SIA was originally designed as a technical tool for decision-making in natural resource development. Conflict models of SIA are now significant for theory and practice associated with assessing natural resource development, policies, and events associated with population displacement and forced migration, rapid rural development, and justice goals.
This two-day course will provide participants with an understanding of both the theoretical and practical considerations of justice, equity, and security in conflict and violent zones. It will address how to build conflict processes into SIA methodologies in the sense of understanding the institutional histories of conflicts and current bases for conflict. The course will discuss concerns for decision-making technologies supporting formal decision-makers, as well as the more public approach of relying on public participation. Data collection in the context of conflict zones will also be discussed.

This course will provide participants with the knowledge, understanding, and technical skills to conduct SIA in conflict zones (contested terrain among stakeholders, but also areas experiencing open and ongoing hostilities) at the community and project level for a variety of development and policy proposals for both developed and developing countries. Case studies from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia will be used to highlight these issues.

Level:	Intermediate
Prerequisites:	No specific prerequisites
Duration:	2 days (3-4 October)
Min/Max:	10-35
Instructor(s):	Joseph Rickson, Macquarie University (Australia)

 

Joseph Rickson is an anthropologist by training, but specializes in Development Studies and Human Geography. He specializes in applied research methodology, development project evaluation, risk assessment, community engagement, marginalization, and ethnics policy across South East Asia, particularly in the movement of ethnic minorities across national borders and the subsequent dynamics of citizenship, resource management, and human rights. His broad experience in SEA over the past 19 years includes working closely with ethnic minority communities, NGOs, and civil society groups on resource management, local knowledge, biodiversity, and impacts of development projects on local livelihoods. This approach focuses on research, teaching, and training on development, ethnic politics, and the rubric of marginalization and state power that constitute state and non-state practices of control and rule through the regulation of social space in border areas.