Center for Peace and Development

Co-directors Sara Ann "Sally " Beach, professor of literacy education & Grant Family Presidential Professor, Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, and John Harris, assistant professor and director of regional and city planning, Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture

The Center for Peace and Development is an interdisciplinary center committed to knowledge creation and community-based participatory action and research in post-conflict communities. The overarching goal is to play a meaningful role in transformative peacebuilding, understood as an intersectional approach to confronting race, gender and class oppressions in conflict-affected communities. Peacebuilding is a long-term, multifaceted, grassroots effort. While CPD’s primary programs are in northern Uganda, CPD also works with partners globally towards transformative peace, and as a catalyst at OU for ongoing critical dialogue.

In 2020, both CPD and our global partners had to adjust to working in the pandemic. The Grassroots Women’s Peacebuilding Conference, held annually in Gulu, Uganda, where CPD is a member of a local consortium or grassroots organizations, was canceled for both 2020 and 2021. Similarly, the CPD had to cancel the June education abroad programs.

Nonetheless, 2020 was a momentous year for CPD. The center was invited to join the Security in Context group, a global network of universities and individuals engaged in a North-South dialogue around critical questions of peace and conflict and the political economy of security. Through this partnership, CPD was awarded a $175,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to further its goals, especially growing ties to global partners and creating opportunities for learning at OU.

Throughout the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021, CPD has hosted multiple events bringing together scholars and activists to interact virtually with the wider OU community. Activities include a discussion on women, human rights and insecurity with Izabela Steflja of Tulane University; an event, “Self-Devouring Growth, ” with Julie Livingston of NYU; “Mega Dams and Human Insecurity in East Africa, ” a talk by anthropology professor Edward Stevenson of Durham University; and a roundtable on “genocide and healing” with five contributors to an edited volume Art From Trauma. Additionally, the center has added three new graduate research fellows and has established multidisciplinary faculty working groups on multipolarity and on financialization.