{"id":8863,"date":"2018-09-05T16:20:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=8863"},"modified":"2019-11-01T14:11:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T18:11:00","slug":"peacebuilders-with-doctorates-theorizers-not-theorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2018\/09\/peacebuilders-with-doctorates-theorizers-not-theorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Peacebuilders with Doctorates: Theorizers, not theorists"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Khadija O. Ali MA \u201801, an electoral commissioner in Mogadishu, Somalia, earned a doctorate from George Mason University in 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE EMPHASIS<\/strong> at CJP is markedly different from what graduates encounter in PhD programs.<\/p>\n

Those programs, after all, are known for work done in isolation, fierce competition and putting theory first \u2013 whereas CJP teaches peacebuilding as \u201ca team activity,\u201d said Professor Jayne Docherty<\/strong>. CJP approaches theory not as more import – ant than practice, but as a tool to inform and enrich creative and responsive practice. That means, Docherty said, that CJP students become \u201ctheorizers<\/em>, not theorists\u201d who know that \u201cno one person gets this work done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, nearly 10 percent of CJP graduates have gone on to doctoral studies \u2013 for which Docherty has a theory: \u201cWhen you\u2019re a practitioner and you attend a theoretically grounded, practice-oriented program like ours, you go back to the field and identify questions that you have to answer, problems that you just feel compelled to figure out.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 60 CJP graduates have earned or are pursuing PhDs in law, literature, theology, trauma studies, social work, political science, peace studies, security and intelligence, leadership and more, from some 40 institutions in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, South Africa and beyond.<\/p>\n

Among them are Jodi Dueck-Read MA \u201803<\/strong> and Khadija O. Ali MA \u201801<\/strong> .<\/p>\n

\u2018I LONGED FOR CJP\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Jodi Dueck-Read MA \u201803 earned her doctorate in 2016 from University of Manitoba. She teaches at Menno Simons College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and is a senior research assistant for Canadian Financial Diaries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jodi Dueck-Read earned a PhD in order to teach and research. Her doctorate, completed in 2016, is in peace and conflict studies from the Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, St. Paul\u2019s College, University of Manitoba.<\/p>\n

In years prior to her doctoral studies, Dueck-Read not only attended CJP but also worked with Mennonite Central Committee in Chile and Bolivia, where she taught conflict transformation at the Bolivian Evangelical University. In the U.S., she was program coordinator for the Zuni Avenue Peace Center and worked in migration and peacebuilding.<\/p>\n

Writing a dissertation \u2013 hers was titled \u201cTransnational Activism: Peacebuilding and Intersectional Identities in the Border Justice Movement\u201d \u2013 can be \u201ca long and lonely road,\u201d she said. PhD programs offer limited opportunities to practice, and the emphasis on publishing and competition is a \u201cdominant\u00a0paradigm even in peace programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a doctoral student, \u201cI longed for CJP,\u201d she said, where \u201cprofessors were encouraging and available.\u201d Though her PhD program\u2019s emphasis on writing and research did improve her skills, \u201cCJP\u2019s practical and lifelong connections are what peacebuilding is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

She now teaches conflict resolution studies at Menno Simons College in Winnipeg and is a senior research assistant for Canadian Financial Diaries.<\/p>\n

HIGHER EDUCATION, EXPANDING FIELD<\/h3>\n

Before attending CJP, Khadija O. Ali was a civil society and women\u2019s rights activist, community worker, and participant in both national and international conferences addressing humanitarian needs, conflict resolution and reconciliation. She also founded the Somali NGO SAACID, with the mission to \u201chelp women, children and the poor achieve their full human potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her own potential prompted her to pursue more education, and in 2001 she earned a master\u2019s degree in conflict transformation from CJP. After graduating, Ali became a parliamentarian and minister of state in the transitional national government in Somalia. As she began \u201cworking fully in peacebuilding and mediation efforts,\u201d however, she realized that \u201cthe Somali conflict was no longer local,\u201d but regional and international.<\/p>\n

A PhD was \u201cthe logical next step,\u201d she said. She finished her doctoral studies at George Mason University in 2014, writing a dissertation titled \u201cThe Role of Hegemonies within African Regional Organizations\u2019 Interventions: A Comparative Study of Nigeria in ECOWAS\u2019 Intervention in Liberia and Ethiopia in IGAD\u2019s Intervention in Somalia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore my PhD, I worked as a practitioner in community mobilization and mediation, and most of my focus was on grassroots activities,\u201d she said. Now, she serves as an electoral commissioner for Somalia\u2019s National Independent Electoral Commission in Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus shifted to policy issues and looking at the bigger picture,\u201d she said. \u201cConflict requires macro-level analysis and interventions with policies that are appropriate at all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE EMPHASIS at CJP is markedly different from what graduates encounter in PhD programs. Those programs, after all, are known for work done in isolation,… Read more about Peacebuilders with Doctorates: Theorizers, not theorists<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1073],"tags":[1546,1545],"issues":[1508],"class_list":["post-8863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-jodi-dueck-read","tag-khadija-o-ali","issues-2018-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8863"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8917,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8863\/revisions\/8917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8863"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=8863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}