Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2016 15:30 - 17:00
PAPER SESSION 6 / PECHA KUCHA SESSIONS
contributions. Not only are many war-torn states poor to begin with, but war itself often degrades their economic
capacity. In response past scholars have turned their attention to “symbolic” reparations (a clearly inferior substitute),
but more recently both scholars and practitioners have promoted processes of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as key mechanisms to provide socio-economic restitution to aggrieved communities
in ‘under-developed’ states. This paper explores one such project to investigate whether such processes can address
local needs for dignity and justice during difficult post-conflict transitions. The paper presents findings from 6 months
of fieldwork evaluating the local experiences of a large bio-energy project in rural Sierra Leone and focuses on how
locals in twelve villages experience the project and whether economic opportunities made available by this project can
provide the reparative effects the government has failed to provide since the end of the war. The paper asks; when all
the usual mechanisms of socio-economic justice fail to result in what local people consider just, can the provision of
opportunity and a chance at recovery fill that need?
Victimisation and Attitudes Towards Amnesties: Northern Ireland as a Case Study
Brewer, J., Hayes, B.
(Queen's University Belfast)
At the heart of efforts to bring about reconciliation in transitional post-conflict societies is the question of how to deal
with the needs and rights of ex-combatants as well as address the suffering that they have inflicted on others in the
past. The resolution of this issue is often considered the litmus test of a successful peace endeavour. It is now
recognised that restorative forms of justice, such as granting of amnesty to ex-combatants, are a crucial component
for the successful transition to a peaceful society. In fact, the granting of amnesties has now moved centre stage as
the most frequently used transitional justice mechanism for societies emerging from conflict. Yet, to date, the views of
victims concerning such arrangements remains largely explored. It is with this omission in mind and using Northern
Ireland as a case study, that this paper investigates the relationship between victimisation and attitudes towards
amnesties.
Between Entrenchment, Reform and Transition: Ethnicity and Lebanon’s Consociational Democracy
Nagle, J.
(University of Aberdeen)
Consociationalism has become a major mechanism for managing conflict after civil war. Proponents argue that a
period of consociational influence will contribute to the erosion of ethnic cleavages and even a society where ethnicity
is depoliticized. Critics, however, are sceptical of this claim and argue that consociationalism institutionalizes ethnic
identities and stymies the transition to a healthy democracy. In response, proponents outline a liberal model of
consociationalism which limits the predetermination of ethnicity in social and political structures. Yet, problematically,
consociations in postwar societies often provide guarantees of ethnic representation in order to entice belligerents to
abandon violence for democracy. This issue of transitioning from a corporate consociation to a more liberal form is
largely underexplored. This paper examines this conundrum by examining contemporary Lebanese consociationalism.
Although Lebanon’s consociationalism was meant to be a temporary arrangement until political sectarianism was
abolished, consociationalism is deeply embedded and has left state institutions fragile. The paper explores various
debates to entrench, reform or transform Lebanese consociationalism. Through qualitative interviews with political
elites and civil society activists, the paper analyses how these subjects conceptualize ethnicity in contrasting ways
which generate different approaches to consociationalism but which ultimately frustrate meaningful reform.
Science and Technology Studies
W525, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
SOCIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY
After decades of “mutual antagonism” (Benton 1991), there have been signs since the dawn of the twenty first century
that we are moving towards new terrain in the relationship between the social and life sciences. Whilst many
sociologists had traditionally dismissed bio-social science as both reductionist and a conservative project at odds with
their progressive values, influential life scientists had despaired at what they saw as a wilful ignorance of biology in
social science. In recent years, however, both sides have been questioning their earlier assumptions. After the false
dawn of the Human Genome Project and the failure of some efforts to encourage sociologists to take up Darwinian
explanatory tools, fields like neuroscience, epigenetics, and synthetic biology have attracted significant attention not
only for what they might bring to social science but also the idea that biology might be becoming more social. This
215 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University