{"id":4381,"date":"2025-09-24T21:19:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/?p=4381"},"modified":"2025-09-25T07:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T05:07:11","slug":"conference-the-power-of-the-local-was-held","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/conference-the-power-of-the-local-was-held\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Power of the Local” conference gathered scholars and activists dedicated to peacebuilding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Organized by the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Rijeka, the international conference The Power of the Local: Learning from local communities pursuing alternatives to inter-ethnic violence, gathering scholars and activists, <\/em>was held on Monday, September 22, 2025. Supported by the Embassy of Norway in the Republic of Croatia and under the patronage of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the conference gathered over 50 participants from around ten countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the opening remarks by the acting Vice-Rector for Science, Arts and Digitalization at the University of Rijeka, Prof. Dr. Senka Ma\u0107e\u0161i\u0107, and the Norwegian Ambassador to Croatia, H.E. Arne Sannes Bj\u00f8rnstad, the conference began with a keynote lecture by Prof. Dr. Dinka \u010corkalo entitled When the War Ends: Rebuilding Lives, Rebuilding Communities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on years of work in war-affected communities in Croatia, Dr. \u010corkalo\u2014full professor at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and a renowned  expert in social psychology and sociology of peace and conflict\u2014highlighted the immense, while often overlooked, challenges faced by war-affected communities, such as the city of Vukovar, even decades after the end of war.
“Contrary to the common saying, time alone does not heal wounds, and social dynamics in post-conflict communities tend to maintain\u2014and even reinforce\u2014ethnic divisions,” emphasized Prof. Dr. \u010corkalo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precisely because of the heavy tall paid by communities and entire societies, it is essential to prevent war as well as other forms of violence. The first panel of the conference showcased how this can be done at the local level, focusing on resistance to identity-based violence in the former Yugoslavia. Researchers from the University of Ljubljana, Dr. Faris Ko\u010dan and Dr. Rok Zupan\u010di\u010d, presented insights from their work in the community of Baljvine (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where no conflict erupted between Serb and Bosniak residents during the war, and in the town of Kamenica (Kosovo), known for its relatively peaceful Serb-Albanian coexistence. Dino \u0160akanovi\u0107, a doctoral candidate at the University of Sarajevo, spoke about commemorative practices in Tuzla, which\u2014unlike most in Bosnia and Herzegovina\u2014are largely free of nationalist overtones. Dr. Valentina Otma\u010di\u0107 from the University of Rijeka presented the case of the Gorski Kotar region, where the local community, even during the 1991\u20131995 war, demonstrated that \u201ctheir intolerance is directed solely toward the war,\u201d as local Serbs and Croats wisely maintained cooperation and peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second panel highlighted examples of resistance to violence from Israel\/Palestine, Pakistan, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland. Isabela dos Santos, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, presented key findings from her research on the Wahat al-Salam \/ Neve Shalom community, where Jewish and Arab residents have lived together for decades.
Ahmadullah Archiwal, a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, spoke about the nonviolent struggle of women in Balochistan, a region that spans parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Loizos Kapsalis from the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) in Nicosia discussed the role of history education in overcoming ethnic divisions in Cyprus, while Sean Byers from the organization Trademark Belfast talked about the economic drivers of conflict in Northern Ireland and the role of class struggle and trade unions in peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final part of the conference, participants reflected on the key insights triggered by the presentations and discussed potential concrete actions for the academic, political, and activist communities. Among other points, they emphasized the need to better document and promote examples of good practices at the local level and to formally recognize the individuals involved. The importance of local leadership in fostering nonviolent environments was recognized, as was the need to address the structural causes of war and violence. Finally, participants agreed that it is crucial to move beyond the usual habit of finger-pointing and shifting blame by taking personal responsibility and actively contributing to peacebuilding at all levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organized by the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Rijeka, the international conference The Power of the Local: Learning from local communities pursuing alternatives to inter-ethnic violence, gathering scholars and activists, was held on Monday, September 22, 2025. Supported by the Embassy of Norway in the Republic of Croatia and under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,69,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-advocacy-networking-community","category-nekategorizirano"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Konfa-mir1-scaled.jpeg","author_info":{"display_name":"Mario \u017duli\u010dek","author_link":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/author\/mario-zulicek\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4381"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4386,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions\/4386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmk.uniri.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}