UNU-GEST Staff, Associated Researcher and a Fellow talk at the Conference of Humanities 2017

UNU-GEST staff members, Erla Hlín Hjálmarsdóttir, and Dr. Pétur Waldorff; Dr. Giti Chandra, an associated researcher and the fellow Ekram Osman from Ethiopia will participate in the seminar called “Discrimination, justice and the role of humanities” at the University of Iceland as a part of the Humanities’ Conference 2017. The seminar sets out to explore the global challenges faced by humanity, such as gender inequality, inadequate education, effects of climate change and access to clean water, from the perspective of humanities and asks how this perspective can contribute to increasing justice and equality around the world.

Dr. Chandra will talk about the imagery of violence that surrounds us daily, effecting the world around us as well as our perceptions of it. She will present us with some examples embedded in a theoretical framework, which will allow these examples to extend to a more general comprehension of the issues at work in their production and consumption.

Erla Hjálmasdóttir in her presentation will explore historical and institutional perspectives are applied to examine present day supply of water in rural Namibia. She will discuss the notion of water as a fee commodity, the origins of this notion and its implications it has for community-based management.

Dr. Pétur Waldorff will talk about the diverse complexities of development research and representations of complex socio-economic variables that are important to understand and acknowledge for development interventions to succeed and become sustainable. Empirical examples are provided from fieldwork in Tanzania where piracy, human trafficking and sex work, among other factors became involved.

Ekram Osman will inquire whether Machiavelli’s work transcend the late medieval times, in which he lived and worked. The UNU-GEST fellow claims that the thinker stood out from the norm and the traditional thinking in the medieval Europe. Ekram will discuss Maciavelli‘s modern (for his time) political ideas on power relations, rights, obligations and hierarchies.

The seminar will take place on Saturday, the 11th of March from 13:00 to 16.30, in the Festival Room (Hátíðasalur) of the Main Building of the University of Iceland. The seminar will be held in English, it is free and open to public, and we encourage all friends of UNU-GEST and those interested in global challenge for equality and justice to drop by.