Lives Amid Violence: A Conversation with Mareike Schomerus
2023-05-09 12:30 - 13:30 UTC | The Keller Center, Sky Suite, 1307 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, United States

Workshop: Changing Mental Models in International Conflict Engagement
2023-09-11 09:00 - 12:30 UTC | King’s College
Mental Models in International Conflict Engagement
International engagement in situations of violent conflict—or in the presumed aftermath—sets these situations up for a never-ending violent path. The most recent and painful examples of this are events in Myanmar and Sudan, with the situation rapidly deteriorating in other places, for example Tunisia. That international engagement has a part to play in the return to violence is a bold claim, but one that a decade of a major research consortium (the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium SLRC), which conducted longitudinal empirical multi-method work in eight conflict-affected countries, supports.
In book Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict (Bloomsbury 2023, open access), Mareike Schomerus (who was one of the SLRC’s research directors) shows why a new mental model that underpins international engagement is required. Mental models, a concept rooted in behavioural science, are the fundamental short cuts that all humans use to make sense of the world around them, to establish the causality that seems plausible to them, and to shape their engagement. This interactive workshop is designed following behavioural learning principles and is particularly aimed at peacebuilding practitioners and programme designers (and welcomes researchers) and offers two related trainings:
1. It breaks down the empirical research that shows the flawed mental model in action (for example by showing how an economic growth models overlooks how social economies really work, how violence can often be the least disruptive element of lives in conflict situations, to what extent the invisible elements of the so-called ‘the mental landscape’ are the most important parts to pay attention to, and how current understandings of identity and identity-based targeting of populations obscure the burdens of categorisation.
2. It then offers an interactive introduction to understanding how mental models are created, how they link to the latest research in behavioural science and how this can be put to use in understanding and engaging in conflict situations. It elaborates how a mental model revision (and the challenges this poses) allows unpacking the underpinning beliefs, imagery, metaphors and ideologies that stand in the way of more constructive engagement.
Upon concluding this workshop, participants will be able to
– Recognize basic concepts in behavioural science, including mental models;
– differentiate between standard and behavioural approaches as applied in the analysis of or the engagement in situations of violent conflict;
– articulate the specifics of common mental models in conflict engagement;
– critique the mental models that profoundly shape peacebuilding or conflict-engagement work; and
– Have a better understanding of the implications of the UN’s commitment to mainstream behavioural science in all its programmes.

The problem with bricks: Statebuilding and mental models
2023-09-13 09:00 - 10:30 UTC | King’s College
Conflict Research Society Conference 2023
Panel 4F – S3.30
Rethinking the Process: New Approaches to Peacebuilding
Chair: Meredith Carbonell
● Paper 1: Ali Altiok, Artificial Intelligence and Peacemaking
● Paper 2: Meredith Carbonell, Mediation After Mass Atrocities
● Paper 3: Isabel Philips, Dispute, the state and commercial actors: Mandating mediation for others vs using it yourself
● Paper 4: Mareike Schomerus, The problem with bricks: Statebuilding and mental models

Book Launch Nairobi: Lives Amid Violence Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict
2023-11-30 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow) | British Institute in East Africa, Laikipia Road, Kileleshwa, Nairobi, Kenya
On 30 November 2023, the Rift Valley Forum, in collaboarion with the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) and the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA) in Nairobi, will launch a book by Mareike Schomerus, titled Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict. Drawing on a decade of research across eight countries by the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, the book challenges traditional approaches to development in conflict contexts.
Schomerus argues that, in conflict situations, violence may be the least disruptive element in people’s lives. It is the invisible elements of what she calls ‘the mental landscape’ that are the most important parts to pay attention to, such as memories and narratives.
The author questions the idea that state legitimacy can be achieved through service delivery. Instead, she advocates for a genuine shift towards more creative cooperation, emphasizing an empirically-grounded relational approach that prioritises relationships over everything else and a profound questioning not only of international development practices but also of the underlying beliefs, imagery, metaphors, and ideologies.
Moderator
Asha Jaffer
Speakers
Mareike Schomerus
Author & Vice President, Busara Center
Leben Moro
University of Juba
Patrick Milabyo
Bukavu High Institute of Medical Technique
Michael Onsando
Poet
Register here.

Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict
2023-12-06 17:30 - 19:00 UTC | Room S209, Senate House, SOAS, London
International engagement in situations of violent conflict—or in the presumed aftermath—sets these situations up for a never-ending violent path. This is a bold claim, but one that a decade of a major research consortium (the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium), which conducted longitudinal empirical multi-method work in eight conflict-affected countries, supports. In Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict (Bloomsbury, 2023), Mareike Schomerus sets out a vision for what international engagement in situations of violent conflict needs to look like. The book posits that what is required is a new mental model to underpins international engagement that moves away from stabilization, statebuilding and economic growth policies towards emphasising the invisible elements of what the author calls ‘the mental landscape’ and an empirically-grounded relational approach. This requires a deep questioning of not just the practices of international development, but the underpinning beliefs, imagery, metaphors and ideologies.
The book is available open access at www.transformingdevelopment.org.

Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict
2024-02-01 13:45 - 15:00 (Europe/Paris) | University of Gothenburg, University of Gothenburg School of Global Studies, Institutionen för globala studier, Sweden

Book Talk: Lives Amid Violence
2024-02-15 12:00 - 13:30 UTC | School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict
2024-02-20 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | George Mason University, 3434 Washington Boulevard, Floor 5, Suite 5000, Room 5183, Arlington, VA, United States

World Bank Fragility Forum: Unseen Forces: Realizing Resilience through Behaviors and Connections
2024-02-28 13:30 - 14:30 UTC | World Bank
This session, hosted by Busara, explores the frontier edges of resilience research and thinking (particularly as it relates to peacebuilding) through a conceptually stimulating discussion that explicitly challenges our mental and institutional models. Resilience to conflict and violence has become a prominent concept in programming. Yet is often unseen, contextually- and culturally specific, and difficult to accurately measure. Resilience in situations of fragility emerges through what people actually do: how they interact, the choices they make based on the resources they have at their disposal, and the behaviors those choices and relationships create. In addition, resilience is aided or hindered by societies’ functioning, and by the trust that exists between different groups and communities. Understanding this relational and ‘doing’ aspect of resilience is fundamental to operationalising more targeted approaches to support it, and to prevent undermining it. Throughout this session, speakers will address some of the principles of a relational and processual approach to resilience and what the implications of this are for development actors who seek to support resilience in complex environments.
Moderator:
Michael Woolcock, World Bank and Harvard University
Speakers:

Patrick Barron, Global Lead for Social Cohesion and Resilience, World Bank
Sara Batmanglich, Senior Operations Officer – Strategy & Analytics, Resilience and FCV, World Bank
Lucy Rist, University of Southern Denmark
Mareike Schomerus, Vice President, Busara; author of Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict (2023).
