Program & Speakers

Program & Panelists

The DIR 2023 Conference will take place in a hybrid format: the full program will be in-person for Tufts University community. Panels and Talks are available virtually for the public. Please register in advance to have Zoom access to the conference.

The Conference will be held at the Fletcher School, Cabot Intercultural Center. For location and parking, visit here.

Please click on a panel of interest to expand additional information:

Please refer to our program booklet PDF for additional information about the Conference, Panels, and Speakers.

How has the continuation of colonial legacies through law and legal systems taken effect? How are multilateral institutions such as the IMF, WB, WTO governed by international laws which are largely derived from First World systems? How does neo-colonialism influence international business – AI and data extraction, businesses and HR responsibilities. The reformation of global governance and international relations requires a reclamation of laws and legal systems in a more globally inclusive way. To decolonize laws and policy, then, is to begin asking what’s next. What does a truly equitable system look like? How will this lead to the collective liberation of all?

Panelists:

Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School and currently chairs the Truth, Justice, and Peace Commission, a transitional justice initiative established to address the crises of violence and agitation in the states of south-east Nigeria. He previously chaired Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and served on the panel of eminent persons that negotiated the return of The Gambia to the Commonwealth in 2017. Professor Odinkalu has acted as counsel in international human rights litigation before Africa’s regional human rights courts and tribunals and was involved in the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. He is associated with several advocacy initiatives for the protection of human rights, including the International Refugee Rights Initiative.

 

Professor Elisabeth Leake is the Lee E. Dirks Professor in Diplomatic History and Associate Professor of History at the Fletcher School, which she joined in 2022. She studied global history at Yale University and the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in 2013. She held a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London, from 2013–16, before taking up a lectureship at the University of Leeds in 2016. Professor Leake’s research to date has been broadly focused on the global histories of decolonization and the Cold War. Her first book, “The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936–65,” rethinks the political development of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. She asks why this region has remained largely autonomous to this day, despite Pakistani and Afghan state-building activities and interference from British and later American policymakers. Dr. Leake is currently working on a global history of decolonization and developing a research network examining the comparative and interconnected histories of oppositional politics and modes of dissent in the years immediately following political independence in decolonizing states.

 

Professor Maulik Jagnani is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His research intersects environmental sustainability, human capital development, and poverty alleviation. One area of his work delves into how households and firms anticipate and adapt to extreme environmental health conditions, such as heat, polluted air, and floods. Another explores the consequences of poor environmental and economic conditions on human capital formation, such as education and health. Maulik also investigates the impacts, both intended and unintended, of government policies on environmental health and human capital outcomes. Collaborating with diverse public and private sector partners, he has conducted field experiments in Bangladesh, India, Malawi, and Nepal and leveraged administrative and survey data from India, Indonesia, and Kenya to analyze quasi-experiments or natural experiments, providing actionable insights for policymakers.

 

Professor Bridget Conley is the Research Director of the World Peace Foundation and Associate Research Professor at The Fletcher School. At WPF, she is the lead researcher on WPF’s program, “Protecting Vulnerable Groups,” and program manager for the Global Arms and Corruption projects. She works closely with the Executive Director on project development, fundraising and strategic vision for WPF. Currently, her research focuses on “Tracking COVID-19 in Detention”. She is lead editor on the Accountability for Starvation volume, due out in 2022 from Oxford University Press. Her previous research examined memory following mass atrocities, which culminated in her book, Memory from the Margins: Ethiopia’s Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum (Palgrave 2019), and comparative studies of how mass atrocities end. She is the editor of How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq (Cambridge University Press 2016). She has also published on issues related to starvation crimes, the 1992 – 1995 war in Bosnia, mass atrocities and genocide, and how museums can engage on human rights issues. She previously worked as Research Director for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience, where she led the Museum’s research and projects on contemporary threats of genocide, acting as a producer of multimedia public outreach materials, formulating the Museum’s positions on contemporary threats of genocide, and curating an exhibition, From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide Today. She received a PhD in Comparative Literature from Binghamton University in 2001.  

 

Thaw Htet is a MALD degree candidate at The Fletcher School, where he focuses on human security and international development. Most recently, Thaw worked as a research intern within the United States Institute of Peace’s Inclusive Peace Processes & Reconciliation Desk, working on analyzing Myanmar’s peace process. Before Fletcher, he worked as a Program Officer from 2019 to 2021 in the Joint Peace Fund, a multi-donor trust fund supporting Myanmar’s peace process and peacebuilding initiatives. At Fletcher, he has served as Co-President of the Fletcher ASEAN Society, organizing events inviting Former Philipino Vice President Leni Robredo and the current Myanmar Ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Moe Tun, to speak at Fletcher. Thaw also attended Tufts University for his undergraduate degree, serving as an International Student Senator in the Tufts Senate, Inclusion Chair at Tufts International Club, and General Secretary of Tufts Amnesty International. Born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar, he aims to understand how to apply his experiences at Fletcher & Tufts to serve communities in Myanmar and beyond effectively, equitably, and humanely.

 

Arianna Tidwell is a second year MALD candidate at the Fletcher School studying Gender and Intersectional Analysis and Human Security. Her current research interests are centered around the health, environmental and social impacts of airports and other large scale infrastructure projects on communities in the New York City area. Arianna is from Brooklyn, NY. She has a BA in Political Science and Hispanic Studies from Vassar College. Prior to attending Fletcher, she lived for 4 years in Spain, teaching English to elementary and middle school students. She joined the DIR team because she believes in the importance of conversations around decolonization in the space of academic institutions. Post-Fletcher, Arianna hopes to work in health policy, focusing on how environmental concerns impact community health.

How has the continuation of colonial legacies through law and legal systems taken effect? How are multilateral institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and WTO governed by international laws which are largely derived from First World systems? How does neo-colonialism influence international business – AI and data extraction, businesses and HR responsibilities. The reformation of global governance and international relations requires a reclamation of laws and legal systems in a more globally inclusive way. To decolonize laws and policy, then, is to begin asking what’s next. What does a truly equitable system look like? How will this lead to the collective liberation of all?

Panelists:

Professor Cosmas Emeziem Professor Cosmas Emeziem is a junior scholar at Boston College Law School in the two-year Drinan Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) Program. Previously, Emeziem was an associate at various law firms in Nigeria, where he worked in corporate practice, litigations, and regulatory compliance. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association and the American Society of International Law. A graduate of the University of Nigeria, Professor Emeziem earned two advanced degrees at Cornell University, a Doctor of the Science of Law (JSD) and a Master of Laws (LLM). He also won the Rudolf B. Schlesinger Fellowship in International and Comparative Law. Additionally, he is an alumnus of the Hague Academy of International Law, the Hague, the Netherlands, and has recently collaborated on projects concerning African Law. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the African Journal of Law and Justice System.

Professor Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile, S.J.D. (Harvard), is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the E. J. Ball Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Her teaching, research, and scholarship focus on food & agricultural law, international investment law, international trade law, intellectual property law, international dispute settlement, corporate social responsibility, as well as technology and the law. Professor Ofodile has taught and/or lectured at many universities around the world including Columbia University, Tufts University, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, the American University of Armenia, the Trade Policy Center in Africa based in Arusha, Tanzania, and the Center for American Legal Studies in Poland. She is on the Editorial Advisory Committee of International Legal Materials, a publication of the American Society of International Law, and is the Deputy Head of the Research and Documentation Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum. She is an active member of the American Bar Association Section of International Law and has served the organization in numerous leadership positions including as Co-Chair of the International Investment and Development Committee, Co-Chair of the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility, Vice-Chair of the International Intellectual Property Committee, and Senior Advisor to the Human Rights Committee. She was the first Secretary-General of the African Society of International Law. Professor Ofodile has advised numerous governments, international organizations, businesses, and public interest organizations on issues relating to food/nutrition, security, corporate governance, intellectual property rights, and corporate social responsibility. Professor Ofodile is a member of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the African Arbitration Association, and the Nigerian Bar Association.

Professor Susan Akram directs BU Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, in which she supervises students engaged in international advocacy in domestic, international, regional, and UN fora. Her research and publications focus on immigration, asylum, refugee, forced migration, and human and civil rights issues, with an interest in the Middle East, the Arab, and Muslim world. Akram’s distinguished research was recognized with a Fulbright Senior Scholar Teaching and Research Award for the 1999–2000 academic year. She has lectured on Palestinian refugees to general audiences around the world as well as to committees of the United Nations (including the High Commission for Refugees and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), the European Union, and representatives of European and Canadian government ministries and parliaments. Since September 11, 2001, she has presented widely on the USA Patriot Act and immigration-related laws and policies as well as on her work challenging standard interpretations of women’s asylum claims from the Arab/Muslim world.

Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School and currently chairs the Truth, Justice, and Peace Commission, a transitional justice initiative established to address the crises of violence and agitation in the states of south-east Nigeria. He previously chaired Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission and served on the panel of eminent persons that negotiated the return of The Gambia to the Commonwealth in 2017. Professor Odinkalu has acted as counsel in international human rights litigation before Africa’s regional human rights courts and tribunals and was involved in the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. He is associated with several advocacy initiatives for the protection of human rights, including the International Refugee Rights Initiative.

In recent decades, the international community has begun to recognize and reckon with the colonial legacy of the international aid system. However, there is little clarity within the humanitarian sector as to how to actualize a decolonial approach to humanitarian aid. Further, conversations around decolonizing the humanitarian sector are often sidelined in the name of emergency and urgency, compared to the international development sector. Through this panel, we will explore what practical steps humanitarian actors can take now to reconstruct power dynamics between the global majority and the global minority. This panel will provide perspectives from various sectors, including academia, multilateral organizations, journalism, government donors, and NGOs. By exploring what a decolonial approach looks like in the humanitarian sector, and what practical steps we can take now, we hope to develop a stronger humanitarian community to support the people around the world affected by conflict and crisis today.

Panelists:

Ahmad Shakeb

Ahmad Shakeb, a devoted humanitarian aid worker hailing from Afghanistan, possesses an unwavering commitment to making a positive impact in the world. In 2022, Shakeb transitioned to the United States, where he became a part of JVS, a Boston-based non-profit organization. At JVS, his role as a Career Coach involves assisting immigrants and refugees in securing employment and achieving self-sufficiency, embodying his commitment to empowering marginalized communities.

Before joining JVS, Shakeb held pivotal roles as a Humanitarian Affairs Officer and Head of Monitoring at the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) in UNOCHA, he collaborated with partners nationwide to identify urgent humanitarian needs, plan responses, and allocate resources judiciously.   He worked with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) as a Policy Development Officer and Head of Programme for Southern Afghanistan. At the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), he served as an Education Programme Coordinator for the Eastern Region of Afghanistan, emphasizing the importance of education in crisis-stricken areas. Notably, his role as a Private Sector Development Specialist at DAI-USAID led to the establishment of numerous enterprises, including five women-owned textile companies in Nangarhar, fostering economic growth and gender equality. Furthermore, Shakeb dedicated six years as a part-time Assistant Professor at Nangarhar University, contributing significantly to the academic landscape of the region.

 

Hasi Edema

Hasangani (Hasi) Edema is a passionate and experienced humanitarian professional with a deep understanding of the intersection of the humanitarian development and peacebuilding nexus. Over the course of her 7+ years as a practitioner and a researcher particularly in fragile and pose-conflict contexts, she possesses a proficiency in multi-sector response, recovery and resilience programming as well as humanitarian advocacy, program management/implementation and donor relations.

Hasi’s unwavering commitment extends to issues such as shifting power within the HDP nexus, social cohesion and gender equity, positioning her as a staunch empathetic advocate for positive change in these vital domains. In her current role as a program coordinator, she plays a pivotal part in supporting CDA programming, grounded in action research which revolves around nurturing accountability and shifting power. In her capacity, as an integral member of the ‘Stopping As Success’ collaborative learning project, Hasi offers thought partnership on fostering responsible transitions in humanitarian response and action. She also currently leads the learning partnerships committee and co-leads CDA’s anti racism and social inclusion task force. In addition, she contributes significantly to the curation of strategic communications for CDA. Hasi’s skill set is as unique as it is comprehensive, with expertise spanning research, humanitarian advocacy, and robust systems thinking.

Her academic credentials are as impressive as her professional achievements, holding a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Master’s in Humanitarian Assistance from Tufts University.

Outside her professional sphere, Hasi finds joy in the harmonious notes of music through singing and piano, the creativity of painting, and the adventures of exploring new destinations through travel. Her diverse interests mirror her dynamic approach to both life and work.

 

Thin Lei Win

Thin Lei Win is an award-winning multimedia journalist with more than 15 years of experience. For nearly 13 years, she worked as a correspondent with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Thomson Reuters global news agency, reporting on humanitarian issues, particularly climate change and food security. She has worked in various countries including Myanmar (her home country), Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and Italy, where she is currently based. Thin Lei Win is also a passionate food enthusiast. She loves both cooking and eating and finds joy in feeding friends and family. Her passion for food drives her to cover different aspects of food systems, including who grows our food, how it is produced and consumed, why people are still going hungry, and how agriculture contributes to climate change. In addition to her journalism work, Thin Lei Win founded the award-winning bilingual news agency Myanmar Now in the run-up to the Myanmar elections in 2015. She also co-founded The Kite Tales, a unique storytelling and preservation project that chronicles the lives and histories of ordinary people across Myanmar.

 

Artur Drampyan

An international development expert with 29 years of experience, Artur Drampyan is passionate about bringing change to communities and people and making them feel that they own this change. Currently a Project Management Specialist at USAID/Armenia, Artur manages several multi-sector projects in locally led humanitarian response, community development, local governance, citizen participation, and public finance. Before working at USAID, Artur worked on several other multi-year projects in governance, democracy, and economic growth. In his work, Artur has successfully built effective partnerships with the central and local governments, civil society organizations, community groups, and youth.

He is a graduate of Yerevan State University, holds a Ph.D. degree from Moscow State University in biology and an MA degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University.

Artur is a seasoned educator with over 18 years of teaching experience. Dr. Drampyan is a Senior Adjunct lecturer at the American University of Armenia in the Master of Public Affairs program. He teaches graduate courses in Public Finance and Budgeting, Environmental Policy.

Merry Fitzpatrick

Merry is a Research Assistant Professor with the Feinstein International Center here at Tufts. Her interests center on livelihoods and severe food security in conflict and post-conflict settings.  The focus of this work is on supporting local strategies that households and communities use to mitigate, cope with, and recover from the effects of conflict.  More recently, she has been studying the localization of humanitarian assistance and humanitarian research.  Although Merry has worked in most regions of the world, her research interests are primarily in central Africa around the Great Lakes and the Sahel. Merry has more than 20 years of field experience in humanitarian response. She worked with multiple humanitarian agencies, including the International Rescue Committee, GOAL Ireland, and Food for the Hungry, and finally, at World Concern she was the Relief Director and then the Senior Director for Technical Support.

Merry holds a B.S. in chemistry from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.B.A. with a concentration in international development from Hope International University, an M.Sc. in food policy and applied nutrition and a Ph.D. from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.

Artificial Intelligence is literally everywhere this year – in all sectors of policy, how we interact with each other on social media, how we write our papers (hello, ChatGPT). Yet, there is abundant skepticism around the expansion of AI. At their core, this skepticism can be traced to fears of increasing inequalities within society, locally and even globally. For instance, tech platforms deploy AI based moderation across the globe. However, AI-based moderation in Global South regions is less effective because of the lack of linguistic and cultural diversity coded into algorithms. This implies greater repercussions for the Global South as they rely on the same technology to curb hate speech, disinformation, election interference and the like.

This panel looks towards discussing these blind spots in AI policy and design. As such, it focuses on the ways in which emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence benefit from the systems that are based in coloniality. We will ask the critical question of who creates AI systems and who benefits from them, through a decolonial lens. Further, our panel will look at the future prospect of these technologies and consider how discourses surrounding decolonization of AI can be applied or if it is even necessary. As working groups and state governments embark on devising AI policies and strategies, while also actively contracting with AI companies to carry out administrative tasks, it is important to discuss these concerns now, so current and future policymaking can follow an inclusive AI-powered world.

Panelists:

Paola Ricaurte is an associate professor at the Department of Media and Digital Culture at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Together with Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejías, she co-founded Tierra Común, a network of academics, practitioners and activists interested in decoloniality and data. She participates in several expert committees, such as the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), the Global Index on Responsible AI and the Expert Group for the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. She is a member of the A Plus Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms and coordinates the Latin American and Caribbean hub of the Feminist AI Research Network, from where she promotes the development of Feminist AI. In addition to her academic work, she participates in civil society initiatives to promote the development of public interest technologies.

Simona Tiribelli, PhD is Director for AI Ethics at the Institute for Technology & Global Health (MIT-founded Pathcheck Foundation research hub), where she leads the Ethics Chapter of the AI for Outbreak focus group within the WHO-ITU AI for Health Initiative, and Assistant Professor in Ethics at the University of Macerata, where she teaches ethics of artificial intelligence and global justice and technology, and she is key person for the Jean Monnet Chair Ethics for Inclusive Digital Europe, financed by the European Commission. In 2023, she was visiting scholar in AI ethics for public health at NYU Center for Bioethics of the New York University and 2020 Fulbright Fellow at the MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her main research is in the field of moral philosophy and applied ethics, with a specific focus on digital ethics and ethics of artificial intelligence with particular reference to decolonizing AI ethics and using AI systems to promote more just and fairer societies. On these topics she published a number of scientific articles in international journals such as Ethics of Information Technology, AI & Society, Topoi, and two books: Moral Freedom in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Mimesis international 2023) and Identità personale e algoritmi (Personal identity and algorithms, Carocci 2023).

Sabelo Mhlambi is the founder of Bhala, an AI startup that democratizes the advances of AI to millions of Africans through Natural Language Processing of African languages and African visual languages. Mhlambi’s work is at the intersection of human rights, ethics, culture, and technology and emphasizes global south perspectives in AI policy. In particular, Mr Mhlambi’s research examines the human rights implications of algorithmic technology on marginalized communities and proposes a new ethical framework for governing the creation and use of Artificial Intelligence in ways that maximize social progress and harmony. His work is based on the proposition that global equity and equality cannot be achieved without a fundamental restructuring and freeing of the physical and spiritual spaces governed by coloniality and the default Euro-North America center, often veiled and perpetuated as progress and modernity. Mhlambi’s work broadens the conversation on Ethics and AI by introducing non-western frameworks for examining the effects of automated decision making technology and has been used to advise African governments on Ethical AI policy.

Trishi Jindal is a second year master’s student at The Fletcher School. She previously holds a bachelor’s in law, and has worked in the technology policy and governance space in India prior to joining Fletcher. As part of her work, she has advised Big Tech and global media companies on public policy strategies in India. She has also advised the Indian Central Government on data protection and intermediary liability laws in India as part of the team at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. She has further worked at the National Law School of India, researching on public records management and regulatory governance for the technology industry in India. At Fletcher, she is exploring privacy and artificial intelligence in the context of the Global South, with a narrower focus on government adoption of technology.

Shefali Mehta is a second year graduate student at The Fletcher School, with a focus on technology and global governance. She has an academic background in law, followed by her experiences as a legislative assistant, and a researcher in the technology policy space. She is interested in further exploring the parallels between historical colonialism and present-day digital colonialism, seeking to understand how power, privilege, and control manifest in the digital landscape.

Counterinsurgency is a concept with roots at least as far back as the days of direct colonization, typically referencing colonizing powers’ efforts to suppress rebellions, and has since evolved to capture modern day state efforts to counter extremist groups and other non-state actors.

States have adopted counterinsurgency (COIN) as a strategy and method since the days of direct colonization. The practice and term has since evolved to describe state efforts to counter extremist groups and other non-state actors. This panel will draw upon speakers’ expertise to establish a shared understanding of the roots of counterinsurgency and to draw linkages to modern purposes and practices.

Panelists:

Dr. Sima Samar is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, renowned Afghan woman’s and human rights advocate, and a globally influential female figure. Dr. Samar has dedicated her life to public service, humanitarian work and women’s empowerment. She is an activist and a social worker within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. Dr. Samar was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in December 2019. In addition to her role as a Panel member, she is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation. Previously, Dr. Samar held the positions of Special Envoy of the President of Afghanistan and State Minister for Human Rights and International Affairs. She has also served as Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), as Minister of Women’s Affairs and as one of the only two women in the transition government at that time; Vice-Chair of the Emergency Loya Jirga and as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan. Currently, Dr. Samar is a Visiting Scholar at the Fletcher School.

 

Dr. Elisabeth Leake is the Lee E. Dirks Professor in Diplomatic History and Associate Professor of History at the Fletcher School, which she joined in 2022. She studied global history at Yale University and the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in 2013. She held a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London, from 2013–16, before taking up a lectureship at the University of Leeds in 2016. Dr. Leake’s research to date has been broadly focused on the global histories of decolonization and the Cold War. Her first book, “The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936–65,” rethinks the political development of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Her second book, “Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan,” was published by Oxford University Press in 2022 and won the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations’ Robert H. Ferrell Prize in 2023. This is a new global history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 1979–89, interweaving local, regional, and international histories of the civil war of the 1980s. Dr. Leake is currently working on a global history of decolonization and developing a research network examining the comparative and interconnected histories of oppositional politics and modes of dissent in the years immediately following political independence in decolonizing states. 

 

Dr. Ben Hopkins currently serves as the Elliott School’s senior associate dean of academic affairs at George Washington University. Dr. Hopkins is a historian of modern South Asia, specializing in the history of Afghanistan and British imperialism on the Indian subcontinent. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited numerous books on the region, including  The Making of Modern Afghanistan, Fragments of the Afghan Frontier, and Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier. His latest book,  Ruling the Savage Periphery: Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State, which won the Association of Asian Studies Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize (2022), presents a global history of how the limits of today’s state-based political order were organized in the late nineteenth century, with lasting effects to the present day. He is currently working on a manuscript about the American war in Afghanistan provisionally entitled, The War that Destroyed America, as well as A Concise History of Afghanistan for Cambridge University Press. Writing for the public, Professor Hopkins has been featured in The New York Times, The National Interest, and the BBC. He regularly teaches courses on South Asian history, the geopolitics of South and Central Asia, as well as World history and the legacies of violence and memory in Asia. Professor Hopkins directed the Sigur Center for Asian Studies from 2016 until 2021. During the 2021-22 academic year, he worked in the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations.


Diana Hartford is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) candidate at the Fletcher School specializing in international security, human security, and comparative regional studies. She is interested in issues at the nexus of human security, terrorism, and insurgency. Prior to Fletcher, Diana spent four years working as a Threat Reduction Analyst in the Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation within the Office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism. In this role, she served as Country Lead for Ukraine and Kenya and led bilateral capacity efforts to support partners’ material and information security. Diana also served as Chair of the External Engagements Working Group on the Bureau’s Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Council. Prior to working with the Office of WMD Terrorism, she spent one year as a Program Assistant in the Foreign Service Institute’s School of Language Studies. Diana holds a B.A. from Duquesne University in International Relations and Integrated Marketing Communications.

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian) is an activist, radio producer and writer. She is Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses related to Indigenous studies, critical race theory, settler colonial studies and anarchist studies. Kauanui earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press 2008); Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (Duke University Press 2018); and Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders (University of Minnesota Press 2018).

Her work is widely published in a range of academic journals and edited books. Kauanui also co-edits a book series on “Critical Indigeneities” for the University of Carolina Press. She is one of the six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, established in 2008. And she is the recipient of the Western History Association’s 2022 American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Full Schedule

The Conference venue is wheelchair accessible. Virtual participants will receive a Zoom link after registration.

For event location and parking information, visit contact us page.

Keynote

Dr. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian) is an activist, radio producer and writer. She is Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses related to Indigenous studies, critical race theory, settler colonial studies and anarchist studies. Kauanui earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press 2008); Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (Duke University Press 2018); and Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders (University of Minnesota Press 2018).

Her work is widely published in a range of academic journals and edited books. Kauanui also co-edits a book series on “Critical Indigeneities” for the University of Carolina Press. She is one of the six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, established in 2008. And she is the recipient of the Western History Association’s 2022 American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award.

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