Dr. Lisa Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Professor of the Practice in Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, will be the first speaker in the Horizons of Change luncheon series, hosted by Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute. (Courtesy photo)

Lisa Schirch to speak on decolonializing peacebuilding at Summer Peacebuilding Institute

Lisa Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Professor of the Practice in Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, will be the first speaker in the Horizons of Change luncheon series, hosted by Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute. Schirch is a former professor at EMU. Read more about Dr. Schirch.

The lecture series featuring experts in the peacebuilding and conflict resolutions fields is an annual tradition at SPI, which draws several hundred peacebuilders from around the world to take courses for both professional development and academic courses. SPI is a program of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Schirch will speak Wednesday, May 18, from 12:30-2:30 p.m. in the Dining Hall at EMU. Cost is $20 for community members and $15 for EMU faculty and staff. Email dsilvam@emu.edu to reserve your seat. The deadline to reserve is Monday, May 16. 

Her topic will be “Decolonializing Peacebuilding.” “Decolonising agendas” are emerging in the fields of humanitarian aid, development, anthropology, sociology and many other facets of life, including peacebuilding. Decolonialism refers to the process of undoing colonial worldviews, institutions and impacts. 

Schirch will analyze how the peacebuilding field can respond to the profound sense of chaos and unpredictability in today’s world by addressing the colonial distortions of governance, economy and society. Schirch will talk about how a decolonizing agenda for peace can help us respond to a global set of interacting “ meta calamities” (the pandemic, climate change and weaponisable technologies) as well as rising economic inequality and mass migration, accelerating polarisation and extremism, and urgent demands for racial justice and an end to gender-based violence.

Subsequent lectures will be

Cost is $20 for community members and $15 for EMU faculty and staff. Email dsilvam@emu.edu to reserve your seat no later than the Monday before each event.