand most prominent among them – and in the work of international organizations, including the World Trade Organization and the OECD. All inclusive trade policies focus on women, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Some also focus on Indigenous peoples, as well as issues like investor-state dispute settlement. Does inclusive trade deliver anything new to those groups that have not typically been included in conversations about trade? Dr. Patricia Goff argues two things in answer to this question. First, grounded in Nancy Fraser’s three justice idioms, Dr. Goff argues that inclusive trade may not always deliver economic gain (or mitigate economic loss). In Fraser’s terms, an inclusive trade strategy may not provide for ‘redistribution,’ but it can offer important opportunities for ‘recognition’ and ‘representation.’ Second, drawing on the debate about positive and negative integration, Dr. Goff argues that the inclusive trade agenda has the potential to be a qualitatively different way of developing trade policy by seeking to incorporate compensatory adjustment strategies for those who might suffer dislocation from trade liberalization directly into trade agreements. Ultimately, the inclusive trade agenda is an important strand in the debate about trade justice.
About the speaker:
Patricia Goff (PhD Northwestern) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). She has held visiting positions at the School of International Relations, University of Southern California and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She is the author of Limits to Liberalization: Local Culture in a Global Market Place (Cornell University Press) and co-editor of Identity and Global Politics: Empirical and Theoretical Elaborations (with Kevin Dunn) and Irrelevant or Indispensable: The UN in the 21st Century (with Paul Heinbecker). She is the author of the Cultural Diplomacy chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy and the Cultural Diplomacy entry in the Oxford Bibliographies series. Recent publications include ‘Limits to Deep Integration: Canada between the EU and the US,’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2018); ‘Federalism and International Trade Policy: The Canadian Provinces in Comparative Perspective’ (co-authored with Jörg Broschek), Institute for Research on Public Policy Insight No. 23 (2018); and ‘NAFTA 2.0: Whither the Cultural Exemption?’ International Journal (2017).

Fifth BSIA Global Political Economy Dissertation Workshop
2019-04-25 08:00 - 2019-04-26 17:00
By Invitation Only
The Global Political Economy/WatPEG Research Cluster is hosting this dissertation workshop to provide selected PhD students the opportunity to present work in progress to an interdisciplinary audience of faculty and students. For more information about the selection process (now closed), see the Call for Proposals.
Participating Faculty (preliminary list):
John Abraham, Wilfrid Laurier University
Andrea Collins, University of Waterloo
Patricia Goff, Wilfrid Laurier University
Derek Hall, Wilfrid Laurier University
Eric Helleiner, University of Waterloo
Pierre Siklos, Wilfrid Laurier University
Larry Swatuk, University of Waterloo
Heather Whiteside, University of Waterloo
Randy Wigle, Wilfrid Laurier University

Palestinian Refugees From Syria: A New Displacement Away From Home
2019-04-25 19:00 - 21:00
Palestinian statelessness is one of the world’s most persistent refugee crises; it goes back to 1948 when more than 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from Palestine as a result of the establishment of the state of Israel. Today more than half a million Palestinian refugees, who have resided in Syria since 1948, are reliving the trauma of their statelessness through the current Syrian conflict. The social marginalization and legal preciousness of Palestinian stateless refugees during the Syrian conflict are, in fact, examples of the limitations of the international refugee protection system which allow the exclusion of millions of refugees as they do not fit within its legal frameworks. Palestinians were never protected by the international protection regime as they have been subject to a set of legal structures that prevent them from officially accessing international refugee protection. Yet, during the current Syrian conflict, this group of refugees has experienced multiple layers of discrimination and rejections that push them to seek refuge in other destinations through life-threatening journeys. This talk addresses the particular predicament of Palestinian refugees from Syria, a predicament that powerfully reveals the political nature of the legal framework that governs stateless Palestinians.
About the speaker
Maissaa Almustafa recently defended her dissertation “Refugees from Syria Caught Between War and Borders: A Journey Towards Protection“.

Eating Tomorrow: The Battle for the Future of Food
2019-05-08 19:00 - 21:00
Join author, Timothy A. Wise on a worldwide journey to understand the continued prevalence of hunger amid plenty. If the world now has record levels of grain production, why does it also have rising indices of hunger and malnutrition? Wise makes a convincing case that increasing the industrial production of agricultural commodities does almost nothing for the world’s hungry. Oddly enough, it can even make them hungrier. He argues that agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Rather than helping the hungry eat today, they are undermining sustainable food production and destroying the natural resources—land, air, water, climate—we all will need to eat tomorrow.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Waterloo Food Issues Group, the Global Food Politics Group and the Global Political Economy Research Cluster.

About the speaker
Timothy A. Wise is a senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute, where he directs the Land and Food Rights Program. He is also a senior research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, where he founded and directed its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. He previously served as executive director of the U.S.-based aid agency Grassroots International. He is the author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food (The New Press) and Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Confronting the Global Forced Migration Crisis
2019-05-09 12:00 - 13:30
Erol Yayboke, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), examines the lessons learned from the Center’s Task Force on the Global Forced Migration Crisis.
From the report:
Almost 66 million people worldwide have been forced from home by conflict. Between 180 and 320 million people could be displaced by 2030. This global crisis already poses serious challenges to economic growth, stability, and national security, as well as an enormous human toll affecting tens of millions of people. Spending on forced migration now accounts for over 10 percent of total ODA at over $25 billion worldwide, yet mostly addresses symptoms of the crisis rather than root causes or longterm development. Fragile states in the developing world are sheltering the clear majority of forced migrants while risking collapse. Ultimately, no country can confront this crisis alone.
In May 2018, CSIS and its task force published a major report on how forced migration should be confronted and what you need to know to understand this global crisis.
The report defines a forced migrant as anyone who has been forced to leave home. The term appreciates the often appropriate and separate considerations relevant for different groups while acknowledging that not every person forced from home fits conveniently into one group or another.
About the speaker
Erol Yayboke is deputy director and senior fellow with the Project on U.S. Leadership in Development (USLD) and Project on Prosperity and Development (PPD) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His specific research interests include U.S. foreign assistance, the role of the private sector in the developing world, good governance, migration, forced displacement, development economics, and innovation-led economic growth. Previously, he served in several capacities with the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and was a program/research manager on the Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) team at the Center for International Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Yayboke also has long-term field experience working for organizations (Global Communities, Save the Children, and AECOM International Development) in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and the Somali Region of Ethiopia, serving in various senior country and project management roles. He is a member of the board of directors for the Andi Leadership Institute for Young Women, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Mr. Yayboke holds an M.P.A. from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a B.B.A. in international business also from the University of Texas at Austin.

Up/Rooted 2: Gender, Sexuality and Refuge in Canada
2019-05-14 12:00 - 16:30
The BSIA in collaboration with Wilfrid Laurier University and the International Migration Research Center (IMRC) is hosting this half-day workshop. This workshop will explore challenges and opportunities for migrant, refugee, and indigenous communities. It is a follow up to Up/Rooted: Refugees, Resettlement, Community, an international conference held at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
In early spring 2017, the highly successful international conference Up/Rooted was organized with the support and input of several community partners. Attended by hundreds of members of the community over three days, it was a pivotal event in drawing attention to, and providing insights into refugee issues in contemporary and historical contexts in the Waterloo region and the world beyond. This follow up workshop is a smaller scale event to allow for in depth conversational exchange and focused discussion. It is exploratory, in nature, and participants are not expected to present formal academic papers. The event will provide a platform for discussions from diverse sets of experiences and perspective angles in order to learn from each other.
Possible topics could include:
• health and well-being
• access to employment and housing
• food security
• aging and family dynamics
• family separation and reunification
• social isolation
• rethinking families across transnational contexts
• intergenerational trauma
• survivor guilt
• gendering transnational subjects
• LGBTQ identities in transnational contexts
• mental health needs
• wisdom traditions
The workshop will bring together approximately 20 representatives from community-based organizations, grassroots groups, artists, frontline workers, researchers, policy makers, political leaders, community members and students in focused discussions to consider the following broad questions in light of the specific topics mentioned above:
• What are the core issues at the intersection of gender, sexuality and refugee experiences?
• What are the best practices from the viewpoints of community based organizations, service providers, and those who access services?
• What policy recommendations could be made to municipal, provincial and federal governments?
• How would you change the narrative and what other kinds of stories are there that need to be told?
The workshop is co-organized by Dr. Carol Duncan and Dr. Jenna Hennebry. The workshop is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
You can register for the workshop by contacting Rosemary Kimani-Dupuis, email: rkimani-dupuis@balsillieschool.ca

Waterloo Symposium on Technology and Society: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
2019-05-15 19:00 - 21:00
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The Centre for Security Governance is hosting the second Waterloo Symposium on Technology & Society. We are excited to welcome Avi Goldfarb, Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare and Professor of Marketing at Rotman, who will be speaking on “The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence.” Avi is also Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, Senior Editor at Marketing Science, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In this keynote lecture Avi will recast the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a drop in the cost of prediction. By doing so, he will lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs. The impact of AI will be profound, but the economic framework for understanding it is surprisingly simple. Artificial Intelligence does the seemingly impossible, magically bringing machines to life – driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know?
The Waterloo Symposium on Technology & Society seeks to promote public discourse in Canada and beyond on the societal challenges and opportunities created by innovations in four primary areas: artificial intelligence, robotics, big data and social media.
For more information, visit the CSG website, or reserve a ticket here. If you have any questions, please reach me at mbunch@secgovgroup.com.

Economics for a Burning Planet: Challenging the Logic of the Growth Economy
2019-05-23 19:00 - 21:30
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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 as a collective action plan for UN Member States to ensure a more peaceful and prosperous world by 2030. Sustainable Development Goal 8 focuses on building sustainable economic growth, ensuring decent work for all, and addressing labour market inequality. However, in the context of a finite planet experiencing climate breakdown, some experts see inherent inconsistencies in this goal. A particular point of conflict is the idea that economic growth is necessary to address the imbalances that exist in access to the market. This panel, “Economics for a Burning Planet: Challenging the Logic of the Growth Economy,” will explore alternative approaches to sustainability that address the desired outcomes of SDG 8, including the ‘degrowth’ movement.
Dr. Leah Temper (Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University), Dr. Peter Victor (Author ‘Managing without Growth’), Dr. Deborah McGregor (Indigenous Environmental Justice, York U), and Indigenous Climate Action co-founder Eriel Deranger, will present four distinct perspectives on the notion of ‘sustainable and equitable growth’. These panelists bring extensive expertise and unique perspectives that inform potential solutions for both addressing the fundamental goals of the SDG, while also contesting the assumption that this can only be accomplished by further expanding the world’s economy.
Copies of Peter Victor’s second edition of his important work “Managing without Growth” will be available for sale at the event, along with other key works from ecological economics.
This event is presented as the public keynote of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics (CANSEE) 12th Biennial Conference: “Engaging Economies of Change” in partnership with the Balsillie School of International Affairs, the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Power Shift WR.

The X-Page Presents: "Quilt of Stories"
2019-05-26 14:00 - 16:00
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During a 12-week writing and performance workshop facilitated by local professional artists, 19 refugee and immigrant women from Waterloo Region each developed a personal narrative. They then worked collaboratively to bring their individual stories together into a cohesive presentation to be shared publicly.
A reception will follow the performance.
This event at the BSIA/CIGI Campus is being hosted by the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC).
Event poster

From Political Won't To Political Will: Observations on Global Health Action as a Social Movement
2019-06-03 12:00 - 13:30
What is political will? Why should we care about it? He also asks how can we generate more of it to help us in our work to combat inertia and surmount barriers to creating better access to health and healthcare for the billions of people in need around the globe? How can we explain the different responses to environmental degradation, tobacco control and the HIV/AIDS epidemic when compared to the state of the response to the global epidemic of non-communicable diseases or the call for universal health coverage by 2030? Perspectives from political science and social movement theory point the way to a preliminary explanation.
About the speaker
Dr. Jeff Sturchio is a global health thought leader and trusted counselor for senior leaders in the private sector, multilateral organizations, governments, NGOS and foundations. Jeff is the President and CEO at Rabin Martin. He is former President and CEO of the Global Health Council. Before joining the Council in 2009, Dr. Sturchio was vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. Inc., and president of The Merck Company Foundation.
He is currently also chairman of the U.S. Corporate Council on Africa, chairman of the BroadReach Institute for Training and Education and a member of the boards of ACHAP, Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Science History Institute. Dr. Sturchio is also a visiting scholar at the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University; Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; a principal of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Arthur W. Page Society; and an advisor to amfAR, Intrahealth International, Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, the Global Health Group at the University of California San Francisco and the Rutgers Global Health Institute. His publications include Noncommunicable diseases in the developing world: addressing global gaps in policy research (edited with L. Galambos, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) and The Road to Universal Health Coverage: Innovation, Equity and the New Health Economy (edited with I. Kickbusch and L. Galambos, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).

Opening Communities to Newcomers: Cosmopolitanism, Solidarity Activism and Cultural Connections Workshop
2019-06-05 17:00 - 2019-06-07 17:00
In recent years, xenophobic right wing and populist movements have emerged and strengthened across Europe and North America. While many governments are struggling to accommodate growing pluralism within this context, a variety of civil society initiatives have also emerged, motivated by the desire to welcome newcomers. For example, movements such as Germany’s Welcome Culture (Willkommenskultur), Denmark’s Kind Citizens (Venligboerne), and other, smaller-scale initiatives have demonstrated creativity in fostering pluralism in environments largely hostile to difference. In Turkey, a country hosting 3.7 million Syrians, civil society initiatives have also arisen, with the aim of helping integrate these refugees.
This workshop, organized by Dr. Kim Rygiel (Wilfrid Laurier University/BSIA) and Dr. Feyzi Baban (Trent University), brings together academics, artists and civil society groups from across Europe and North America interested in fostering pluralism and opening communities to newcomers. The workshop focuses on understanding why, how and under what conditions some communities are more open to cultural differences than others and what types of projects facilitate openness to newcomers. Here, the arts play an important role. Participants will reflect on conceptual issues such as cosmopolitanism and solidarity and on how civil society initiatives, particularly using the arts, provide alternative sites from which to challenge notions of who belongs within the community and ways of fostering living together.
The workshop includes 3 events open to the public in honor of Waterloo Region’s celebration of World Refugee Day:
• June 5th Arts evening
• June 6th Documentary screening of In the Dark Times – A Culture in Exile followed by Q & A with filmmakers, Thomas Büsch and Sabine Küper- Büsch
• June 7th Roundtable: Local Organizing in The Waterloo Region: Making Communities Welcoming for Newcomers
The workshop made possible with the support of funding from the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada;
the Balsillie School of International Affairs;
Wilfrid Laurier and Trent Universities;
Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre
and Sabancı University’s Istanbul Policy Centre.
If you would like to be involved, please contact Kim Rygiel krygiel@wlu.ca.

Arts Evening: Opening Communities to Newcomers
2019-06-05 19:00 - 21:30
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Join us for an evening celebrating the arts and their transformative power to open communities to newcomers in honour of World Refugee Day in the Waterloo Region.
Featuring discussion, art & performances by:
Crossing the Border Photo Exhibit
Photographer Kemal Vural Tarlan, Director and Co-founder, Kırkayak Kultur, Turkey
as he discusses his photos documenting the people, things, and spaces along Turkey’s border with Syria, and in Jordan, Lebanon, and France, since January 2012.
The X-Page: A Storytelling Workshop
Project coordinator, Carrie Snyder, along with co-coordinator and educational consultant, Dr. Lamees Al Ethari, and writing coach, Tasneem Jamal explain the power behind this writing workshop based on a method taught by Lynda Barry, an American graphic novelist and teacher. The result is a A Quilt of Stories, a selection of stories written by 19 immigrant or refugee women from different backgrounds. Select performances will be provided including: Ms. Amna Kulsoom’s “A Day at School”, Ms. Yomatie Persaud’s “Role Reversal” and Ms. Paulina Rodriguez’s “Teaching of Nature”.
Theatre Performance: Adrenaline
Written and acted by Ahmad Meree and directed by Majdi Bou-Matar. The performance features Jabr, a young Syrian man spending his first New year’s Eve in Canada who looks back and remembers his last New Year’s Eve in Syria with family.
Closing performance by Waterloo Region’s The Levant Community Dabke Dance Group.
This arts evening is part of the workshop “Opening Communities to Newcomers: Cosmopolitanism, Solidarity Activism & Cultural Connections“.
The workshop is made possible with the support of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Balsillie School of International Affairs; Wilfrid Laurier and Trent Universities; Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre and Sabancı University’s Istanbul Policy Centre.

Film Screening: In the Dark Times - A Culture in Exile
2019-06-06 19:00 - 21:00
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Join us for a screening of the film In the Dark Times – A Culture in Exile by Thomas Büsch & Sabine Küper-Büsch in honour of World Refugee Day in the Waterloo Region, followed by a Q and A with the filmmakers.
About the Film: The topic of culture in exile and the importance of supporting communities such as Syrian refugees in Istanbul is also the topic of Küper-Büsch and Büsch’s film In the Dark Times – A Culture in Exile and will be introduced in this presentation and screened in the evening followed by a short Q & A with filmmakers. In the Dark Times – A Culture in Exile describes the life and cultural strategies of artists, actors, musicians, activists, with a common forced migration background who are currently living in host countries like Turkey and Jordan. The film explores these artists’ impressive productions in film, dance, and theatre in Istanbul and Amman as they struggle to build up a new cultural identity in exile.
About the Filmmakers: Thomas Büsch and Sabine Küper-Büsch are filmmakers and curators from Germany, based in Istanbul. They are co-founders of The Mahalla Festival, through the Istanbul-based association Diyalog Derneği. The association aims to promote exchange and cooperation in order to facilitate intercultural understanding and cultural dialogue between communities.
This film screening is part of the workshop “Opening Communities to Newcomers: Cosmopolitanism, Solidarity Activism & Cultural Connections“.
The workshop made possible with the support of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Balsillie School of International Affairs; Wilfrid Laurier and Trent Universities; Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre and Sabancı University’s Istanbul Policy Centre.

PhD Dissertation Defence: Three Essays on Associations Between Sexual Risk Behaviours, and Certain Beliefs and Perceptions About Antiretroviral Therapy in Botswana
2019-06-18 11:00 - 14:00
Wayne Gill‘s PhD dissertation defence.
Advisor: Alan Whiteside
Committee: Sue Horton, Zitha Mokomane
Internal/external: Larry Swatuk
External: Dr. King Holmes, University of Washington

PhD Dissertation Defence: Constructing China's National Food Security: Power, Grain Seed Markets, and the Global Political Economy
2019-07-04 13:00 - 16:00
Matthew Gaudreau’s PhD dissertation defence.
Advisor: Jennifer Clapp
Committee: Steffanie Scott, Hongying Wang
Internal/external: Derek Hall
External: Pascale Massot, School of Political Science, University of Ottawa
Abstract

TSAS Summer Academy 2019
2019-07-08 09:00 - 2019-07-11 17:00
The Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism Security and Society (TSAS) is holding it bi-annual Summer Academy, July 8-11, 2019 at Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, ON.
The Summer Academy is designed to foster a comprehensive understanding of radicalization, terrorism, and security and how all of these intersect with the rapidly changing nature of Canadian society. The Summer Academy brings together graduate students, post-doctoral students and junior policy makers and analysts from across Canada to participate in a highly focused learning experience. Interested students should contact Elizabeth Ford, Project Manager, TSAS ecford2@uwaterloo.ca There will be limited financial support available to facilitate attendance at the Academy.
The Summer Academy is only a part of TSAS’s larger mandate. TSAS engages in policy-relevant research and dissemination in terrorism, security and society. The TSAS Network is designed to foster: communication and collaboration between academic researchers working on these topics in Canada; communication and collaboration between academic researchers and policy officials in these subject fields. Students and faculty can learn more at www.tsas.ca
For more information and how to register, click here.
Brochure

Digital and Technological Innovations for Health
2019-07-08 12:00 - 13:30
This talk will highlight the rapid advances in technology and ask if and how they can be applied around the world. David Wilson, Global Lead for Decision and Delivery Science, Health Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank Group, will speculate on who might be left behind.
About the speaker
David Wilson is the World Bank’s first Global Lead for Decision and Delivery Science and also Global HIV/AIDS Program Director. He was previously the Bank’s Lead Health Specialist focusing on AIDS and the Bank’s first Senior Evaluation Specialist working on AIDS. Before joining the Bank, David worked as an academic, development practitioner and global health advisor in Zimbabwe for 20 years. David has over published over 100 scientific papers and delivered over 1,000 scientific addresses. He has worked in approximately 50 countries on all continents, including 28 countries in Africa and many fragile and conflict situations in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific.

Journalism About Terrorism
2019-07-11 12:00 - 14:00
In the keynote address of the TSAS Summer Academy, Stewart Bell, Investigative Journalist, provides insights and anecdotes from his long career and many years experience reporting on national security.
About the speaker
Stewart Bell is an investigative journalist at Global News. The author of three non-fiction books, most recently Bayou of Pigs, he has reported from dozens of countries. His magazine article about child soldiers in West Africa, “Guerilla Girls,” was awarded the Amnesty International prize. He won the South Asian Journalists Association award for his coverage of the Sri Lankan civil war. “The Terrorist Next Door” was a National Magazine Award finalist and was made into a CTV movie. His reporting from Syria was a finalist for this year’s Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. He received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his writing on terrorism. He has a Master of Journalism degree from Carleton University, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of British Columbia and a Certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School of Writers.
Bell’s article on travelling to Syria to interview a Canadian ISIS Fighter: “‘I’d sworn never to go to Syria’: Stewart Bell on his journey to meet a captured Canadian ISIS fighter”
For articles and news stories by Bell: https://globalnews.ca/author/stewart-bell/

Transformative Leadership Program - Module 1
2019-07-16 09:00 - 2019-07-17 17:00
The Balsillie School of International Affairs is once again pleased to host the Transformative Leadership Program in partnership with the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. This prestigious program was developed in conjunction with the MIT Sloan School, Yale School of Management, and Cornell’s Johnson School of Management.
Genuine leadership requires a compelling vision for the future and an ability to inspire and motivate across a diverse audience. Research on leadership has substantiated that the capacity to positively and strongly influence others is highly related to a leader’s character and personal values. Great leaders who understand and embody their core values are able to transform the aspirations of those around them and align their efforts with a purpose that transcends individual gain.
Module 1 “Transforming Oneself” will help students and professionals:
– Discover and strengthen the individual’s leadership signature in action.
– Discover the pillars of personal values.
– Establish personal values and strengths as the basis for powerful leadership.
Facilitator’s Biographies

There is no cost to attend this program.
Applications to attend this unique two-day program should be sent to info@balsillieschool.ca by Friday, July 5th. Successful applicants will be notified the following week.
Download application
Module 2 “Transforming Others” will take place July 18-19, 2019 at the Balsillie School. Module 2 will be offered first to participants who completed Module 1 in 2018. Applicants to Module 1 who would like to be considered for an available space in Module 2, should note this on their application.
Module 2 “Transforming Others” will help students and professionals:
– Identify limiting assumptions and inferences about self and others.
– Transcend personal limitations, beliefs and habits.
– Understand behaviour as influenced by the environment and personal factors.
– Develop the capacity to perceive the value and motivation of others.

Development Expectations In Malawi: Shifting From An Industry Of Charity To Committed Sustainability
2019-07-30 10:30 - 11:30
Since the 2008/2009 academic year, Dr. C. Darius Stonebanks and Ms. Melanie Bennett-Stonebanks have been working with local community in the rural region of Kasungu, Malawi on an action research project that was eventually titled, Transformative Praxis: Malawi (TPM). Through years of consultation and dialogue between Global North (GN) university participants and Global South (GS) Malawian community members, local villagers plainly expressed needs in the areas of Education, Health and Development while specifically indicating that Critical Thinking, Creativity and Social Entrepreneurship were ways forward to escape a devastating, multigenerational cycle of poverty. The idea forwarded was a physical research space dedicated to exploring ideas connected to a wide variety of issues, such as security, social justice, decolonization, sustainability, equity, emancipation, etc. in a relatively risk-free environment for community, who would otherwise never have access to such resources. The role of the GN partners was to be one of collaboration in the endeavour, and the challenge for both communities was to live ideals (such as decolonization) that are often spoken, but rarely acted upon. To date, TPM represents a growing physical space on one square mile of land, donated by Chief Chilowa, that includes a borehole, radio station, primary school, pre-school, community center, agricultural experimentation, hostel residence for researchers, computer lab, adult-education and professional development teaching and learning room, housing for teachers, and much more. Despite these very tangible developments, “old habits” between GN and GS interactions surrounding such efforts are still mired in expectations of “giver and receiver” models of charity. This presentation will discuss these challenges of working collaboratively in endeavours that are commonly entrenched in models of short-term charity, as opposed to long-term sustainability that results in local empowerment.
About the speakers
Dr. C. Darius Stonebanks is a multiple teaching award winning Professor at Bishop’s and Adjunct at McGill University. He has worked in each of the Canadian/Quebec systems of education (nursery, pre-K, elementary, secondary, CEGEP and university), and has amassed substantial lived experience in a variety of cultural contexts, from the James Bay Cree territory, inner-city Montreal to the rural region of central Malawi. Among his publications are James Bay Cree and Higher Education; Issues of Identity and Culture Shock, Teaching Against Islamophobia and Muslim Voices in Schools, which won the NAME’s Philip C. Chinn book award. He is the co-founder and Director of Transformative Praxis: Malawi, an Action Research project that connects social justice theory to practice and is the Primary Investigator on the SSHRC funded research project examining the secular nature of Canadian public schools and spaces.
Ms. Melanie Bennett-Stonebanks has been part of the education community in Quebec for the past 25 years where she has enjoyed her role as an elementary teacher, lecturer at McGill and Bishop’s University as well as pedagogical consultant at Quebec’s Ministry of Education. She is the co-founder of Transformative Praxis: Malawi and is its Education Coordinator for Canada, where she primarily supports pre-service as well as in service teachers in their professional development in the areas of leadership and emancipatory curriculum. Her PhD research focus presently deals with the mentoring of pre-service and novice teachers through narrative and reﬂexive inquiry to develop effective teaching and learning strategies. She has been recognized with an Award of Distinction for Teaching from McGill (2013) as well as a Teaching Award (2014, 2015) and Outstanding Academic Support and Service Award (2016) from Bishop’s University.

Revisiting China’s Supermarket Revolution: Evidence From Nanjing
2019-07-30 12:00 - 13:30
China is experiencing rapid urbanization and like many countries in the Global South with emerging markets, is experiencing major transformations of its national and local food systems, characterized particularly by an increase in supermarkets. Reardon and others referred to this as the “supermarket revolution” or “supermarketization” suggesting that supermarkets will progressively gain greater control over the urban food supply and marketing by supermarket chains. In recent years, there has been increasing evidence contradicting the applicability of the “supermarket revolution” theory in the Global South. This presentation uses research conducted by the Hungry Cities Partnership team at Nanjing University, including interviews with supermarket customers and managers in Nanjing, to revisit the supermarketization theory. It focuses on the competition pattern of supermarkets selling fresh products and wet markets and questions the prediction of supermarket domination.
About the speaker
Yuan Yuan is a Queen Elizabeth Scholar with the Hungry Cities Partnership at Laurier/BSIA. She is a PhD candidate in School of Geography at Nanjing University in China. Yuan holds a Bachelor of Management degree in Land Resources Management. During her QES Advanced Scholarship, Yuan examined the supermarketization process in Nanjing, its interactions with traditional food outlets and the implications for the local food economy.
Sponsored by:

PhD Dissertation Defence: Governing Sovereign Bankruptcy: Writing International Rules for Rewriting National Debts
2019-08-06 13:00 - 16:00
Skylar Brooks‘ PhD dissertation defence.
Advisor: Eric Helleiner
Committee: Bessma Momani, John Ravenhill
Internal/external: Heather Whiteside
External: Daniel McDowell, Associate Professor, Syracuse University
Abstract

PhD Dissertation Defence: From Inclusive Governance to Peace: Exploring African Governance Systems
2019-08-26 11:00 - 14:00
Karolina Werner‘s PhD dissertation defence.
Advisor: Alistair Edgar
Committee: Timothy Donais, Dejan Guzina
Internal/external: Jeff Grischow
External: Joanna Quinn, Western University
Abstract

Orientation Day 2019
2019-09-06 08:30 - 15:30
Orientation Day activities will include a welcome by Balsillie School Director, Dr. Ann Fitz-Gerald along with program information, a campus tour, photo shoot and lunch.
We look forward to meeting our new students!
Draft Agenda

Advanced Policy Analyst Program Recruitment Event
2019-09-11 09:30 - 10:30
This event is open to students from the BSIA, Laurier and UW only.
Taylor Rodrigues, Policy Analyst, Horizontal Policy and Coordination, Environment and Climate Change Canada, will provide an overview and answer questions about the Advanced Policy Analyst Program.
The Advanced Policy Analyst Program (APAP) is a challenging two-year professional and leadership development program designed to develop economic and public policy analysts through four six-month assignments in the three central agencies (Finance Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat, and Privy Council Office) and a sponsoring department (e.g. Global Affairs Canada, Health Canada, etc.).

Information Session: On Campus Resources
2019-09-12 12:00 - 13:30
Open to students at the BSIA only.
Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo Librarians and representatives from the Campus Wellness Offices will be at the BSIA to describe the services they offer.
The Laurier session will take place in room 132. The UW session will be take place in room 123.
Please register – a light lunch will be served.

The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and Betrayal in an Age of Discontent
2019-09-18 19:00 - 20:30
Just in time for the fall federal election, Martin Lukacs is launching his new book, which unpacks the failings of the Trudeau government and illuminates the kind of politics we need instead: one where Canada’s progressive majority works together to confront inequality, racism, and the climate crisis.
About the speaker
Martin Lukacs is an investigative journalist who has covered Canadian politics for more than a decade. He has been an environmental writer for The Guardian, and was a co-author of the Leap Manifesto. He lives in Montreal and occasionally visits Twitter.
