Authors:Kylie Stephens Abstract: The decision by the American Academy of Religion (AAR) to cancel a panel at its November 2017 Annual Meeting spurred a conversation with Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies and coordinator of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of San Francisco. The AAR’s Annual Meeting brings together the foremost scholars of religion to engage in a variety of events where ideas are shared and debated. Dr. Zunes had planned to attend as part of a panel discussion that was intended to explore the role of religion and religious actors in movements like the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Dr. Zunes expertise on the Israel-Palestine conflict and his background in studying political and social movements made him particularly well suited for covering this topic. AAR ultimately decided to cancel this BDS panel, which shows just how sensitive this topic is, even within the academic world.The following special feature piece stems from a recent interview in which Dr. Zunes discussed his experience as one of the scheduled panelists at the annual AAR meeting. This interview, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro graduate student Kylie Stephens, also delves into how BDS fits into the larger picture of academic freedom and the overall American discourse regarding the recently reignited debate over Jerusalem and the future of Israel-Palestine. PubDate: 2018-04-04 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Jeremy A Rinker, Narayan Khadka Abstract: Through a unique community based participatory action research project with Bhutanese refugees and immigrants in the Triad area of North Carolina (Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem), the authors explore the links between trauma, displacement, and community resilience. The social experience of displacement and relocation create impacts felt in the entire community. How do we understand and map these impacts and use them to transform community ills' While limited understanding of trauma and displacement among both the newly arrived and long-time citizens acts to limit the pro-social opportunities that trauma creates, the lack of mental health services and support for refugees allows post-traumatic growth in refugee communities to atrophy. While reviving trauma may seem counter-intuitive, we argue that the engagement of collective historical memory is a critical necessity for achieving change. As the United States’ largest community of South Asian refugees, the Bhutanese refugee experience, replete with a high rate of suicide, heart disease, and diabetes is a story largely left untold. This article aims to give voice to the experience of Bhutanese refugees so as to co-create community driven solutions to this community’s unique problems. PubDate: 2018-04-04 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 1 (2018)
Authors:Ali Askerov, Noor Ghazi, Amy Currle Abstract: The disasters of the Syrian civil war that started in 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring have not been limited to Syria alone; rather they have affected many other countries both in the region and beyond. One of those most impacted in the region is Turkey, an immediate neighbor of Syria, which hosts over three million refugees from the latter. In addition to harming the civilians of the country, the civil war in Syria has caused numerous political, economic, and social problems for other states. It has ruined the everyday lives of the majority of Syria’s citizens, including a substantial number of children, who are innocent victims of this human tragedy. The war has exposed the incompetence and seeming helplessness of the international and regional organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, which claims to be the voice of all the Muslims in the world, to aid in the peace process. The ambitions of the regional and remote states on the ground in Syria attempting to meet their own national interests at the expense of civilian casualties and the greed of the illegal organizations attempting to establish and maintain their own power have also been revealed. This paper will discuss the impact of the war in Syria on its displaced civilians, especially focusing on children, who have sought refuge in Turkey. It will explore political, economic, social, and security effects the war in Syria has had in Turkey, the region, and the World highlighting critical discussion of the policies the Turkish government has implemented to address the refugee crisis. The data used to put this paper together were collected primarily through interviewing, observation, and news from everyday regional media. PubDate: 2018-04-04 Issue No:Vol. 2, No. 1 (2018)
Open Access journal
[8 journals]
