SGIA48715: Capturing and Counting Peace and Conflict

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• To investigate different methods for capturing and counting peace and conflict
• To develop and practice skills and techniques involved in the Everyday Peace Indicators
• To explore the epistemological factors that lie behind different approaches to capturing peace and conflict

• How can we capture and accurately convey peace and conflict? This module will investigate these issues ethical, methodological and practical in relation to contemporary peace and conflict. It will examine various attempts to capture peace and conflict, paying particular attention to top-down and bottom-up methodologies and the different approaches that they use. The module will culminate in a training of the Everyday Peace Indicators system and its use in a simulated exercise. Indicative module content includes: top-down indicator systems, proxy indicators systems, participative numbers, counting and not counting casualties, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding projects, survey work, gender, the interface between top-down and bottom-up indicator systems, the story and methodology of the Everyday Peace Indicators project, measuring SDG16.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will have, by the end of the module,
• developed a knowledge of contemporary approaches to data collection in relation to peace and conflict
• an appreciation of the connections (and disconnections) between top-down and bottom-up forms of knowledge in relation to peace and conflict.
• an understanding of some of the ethical issues and practicalities associated with data collection in relation to peace and conflict
• an awareness of the Everyday Peace Indicators methodology via desk-based learning and simulation

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students will, by the end of the module,
• have an advanced ability to analyse issues linked to monitoring and evaluation in relation to peace and conflict
• be empowered to design their own monitoring and evaluation tools
• be able to engage in research projects at MSc level connected to the subject of capturing and counting peace and conflict

Key Skills:

• Students will be able, by the end of the module,
• to demonstrate an ability to construct argument critically for both oral and written presentation from different sources of material, including material delivered orally and in an article review, report or policy document
• to demonstrate an independent approach to learning, critical thinking and creative problem-solving
• to use sophisticated techniques of information retrieval and management using an array of print and digital resources
• to demonstrate an ability to work cooperatively and constructively in group exercises and role plays
• to formulate complex arguments in articulate and structured English, within the discursive conventions and genres of academic writing and written to high academic standard
• to demonstrate effective time management.

• This module will be delivered in workshop style that is, it will be participatory, experiential and skills based, demonstrating theory-practice links. During the module students will be given mini-lectures, briefings and be expected to participate in small group work and presentations. Students will in teams develop their own participatory evaluation tools and pilot them. (NB. This will involve a research exercise. Ethical issues will be dealt beforehand).

The course will be heavily interactive and will include student presentations and discussions, practical exercises and role play based on case-studies and scenarios. Students will be given ongoing feedback on these exercises and will have the opportunity to seek clarification and ask further questions on the material arising from these activities throughout the course.

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