Opportunities: Fellowship for Threatened Scholars Around the World, Call for Submissions: The Grassroots Response to Extractivism, and Other Opportunities

Fellowship for Threatened Scholars Around the World

The Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund® (IIE-SRF) formalizes an unwavering commitment that IIE has demonstrated for over 90 years to preserve the lives, voices, and ideas of scholars around the globe.  IIE-SRF fellowships support visiting appointments for threatened scholars to continue their work in safety at partnering academic institutions worldwide. At the heart of IIE-SRF is the idea that each scholar we help who continues his or her work in safety is a beacon of hope in our world.

IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowships for established professors, researchers and public intellectuals whose lives or careers are threatened in their home countries. The fellowships, which last up to one academic year, support temporary academic positions at universities, colleges and research centers in safe locations anywhere in the world where SRF fellows can continue their work unharmed, pending improved conditions in their home countries. SRF fellows are eligible to apply for a second and final year of fellowship support.

Since 2002 SRF has received more than 3,000 requests for assistance from scholars in over 100 countries. We have awarded SRF fellowships to 525 scholars from 50 countries, placing them at nearly 300 host partner institutions in 40 countries around the world.

Eligibility & Criteria

Established professors, researchers and public intellectuals from any country, field or discipline may qualify. Applications are reviewed for academic qualifications, the quality/potential of the candidate’s work, and the urgency of threats faced. Preference is given to scholars

  • who are facing or recently fled from immediate, severe and targeted threats to their lives and/or careers in their home countries or countries of residence;
  • with a Ph.D. or other highest degree in their field who have extensive teaching or research experience at a university, college or other institution of higher learning;
  • who demonstrate superior academic accomplishment or promise;
  • whose selection is likely to benefit the academic community in the home and/or host countries or region

Applications from female scholars and scholars who are members of ethnic, racial, cultural or religious minority groups, or those otherwise underrepresented in their field, are encouraged.

Fellowships are approved by the SRF Selection Committee which convenes at least three (3) times per year. Awards are issued for up to US $25,000, plus individual health insurance. The final fellowship award is dependent upon the location of the host institution, the cost of living, and the value of any additional contributions from the host institution or other source.

Host academic institutions agree to accept the fellowship funds and disburse them to the scholar. In most cases, host partners are required to match the SRF fellowship award through salary/stipend support and/or a combination of salary and in-kind support, such as research materials, and other in-kind assistance.

for more info see http://www.scholarrescuefund.org


Current Call for Submissions

Guest edited by Dorothy Kidd, Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco and Anne Bartlett, BA in International Studies, University of New South Wales, Australia, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice is dedicating part of issue 28(1) to exploring the ways that communities, citizens’ organizations, and social justice movements are responding to the latest surge of mining and natural resource extraction throughout the world.

Often called “neo-extractivism,” this global trend encompasses state and corporate policies and practices which are accelerating the exploitation of natural resources such as coltan and other rare minerals used in computers for the information and communication industries; gold, silver and diamonds as replacements for the dollar and other currencies; and zinc and copper for industrial expansion. Led in no small way by the actions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, more than ninety countries have reduced or abolished foreign ownership restrictions; reduced taxes and environmental, labor, and human rights regulations; and opened up low-cost investment opportunitiesfor transnational companies. Complicating easy analyses, left-wing governments in Latin America such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Venezuela have also championed extractivist policies as essential to the restoration of national sovereignty, domestication of capital flows, and programs of income redistribution and public investment.

Nevertheless, host communities, many of them indigenous, are engaged in what are, with no exaggeration, bitter struggles over life and death, including rape, assaults, and murders, environmental degradation, loss of control over local government, and long-standing ways of life. For example, in 2010, the Center for International Environmental Law reported numerous instances of private property destruction, forced displacement, death threats, arbitrary detention, and kidnapping and assassination related to mining conflicts in Central America. Global Witness documented 46 extra-judicial killings at mining sites in Peru, between 2002 and 2013; and Reporters without Borders stated that nine journalists who covered mining stories were murdered in Honduras between 2009 and 2013, with another 18 deaths likely due to their reporting about mining. And, in 2011, James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples reported so much harm from extractive industry activity around the globe that he dedicated his remaining term in office to the issue.

This special issue of Peace Review is not, however, focused solely on the negative impact. Instead, the issue intends to examine ways that communities and their allies are responding throughout South, Central and North America, India, Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa. Inventive campaigns include the sophisticated use of new communications, such as geospatial technologies to map the problem and the response; video documentaries to publicize local stories of resistance and renewal; and communications networks which ally local, indigenous, and environmental movements. New local, regional, and transnational legal strategies are being used, in which communities are undertaking community referenda, people’s tribunals, and calls for changes in rich countries, such as Canada and the U.S. which would allow mining companies to be tried at home for violations abroad. Underscoring many of these interventions, indigenous organizations are challenging Eurocentric ideas of capitalist development and nature, and asserting their own knowledges about human relations with the ecosystem. Finally, this special issue will contend with future planning; examining community interest in alternative economic plans; and ways to work with lands and resources in sustainable, labor, and nature-centered ways.

This collection of essays welcomes submissions from both practitioners and academics from a broad range of disciplines. Topics may include – but are not limited to – the consequences to local, national, and regional patterns of production, trade, and consumption; the impact on the environment, to indigenous communities, and to local systems of governance; the ways that communities and movements are organizing in response to major mining initiatives; intersectional responses (gender, race, class, rural, urban) to mobilization; the perspectives of indigenous communities in critiquing resource development and reimagining the future; regional and transnational legal strategies; and the use of face-to-face and mediated strategies of storytelling, and communication repertoires.

Interested writers should submit essays (2500-3500 words) and a one to two line bio to Peace Review no later than 5:00 p.m. PST on October 15, 2015. Essays should be jargon- and footnote-free, although we will run recommended readings. Please refer to the submission guidelines.

We publish essays on ideas and research in peace studies, broadly defined. Essays are relatively short (2500-3500 words), contain no footnotes or exhaustive bibliography, and are intended for a wide readership. The journal is most interested in the cultural and political issues surrounding conflicts occurring between nations and peoples.

Please direct content-based questions or concerns to guest editors:
Dorothy Kidd and Anne Bartlett

Send Essays to:
Robert Elias (Editor-in-Chief)
Erika Myszynski (Managing Editor)
Email: peacereview@usfca.edu
Subject Line: Extractivism


Joint MA and PhD in Global Studies with a Special Emphasis on Peace and Security in Africa

Call for Applications 2015

Are you interested in the impact of globalisation on peace and security in Africa? Would you like to study globalisation from a multidisciplinary perspectives while living it? Would you like to be part of an immersive cultural experience that takes you out of your comfort zone? The MA in Global Studies might be just the thing for you.
In collaboration with the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of the Addis Ababa University the Global and European Studies Institute at the University of Leipzig, would now like to solicit applications to the MA in Global Studies. The joint MA in Global Studies is a two-year programme with three semsters in Addis Ababa and one in Leipzig.

The deadline for applications is 30th June 2015.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for talented students who finished their first academic degree in social science, politicial science, history, international relations, law, humanities and economics with good or very good results. Students applying for this programme should have an interest in conflict prevention as well as peace and security.

Our students are quick learners and distinguish themselves by displaying outstanding analytical skills and refined sensitivity towards conflictual topics. Students are guided by professors and staff, but venture out independently to explore new research avenues. Our students are from diverse backgrounds enganging in lively debates and approaching topics from different perspectives. They work together in groups and become cultural mediators with a high degree of mutual respect. Due to its unique composition of students this programme provides a learning environment which emphasizes jointness –the learning from and with each other.

Admission Criteria

1. academic excellence (study results and quality of higher education institution)

2. motivation, academic potential and recommendation letters

3. match of previous degree with our master’s course

4. work experience and professional qualification

5. language skills

Application Documents

1. application form (download above)

2. certified or original hard copy of high school leaving certificate

3. certified or original hard copy of university diplomas

4. certified or original hard copy of transcript of records

5. English test results if English is not your primary language of communication

  • TOEFL (international): minimum score of 550 paper-based (or 213 computer-based or 80 internet-based). Please notice that the code number for the Master’s course in Global Studies is: 4688.
  • IELTS: minimum score of 6,5
  • CPE: Grades A, B, C (Certificate of Proficiency in English)
  • CAE: Grades A, B (Certificate in Advanced English)
  • UNIcert III
  • Applicants who acquired a degree from a college or university where English is the language of instruction do not have to provide the above mentioned proficiency tests.

6. curriculum vitae (not longer than three pages)

7. letter of motivation

8. recommendation letter (optional but recommended)

9. copy of passport

10. two passport size pictures

*Please note that a certified copy is not a normal copy, but is approved and stamped by an official office. A certification can be obtained from any authority that does hold an official seal (for example town halls, police, courts, rectories and notaries).


Economic Justice Institute

Application deadline: 1rst of august 2015

Theme: Economic Justice in Africa: Globalization, the State and Civil Society
Date: 7 – 18 September 2015
Venue: Durban, South Africa

CODESRIA is a Pan-African membership research organization established in 1973 with the broad goal of promoting the work of African and Diaspora social scientists. In partnership with the OSISA Economic Justice Programme CODESRIA is pleased to announce the organization of an Economic Justice Institute in Durban, South Africa from September 7-18, 2015. The theme of the Institute is ‘Economic justice in Africa: globalization, the state and civil society,’ and it will be held on the margins of the World Social Science Forum in Durban co-hosted by HSRC and CODESRIA and whose theme is “Transforming global relations for a just world”. CODESRIA invites applications for participation in the institute from scholars, researchers, practitioners and civil society activists from the SADC region working in the areas of social and economic justice, resource governance, property rights, commodification and extension of markets, climate justice, agriculture and other issues in the broad area of sustainable development.

The discourse on sustainable economic development and related policy drivers is changing at a fast pace as the world grapples with multiple levels of turbulence involving climate change, economic and financial crises, growing income inequalities and food insecurity. Over the past 20 years notable broad frameworks for dealing with these and other challenges in a rapidly evolving global environment have included the United Nations’ Agenda 21 aimed at ensuring the achievement of sustainable development, and the Millennium Declaration and Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving life for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable by 2015. As the deadline for achieving the targets for the MDGs approaches, global transformations challenge long held beliefs and theories about the political economy of development, call on practitioners involved in developing a new global framework on the Post 2015 and Sustainable Development Goals to rethink e dominant approaches to development issues.

These shifts in policies bring with them complex challenges and new forms of struggles for socio-economic and cultural rights to which social and economic justice actors must be equipped to respond.

There is no doubt that Southern Africa needs fresh approaches to sustainable development that go beyond the traditional neo-liberal strategies of macro-economic stability and market friendly reforms. Laying institutional and social foundations for structural changes that will facilitate sustainable development, ensuring inclusive and pro-poor policies that explicitly take into account issues of gender, class and the structural causes of unsustainable and unequal development and empowering civic actors to push for alternative frameworks should be priorities as countries develop their Post Rio+20 Sustainable Development frameworks, Post 2015 MDG frameworks, Green Economy National and Regional Strategies as well as policy responses to the prevailing financial and economic crises.

Unfortunately, in this work the commitment towards developing a transformative development agenda has not always coincided with the capacity for innovative thinking on sustainable development

Civil society activists need to upgrade skills, knowledge and strategies that challenge and critique dominant approaches to development.

The goal of the Economic Justice Summer School is to ‘cultivate a shared understanding of alternative sustainable development approaches and provide analytical tools that enable social and economic justice researchers, practitioners and activists to interpret real world conditions in a rigorous manner’

The institute will focus on tapping into participants’ experiences as a foundation for learning with a view to developing critical thinking skills, deepening subject matter knowledge and facilitating tools for advocacy. It will also draw on the expertise of leading scholars and practitioners. The specific objectives are to:

  • Support the development of knowledge and skills necessary to facilitate change and inclusive sustainable development in the region and deepen critical thinking amongst practitioners, activists and key policy makers around current issues on economics and sustainability
  • Strengthen the interaction and engagement between networks and CSOs working on economic justice related issues in SADC and sharpen their advocacy in this area

Issues covered by the institute will include development and sustainability, power, control and access to resources, resource commodification and market expansion, the evolving African state, its location in global political economies and the challenges of sustainable development, representation, accountability and political mobilization, the environment, and climate change and prospects for transformative change in Africa.

Application Procedures

Applications for the position of resource person should include:
1. An application letter;
2. A curriculum vitae;
3. Two (2) published papers;
4. A proposal of not more than five (5) pages in length, outlining the issues to be covered in the proposed lectures.

Applications for laureates should include:
1. A letter indicating institutional or organizational affiliation;
2. A curriculum vitae;
3. A two or three pages application letter including an analysis of the relationship between the candidate working area and the problematic and concerns raised by the theme of the Economic Justice Summer School;
4. Two (2) reference letters from scholars, researchers or activists known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s working area, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses.
5. A copy of the passport.

Application Deadline

The deadline for the submission of applications is 1rst of august 2015. Selected applicants will be notified in the first fortnight of August 2015.

Submission of Applications

All applications or requests for additional information should be sent to:

Economic Justice Summer School
CODESRIA
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x Canal IV
BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, Senegal
Tel.: (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23
Fax: (221) 33 824 12 89
E-mail: economic.justice@codesria.sn
For more information, please visit: http://www.codesria.org/
Visit us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/CODESRIA/181817969495
Be updated via Twitter: http://twitter.com/codesria

2 Comments on Opportunities: Fellowship for Threatened Scholars Around the World, Call for Submissions: The Grassroots Response to Extractivism, and Other Opportunities

  1. Once upon a time I appllied and sent my research proposal and I was not even responded to so I am a bit skeptical about the seriousness of research opportunities although I completed my PhD last year in April 2014.

    • We are very sorry that you did not get a response. We are always on the lookout for opportunities to post; however they are run by other organizations, universities, etc. We hope that those who post other opportunities in the future will be more responsive to you. It might be helpful to write directly to the university or organization to inform them that you never received a response.

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