{"id":13428,"date":"2012-07-20T11:38:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T15:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=13428"},"modified":"2012-07-31T14:21:33","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T18:21:33","slug":"emu-prof-pauses-dialogue-with-military-to-do-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2012\/emu-prof-pauses-dialogue-with-military-to-do-art\/","title":{"rendered":"EMU Prof Pauses Dialogue With Military To Do Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One might reasonably expect <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/personnel\/people\/show\/schirchl\">Lisa Schirch<\/a>, a research professor with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/cjp\/\">EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP)<\/a>, to believe that the best the American military can do in Afghanistan is simply get out of Afghans\u2019 way as they rebuild their country. That American military and diplomatic leaders would be calling her regularly, eager to learn more about her perspective on the matter, however, comes as more of a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>As the founder and director of <a href=\"http:\/\/3phumansecurity.org\/site\/\">3P Human Security<\/a>, Schirch has worked for the past seven years to encourage U.S. government agencies to protect humanitarian space while embracing conflict prevention and peacebuilding principles. The project has progressed rapidly over the past year, as her strong relationships with military and civilian leaders have resulted in invitations to teach civil society peacebuilding concepts nearly weekly at the Pentagon, West Point, the U.S. Army War College and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe quantity and quality of our relationships with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.state.gov\/\">U.S. State Department<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usaid.gov\/\">USAID<\/a>, [the] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/\">Department of Defense<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.state.gov\/m\/fsi\/\">Foreign Service Institute<\/a> grew exponentially during the last year,\u201d Schirch wrote this spring in a report for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rbf.org\/\">Rockefeller Brothers Foundation<\/a>, a funder of 3P\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, Schirch also taught a course on Afghan civil society to nearly 1,000 foreign service officers, published several reports and book chapters for government audiences, and testified before Congress. Schirch noted that while she\u2019s developed close relationships with American military and diplomatic leaders, she does not support many of the policies they now pursue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBuilding relationships is an essential part of peacebuilding,\u201d she says. \u201cThe most important negotiations and diplomacy happen with people you disagree with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schirch founded 3P (which stands for Partners for Peacebuilding Policy) Human Security during a sabbatical in 2005, after exploring ways that CJP could relate to policy-makers in Washington, D.C. She recognized opportunity to engage both the peace community, which often was simply opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without offering viable alternatives, as well as the military, which was flailing in its attempts at \u201cstate-building\u201d in those countries.<\/p>\n<p>In the years since, 3P has worked with other peace organizations to better define and understand \u201csecurity\u201d while working with the military to imagine alternatives to the way it has carried out its missions overseas. While her short-term goal with 3P is to persuade the military and state department to recognize, support and protect the ability of Afghans and Iraqis to rebuild their own countries, her long-term goals are grander in scope.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to conceive of \u2018security\u2019 in a totally new way,\u201d Schirch says. This involves exploring what the concept of \u201csecurity\u201d means to people, what conditions are necessary for them to experience it, and how \u2013 or if \u2013 the military has a role in creating or protecting those conditions. These exercises then lead to bigger questions about pacifism, and whether the use of force is an appropriate intervention during security crises, and what kind of force, exactly, would be appropriate. A related set of questions involves what sorts of changes to the country\u2019s budgetary priorities and military-industrial complex would allow the military to embrace peacekeeping rather than aggression as its primary role \u2013 all work that has proven both exciting and exhausting for Schirch over the past seven years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLisa helped shape the thinking of a lot of people who are in Afghanistan and Iraq on the role that indigenous civil society groups can play in facilitating conflict prevention or stabilization,\u201d says <a href=\"http:\/\/idsinternational.net\/john-agoglia\">John Agoglia<\/a>, vice-president for operations and government services with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.idsinternational.net\/\">IDS International<\/a>, a national security consulting firm. \u201cShe is definitely one of the innovators [in that field].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Agoglia is a retired U.S. Army colonel who directed the Army\u2019s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute in Pennsylvania and the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. He has worked with Schirch for years, both as an officer and a civilian.<\/p>\n<p>After operating under the structure of CJP since 2005, 3P shifted its organizational affiliation as of July 1, 2012, to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org\/\">Alliance for Peacebuilding<\/a>, a coalition of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/peacebuilding\/\">peacebuilding<\/a> practitioners based in Washington, D.C. While grant funding for 3P\u2019s work will now flow through the Alliance for Peacebuilding rather than CJP, there will be no practical change to Schirch\u2019s role and presence at EMU, where she will remain based as a research professor. She will also continue to teach one class each year at its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/cjp\/spi\/\">Summer Peacebuilding Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Through October 2012, Schirch is taking an unpaid sabbatical to focus on rest and renewal. She is pursuing her interest in the visual arts as the artist-in-residence at CJP. She hopes her example will help to \u201cnormalize\u201d rest-taking and breaks in a field where people \u201call talk about self-care a lot, but don\u2019t do a very good job of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you work in war zones, you lose people who you work with,\u201d she says. \u201cGrief and trauma are a part of working to build peace in places where there is great tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She also said the experience of developing strong working relationships with military leaders, with whom she still holds sharply divergent convictions about war, violence and justice, has become a mounting stress she hopes to alleviate during her sabbatical.<\/p>\n<p>Schirch\u2019s art itself will have a dual \u201c3P\u201d motif, both in its media \u2013\u00a0painting, photography and pottery \u2013 and subject matter \u2013\u00a0parenting, parks and poetry. Her sabbatical will culminate with an art show on campus that will open on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeauty is the opposite of violence, and that\u2019s the theme of my art show,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One might reasonably expect Lisa Schirch, a research professor with EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), to believe that the best the American military can do in Afghanistan is <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2012\/emu-prof-pauses-dialogue-with-military-to-do-art\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about EMU Prof Pauses Dialogue With Military To Do Art<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":13431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,5583,12503,5642,264,5623],"tags":[17244,14429,17236,14430,8407,17235],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-13428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-campus-community","category-cjp","category-faculty-and-staff","category-graduate-programs","category-special-programs","tag-3p-human-security","tag-alliance-for-peacebuilding","tag-cjp","tag-ids-international","tag-lisa-schirch","tag-spi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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