Finding facts in a "post-fact" world

We are repeatedly told that we live in a “post-truth” or “post-fact” world, but of course all that really means is that politicians are constantly lying to us and that many people make their political choices based on lies rather than evidence. (Actually, rather than “post-truth” I prefer Professor Harry Frankfurt’s notion of Bullshit, which I insist my students brush up on.) For those of us who live in the real world, facts still matter. Whether people are tortured, suffer domestic violence, have enough to eat, or live in a healthy environment are objectively verifiable through fact-finding.

Earlier this month I was in Istanbul for a training event organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The aim was to develop fact-finding skills among investigators from national human rights institutions from Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Many human rights bodies are not as good at fact-finding as they might be. Capacity assessments of national human rights institutions (that is, Ombudsman institutions and human rights commissions) repeatedly find that they lack skills, experience and trained personnel to conduct investigations and research. UNDP asked me to develop a training syllabus covering various aspects of human rights fact-finding. The Istanbul workshop was a first opportunity to pilot this training package.

One of the weaknesses of NHRI fact-finding is that much of it is built around a complaints-handling model, a legacy of the Ombudsman role that many of these institutions play. Typically, fact-finding in this context consists of little more than shuffling papers, rather than any attempt to visit the scene of alleged human rights violations in order to gather material evidence or testimony from witnesses. I found myself repeatedly encouraging participants to get out from behind their desks (a message that was well-received, I have to say).

Something that has increased the urgency of developing fact-finding skills, as well as encouraging NHRI investigators to leave their desks, has been the increasing involvement of human rights institutions in investigating conflict. Just over a year ago, there was a global gathering of NHRIs in Kyiv, at the instigation of the Ukrainian Ombudsman and with the support of the UNDP. The Ukrainian institution has faced considerable obstacles in fulfilling its mandate when part of the country is in conflict and under foreign occupation. The Kyiv declaration, adopted by this group of NHRIs, lays down some important principles for human rights work in conflict.

NHRI engagement in conflict work is divided into three distinct phases, all of which have important implications for fact-finding. Aside from the challenges of working in situations where there is actual fighting, NHRIs also need to be active in identifying human rights issues that might serve as early warning of impending conflict. And many European NHRIs now find themselves dealing with the aftermath of conflict, particularly in their work to protect refugees and internally displaced persons.

Several of the NHRIs represented at the Istanbul workshop had experience of working in active conflict environments (or in situations such as Georgia, Azerbaijan or Moldova, in which conflict has been frozen into a status quo where the authority of the NHRI does not extend to the entire national territory). Many more have worked with refugees. In the western Balkans especially, NHRIs have had an honourable role in refugee protection over the past couple of years – a positive outcome at a time when xenophobic sentiments often seem so overwhelming in the region. In fact, Balkan NHRIs have a fairly long history of supranational cooperation. In the aftermath of the wars of the 1990s, Ombudsman institutions were often the only national bodies talking to each other across borders, even if the contacts were usually informal. This tradition continues across the several borders along the “Balkan route” followed by refugees who cross the Aegean into Greece.

Monitoring the rights of refugees entails a series of skills covered in Istanbul, including how to conduct a visit to a closed institution such as an immigration detention centre and how to interview people who have experienced trauma.

Once the training package is completed, the materials will be publicly available and UNDP will be organizing further training activities to support NHRIs at the national level.

CENDEP at the UN – and the importance of investigative interviewing

Richard Carver and Lisa Handley write:

Last week was a hectic one for us, in New York for the US launch of our book Does Torture Prevention Work? We are fairly certain that this is the first publication by CENDEP researchers to be discussed at the United Nations General Assembly (though no doubt our colleagues will correct us if we are wrong).

The story began on Monday, when the American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Association for the Prevention of Torture, which funded the research, hosted two discussions of the book – one a closed expert panel and the other a public meeting. This was the same format as the launch in London in September. The New York expert meeting was attended by two of the three UN anti-torture mandate holders, Jens Modvig, chairperson of the Committee Against Torture, and Sir Malcolm Evans, chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Prevention of Torture. The third mandate holder, Juan Méndez, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, spoke at the public meeting.

The following day, all three experts presented their respective reports to the General Assembly. It was enormously gratifying for us when Dr Modvig mentioned our book and the importance of our findings in introducing his report.

Professor Méndez’s report focused on the need for a new international protocol on investigative interviewing by law enforcement officials. His reasoning, which corresponds precisely to one of the key conclusions of our research, is that reduced reliance on confession evidence in criminal investigations is likely to lead to a decrease in the incidence of torture and other ill-treatment of suspects. Professor Méndez hosted a side meeting at the UN to promote the idea of the interviewing protocol and, once again, we were pleased at the obvious impact of our findings, with highly complimentary comments from both the Special Rapporteur himself and Mark Kelly of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, where we had presented our findings a few months ago.

However, we are sure our thunder was stolen by Asbjorn Rachlew, the Norwegian police superintendent who interviewed Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right terrorist who murdered 77 people in 2011. When Breivik was arrested, he told police that there were other active terrorist units primed to launch further attacks – the classic “ticking bomb” scenario that is often used to justify torture. Dr Rachlew also indicated that there were some murmurings from more traditional officers when he, a young officer with a PhD in psychology, was appointed to lead the investigation. Using investigative interviewing rather than coercion, Dr Rachlew and his team quickly established that there was no “ticking bomb.” And, of course, they secured Breivik’s conviction.

There is solid research behind the rationale for an interviewing protocol and already a degree of interest from some police services. One of the things that we observed in our research on torture prevention was that police and other law officers respond best to training that enhances their professional skills, rather than simply offering “thou shalt not” prohibitions on torture.

Our years of field research on the issue mean that we have no illusions that words in the UN building in New York will readily translate into increased protection against torture on the ground. However, similar approaches have worked in the past with the investigation of arbitrary killings (the Minnesota Protocol) and torture (Istanbul Protocol) and we hope the proposed protocol on investigative interviewing becomes a reality before too long.

(photo by Ben Buckland/APT)

Does torture prevention work?

Richard Carver writes:
“Yes” is the short answer, which will save you ploughing through the 670-odd pages of Lisa Handley’s and my new book. Of course, the actual answer is slightly more complicated (since there are some torture prevention measures that really don’t work) but this first multi-country study has come up with a clear finding of the importance of detention safeguards in preventing torture. This means that ensuring detainees are only held in official custody, are allowed to notify their family of their arrest, have access to an independent lawyer and doctor, and are brought promptly before a judge will all significantly reduce the risk of torture.

The book brings together research from 12 country research teams, as well as quantitative data from a total of 16 countries across a 30-year period. This video explains more about the methods we used and what we found. Over at International Law Observer I have written a series of three blog posts discussing the findings (the first two posts are already online here and here).

The most exciting part is that this is a piece of academic research that really could influence practice. Lisa and I have presented our findings to a British government Wilton Park conference, the UN Sub-committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture, as well as to conferences in Norway, the Netherlands, Mexico and Oxford. I have been consulted by the medical NGO Freedom from Torture as part of their strategic planning process and the Association for the Prevention of Torture (who funded the research) have already incorporated our findings into their strategic plan.

With launch events planned this year for London, Washington DC (hosted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture), Geneva, Vienna, Kyrgyzstan and South Africa, there is a real possibility of using the lessons of the research to influence government policy, as well as informing the strategies of anti-torture campaigners.

DEP graduates found Refugee Youth Service in The Jungle, Calais

Jonny Willis and Ben Teuten inside the Jungle camp at Calais. Photograph by Felix Clay for the Guardian

Ben Teuten and Jonny Willis (DEP 2014/15) write, We have in the year succeeding our Masters at Oxford Brookes University in Development and Emergency Practice, founded Refugee Youth Service (RYS), the leading agency for child protection in the Calais camp nicknamed ‘The Jungle’.

We decided to go to the Jungle to volunteer for six weeks. Once there we noticed neglect in support for teenage boys and with the help of another young man, Aske Kreilgaard, set up ‘Baloo’s Youth Centre’. In the ensuing months ‘Baloo’s Youth Centre’ has evolved into the ‘Refugee Youth Service’ as the organisation has expanded its work and reach.

The cornerstone of the organisation is the Youth Centre itself that acts as a safe, protective environment for 10 – 18 year olds in the camp, where they can come and relax away from daily stress and adult influence. Originally started as just a safe space, our service soon branched out to incorporate both sports and education. In November 2015 we founded a football team nicknamed ‘Jungle United’ by the youth and were soon holding football matches three times a week with their latest opponents being Fulham Boys School in May 2016.

Education quickly followed as the Service began to provide schooling from three times a week to one hour a day for boys who had not been to school in over a year. We are increasing this further by developing the programme with the help of our educational coordinator who plans to collaborate with other schools in the camp to ensure one-to-one teaching is available all day every day for those who want it.

A large part of Refugee Youth Service’s work occurs outside of the Youth Centre. In December 2015, we created and developed a tracking and monitoring system that allows us to check up on individual boys week in, week out to ensure they are safe and emotionally stable. We have since expanded this as the role of the Service has moved increasingly into the child protection. With up to 150 youth in the system, the tracking and monitoring notifies the Service when one individual needs extra support.

Acting as a referral network, we coordinate with the specialists in that field to ensure that the child is given the best support available. As well as this, the tracking and monitoring also notifies us when one child has left the Jungle. The team then attempts to contact the missing individual to ensure that they are safe. If no contact is made, we work alongside the French authorities to file a missing persons report. This is vital as the children in the camp have gone ‘under the radar’ so to speak and the state is often unaware of their presence, thus neglecting their protection.

RYS are now also working in coordination with the legal teams in the camp to aid the youth in family reunification when appropriate. As well as this, we are working alongside the French asylum system to aid those wishing to settle in France, which involves weekly visits to accommodation centres in the Pas-de-Calais to provide the youth with additional support.

It is an incredibly exciting time for us as the organisation has evolved rapidly in the six-months it has been around. RYS is now the leading agency for child protection in the Calais camp and the team has expanded from the original three to eight international volunteers and two community members, with a third expected in the near future. As well as this, we have partnered with Medecins Sans Frontières to create a ‘youth only’ area in the North of Camp that will hold the Youth Centre as well as an educational space and psychological and legal centres.

Although recent violence has postponed this move it is still expected to go ahead in the coming weeks. Finally, RYS is looking to replicate its Calais service in the La Liniere Camp in Dunkirk. Currently in its embryonic stage, our team aim to develop the support systems needed there to aid social development and protect the young people from the dangers that they face daily.

Emergency Buildings for Gaza and Nepal

Charles Parrack is a guest lecturer at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales for their short course on humanitarian architecture

http://blog.cat.org.uk/2016/06/15/emergency-buildings-gaza-nepal/

The Shed Space Collaboration

'Shed Space' model garden scene designed by Jeni Burnell and Patrick Stimpson

SHED SPACE is an art exhibition that will take place at Arts and the Old Fire Station in central Oxford from Friday 20 May until Saturday 2 July 2016. 

CENDEP's Jeni Burnell and Brookes' alumni Patrick Stimpson are co-founders and directors of the Oxford architectural practice Space Program Ltd. They created Shed Space to celebrate the humble garden shed and its role in creative industries, past and present. 

A full-size garden shed with a living roof will be built in the gallery. Inside the shed will be an elaborate scale model of a garden scene. The sheds contained within the model are a mix of realistic and whimsical architectural designs. Using mirrors, the scene stretches to infinity making the full-size shed appear larger on the inside then out. The work plays with architectural space-making by deliberately confusing scale and turning spaces 'inside out'. 

Several of the miniature shed designs have a developmental theme in keeping with CENDEP's focus. ‘Beds in Sheds’ highlights rouge landlords in Oxfordshire who build unlawful shed housing with the aim of taking advantage of vulnerable people and profiting from their misfortune. 

'Beds in Sheds' by Jeni Burnell

With worldwide displacement of people due to war and persecution at an all time high (United Nations),‘Suitcase Shed’ explores the chaos and transitional nature of migration. It was designed Mick Scott who is an architect and associate lecturer in the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes. His MPhil research, carried out in association with CENDEP, concerns 'Sustainable Spatial Strategies in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine towards Conflict Transformation, Resilience, and Resistance.' 

'Suitcase Shed' by Mick Scott

The whimsical sheds were created by art and architecture students from Oxford Brookes. They include a ‘Sweetie Shed’ designed by architecture and DEP student Katie Reilly. She defines her shed as; “An edible escape for children in a yummy playhouse at the bottom of the garden where imagination runs wild and friendships blossom”.

'Sweetie Shed' by architecture student Katie Reilly

Other sheds include ‘Bike Shed’ made from reclaimed and recycled bicycle parts including chains, cogs and spokes. ‘Nature Shed’ inspiring quiet contemplation under a canopy of woven willow while 'Music Shed' creates a lively and light band rehearsal space within the confines of ‘home sweet home’.

'Bike Shed' by architecture student George Williams

'Music Shed' by art student Eleanor Monk

'Nature Shed' by art student Dominika Muza

Shed Space is part of Arts and the Old Fire Station's ‘Making Spaces’ Programme and will include a series of 2-day ‘Meet the Maker’ artist residencies, including wire crafting, drawing, textiles, furniture design, and basket making, taking place within the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition. The artists will display their work in the exhibition and run a series of public workshops as part of their residencies. 

Shed Space has been great fun to develop and build. We hope that people visiting the exhibition will enjoy exploring the shed designs and the other artworks on display and feel inspired to make something fun in their garden sheds this summer! 

Jeni Burnell

Research Associate, CENDEP

Director, Space Program Ltd. 

  

People smuggling – the case for evidence-based policy

Who are these evil people? Who is so bad that even David Cameron, a beneficiary of unregulated offshore activities, wants to “break their business model”? It is, of course, the people smugglers.

In part, this is the rhetoric of crisis. Social and political issues are very frequently expressed in the language of conflict. We have “wars” on drugs, crime, poverty, terror or any other perceived evil. (This is part of the same ill-considered metaphorical labelling that leads to the UK having an “inequality tsar.”) A “war on refugees” is a step too far even for Europe’s political leaders so we have instead a war on smuggling.

This war – the interception of boats carrying refugees across the Aegean – is of a piece with the deal between the European Union and Turkey to return refugees from Greece, an agreement that is both categorically illegal and destined to fail, even in its own terms. (Since the central element of the deal is that the EU will accept a refugee from Turkey for every one that is returned from Greece, it does not take an expert in game theory to work out that Turkey has no incentive to stop the smugglers’ boats from setting sail.)

However, the smugglers have been in the crosshairs – almost literally – for some time now. In 2014, Operation Mare Nostrum, a search and rescue operation run by the Italian navy, came to an end because no other EU state would support it. It was replaced by Operation Triton, with far broader support from European navies, but a much narrower remit of securing the EU’s borders. Not surprisingly, the death toll from the sinking of overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels increased rapidly.

In parallel, the EU set about launching a military operation, EUNAVFOR Med (rather more snappily known as Operation Sophia), to prevent vessels leaving the North African coast or to intercept them once they have. This entails the “boarding, search, seizure and diversion, on the high seas, of vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling or trafficking.”

There are a couple of points to note here. People smuggling is illegal under international law, which does give a mandate for Operation Sophia. However, the issue is not quite so simple, given that the operation also implicates human rights law (including the right to leave one’s own country) and law on the use of force (not to mention the law of the sea). It is far from clear that the EU navies can simply breeze around the southern Mediterranean boarding any shipping that arouses their suspicion.

Secondly, we should note the rhetorical subterfuge in the wording of Operation Sophia’s objectives. We are now presented not only with smugglers but with human traffickers. This same confusion of smugglers and traffickers has been a regular staple of media coverage of the Mediterranean crisis. For years we have been told about the evils of human trafficking, frequently labelled “modern slavery.” Traffickers are regarded as slave traders – by definition they coerce and transport people for the purposes of exploitation. In the relevant protocol to the Palermo Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, exploitation is defined as:

the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs…

Is that what is happening in the Mediterranean (or indeed the Aegean)? Of course not.

Rather, the confusion of trafficking and smuggling allows Europe to shift responsibility for the deaths of refugees to those who provide transport and away from where it belongs – with the governments that refuse to admit them and consider their claims (as required by international law).

There is, as it happens, a reasonable body of academic research on people smuggling, in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, and a good understanding of why the phenomenon has developed over the past quarter century. Smuggling in the Mediterranean is a direct consequence of the Schengen agreement. Freedom of movement within the Schengen area was accompanied by the creation of strict visa regimes externally. Legal (two-way) migration between North Africa and Europe was replaced by a new transport system that was capable of evading the border controls. You might even say that the smugglers’ “business model” was made in Brussels.

Some suggest that the business model includes the boats sinking and refugees dying. This is obviously nonsense. The continuation of the business depends upon capital assets – the boats. Smuggling is a completely unregulated transport industry (although one that advertises on Facebook and operates travel insurance). It continues to be profitable for the simple reason that refugees have been denied access to safe and regulated transport. Carrier liability and visa requirements prevent refugees from going to Istanbul Atatürk and boarding a Turkish Airlines flight to Frankfurt. Refugees seize the only opportunity our governments have left available to them. Research has established that restrictive entry requirements will only increase the resort to illegal means of immigration. European governments probably know this but windy rhetoric trumps evidence-based policy-making every time.

Richard Carver

Understanding Grassroots Recovery: India Field Trip 2016

In Gujarat, India, a group of nine DEP students worked in partnership with The All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI) on a study focussing on the long-term recovery of Gujarat after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. As a group we decided to focus our research on shelter, livelihoods and lessons learnt over the 15 year period since the quake. While our primary methodology for carrying out this research was interviewing, we also applied others such as transect walks and sketching.

We spent six days travelling around different rural and urban communities in Gujarat, particularly in the Kutch area, where we interviewed inhabitants and institutions on their recovery since the earthquake. For some of this time we partnered with the Self Employed Woman’s Association (SEWA), a women’s membership co-operative who work with women to enable their skills to provide them with an income. SEWA worked with communities after the 2001 earthquake in a variety of ways including providing shelter and livelihood opportunities. We visited communities that had benefited from their shelter package and heard inspiring stories of sewing kits being distributed just nine days after the earthquake to enable survivors to continue to generate incomes.

After our period of research on the road, we attended the ‘8th South-South Citizenry Based Development sub-Academy (SSCBDA) in Ahmedabad hosted by AIDMI and the United Nations. The three day conference was a great opportunity to listen to practitioners’ experience from different countries; and to learn more about how micro-insurance programmes for small business can help to mitigate risk. We concluded the SSCBDA with a DEP presentation on our research findings.

We are excited to have recently had our findings outlined in the report 'Youth Leadership in Long-term Recovery', which has been published in March 2016 issue of southasiadisaster.net; a publication that is distributed globally to agencies including the UN.

The field trip was a fantastic opportunity both personally and academically. Academically it allowed us to engage with local people and to understand recovery at a grassroots level. Further, exposure to the work of AIDMI and the South-South academy was interesting and partnering with them was enjoyable. On a more personal level, it was memorable to participate in a culture full of tradition from eating their delicious food to flying kites with locals in the International kite festival. 

Katie Reilly, DEP 15-16

Shelter coordination training, Geneva. April 2016

I am in Geneva to visit the Shelter Cluster Coordination training course. CENDEP validates this course, which means we provide advice on the learning and assessment activities, and participants are awarded Masters level credit from Oxford Brookes for the course.

The course is aimed at people interested in working as coordinators of a shelter cluster, which is the main organisational mechanism for a post disaster or post conflict humanitarian response, and shelter is often one of the most pressing needs in these situations.

It is run and facilitated by the IFRC and UNHCR, and all of the facilitators are experienced coordinators. The scenarios and case studies are all taken from recent disaster responses, so participants get a real insight into what happens in the field from people that were there.

The participants are set scenario presentations and an examination, and for these tasks CENDEP has worked with IFRC and UNHCR to make sure best practice in teaching and learning student experience is used. It is an effective way that universities can partner with humanitarian agencies to add value to humanitarian response.

For IFRC and UNCHR, the benchmarking and validation of the course at masters level is important because it demonstrates the course is effective high level learning and underlines the professional aspirations of the organisers.

The feedback from participants is that although the course is challenging, they feel like they are more engaged in the course content. There is no opportunity to sit at the back and clear your emails!

The training is being held at Villa Moynier, the first Headquarters of the ICRC.

Charles Parrack

Shelter after Disaster 

Measuring human rights in order to improve them

I am just back from Mexico where I attended the First International Conference on Human Rights Indicators. My co-researcher Dr Lisa Handley and I presented the results of our research on the effectiveness of torture prevention measures and it was gratifying to discover that we were the headline event, at least so far as the local press were concerned. In fact, being wearyingly familiar with media distortions of both human rights and academic research, we were encouraged by a strikingly accurate headline summary of the last four years of our lives: “strengthen measurement of torture in order to eradicate it.” (Just a pity that they got the name of the university wrong.)

Actually, despite the label of “first” conference on human rights indicators, this issue has been up for discussion for the last 15 years at least. Sadly, this gathering, while it was an excellent initiative, only went to show how short has been the distance travelled in that time. For the most part, the indicators people at the conference – mainly mathematicians and economists – didn’t know much about human rights, while the human rights people, mainly lawyers and activists, knew just as little about statistics and measurement.

Part of the problem lies with the word “indicators.” The term is very widely used, partly because of the results-based management approach that permeates so many institutions. But what does it actually mean?

In Africa there is a bird known as the greater honeyguide, which feeds off abandoned beehives. In order to do this, it leads humans to the hives, using calls and displays of feathers. Once the people have taken the honey and driven away the bees, the birds can feast on the wreckage of the hive. The Latin name of this bird: Indicator indicator. The bird acts as a proxy for the presence of honey.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has been working on an indicator framework for human rights for the past decade. Unfortunately it has eschewed the simplicity of the honeyguide and opted instead for a complicated multi-layer definition as follows:

specific information on the state or condition of an object, event, activity or outcome that can be related to human rights norms and standards; that addresses and reflects human rights principles and concerns; and that can be used to assess and monitor the promotion and implementation of human rights.

So, an indicator might be any of the following: a measure of the enjoyment of a human right (directly or by proxy); a measure of the steps taken or factors influencing the enjoyment of a human right (directly or by proxy); or something else related to human rights. (The third category is not intended to be facetious; it is actually what the above definition states.)

Small wonder, then, that there was apparently no agreement among conference participants about what a human rights indicator actually was. Dr Mónica Domínguez Serrano from Pablo de Olivade University in Spain discussed the process of constructing “indicadores sintéticos” of gender well-being based upon a number of different pieces of data. Dr Simone Cecchini from UN CEPAL presented the UN indicator framework for economic and social rights. Dr Mauricio García Moreno from the Inter-American Development Bank discussed the use of performance indicators in results-based management. And we heard an interesting group presentation on the Global Impunity Index. All fascinating stuff, but there was nothing resembling a common approach that might guide either researchers or activists.

So what was our own approach to human rights indicators? Returning from Mexico, I looked at the manuscript of our forthcoming book on torture prevention and saw that Lisa and I had used the word indicator only twice. First, we had explained why we were not using the UN indicator framework to construct our variables and secondly we had shown how in some countries performance indicators were an incentive to torture. Police with monthly prosecution targets were shown to be more likely to torture at the end of the month than at the beginning.

Our own index of the incidence of torture, the Carver-Handley Torture Score (CHATS), is based upon three different measures of torture: its frequency, severity, and geographical spread. The data to construct the CHATS comes from a wide variety of sources, including official and unofficial statistics and primary interview research.

To measure the causal factors that may determine the level of torture (what social scientists call “independent variables”) we constructed our own “synthetic indicators” (although we did not use this term). Each individual variable was assigned a score, usually on a three-point scale, depending on whether the preventive mechanism was completely present, partially present, or completely absent. These scores were then assembled into a number of indices, which grouped together similar types of preventive mechanism (for example, those relating to detention safeguards, or to investigation and prosecution of torturers).

It might be possible to use these independent variables as “human rights indicators,” but this would have to be approached with extreme caution. It is essential that the causal relationship between the independent variables (the preventive mechanisms) and the dependent variable (the incidence of torture) be solidly proven. In the UN indicator framework, this relationship is asserted rather than demonstrated. One of the outcomes of our research has been an assessment tool in which torture prevention strategies can be evaluated by weighting the score towards those measures that have actually been shown to have a positive impact and away from those measures that appear ineffective.

In that sense, we do indeed aim at “measurement of torture in order to eradicate it.”

Richard Carver

Creation and catastrophe: Meeting at RIBA 7th April 2016

Architects, urban planners engineers, town planners,humanitarian organisations and academics met at the British Architects Institute, RIBA on 7 April 2016 to discuss the different roles of built environment professionals and humanitarian agencies in post disaster reconstruction.

The event was introduced by RIBA president Jane Duncan and there were keynote addresses from Brookes visiting Professor Ian Davis and David Alexander from UCL. Brookes Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi led the final plenary session. The event was truly international with presenters from Australia, Denmark and Spain. UNHCR and IFRC gave presentations from the humanitarian perspective, and the architecture sector was represented by Foster and Partners.

Cathrine Brun, CENDEP director made a presentation about the work of our centre, and Charles Parrack of CENDEP was Rapporteur for the event.

This was a ground breaking meeting to make links between the practitioners and the professions in humanitarian response, to understand better each others roles and expertise.

The event was organised by Red Cross (IFRC), RMIT Melbourne, the Development Planning Unit at UCL and CENDEP.

There were four panels discussing private sector experiences, processes and products,  research and training, and experiences from operational fieldwork.

The meeting agreed to take the following ideas forward:

• Show how built environment professionals can act as development practitioners, especially in urban settings
• Build local capacity to respond to disasters
• Formalise links between the professions and the humanitarian sector. A network of networks.
• Advise educational providers on recommended course content
• Support career opportunities for professionals to gain humanitarian experience
• Commit to learn lessons from failure

Charles Parrack

Creation from catastrophe: The need for architects and social scientists to collaborate

It is early February 2005. I am in Sri Lanka, together with two colleagues, Hans Skotte, an architect, and Ragnhild Lund, a geographer like myself. On December the 26th 2004, just over a month before we arrived, the Indian Ocean Tsunami had devastated the coasts of the island. As a team, we had many years of research-engagement with Sri Lanka. During 2004, and as a result of the ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, we were setting up a collaboration on post-war recovery together with an international humanitarian organisation with long-term presence in the country. We discussed how to influence current World Bank plans to build 100,000 houses in the war-torn north of the country, aiming to advocate for more active inclusion of local knowledge and existing practices together with a more participatory approach. Then the waves hit the coastline, the conflict gradually resumed and all the attention turned to housing needs caused by the tsunami. By January 2005, our initiative had shifted to concentrate on post-tsunami housing.

The collaboration that followed between the architect and the social scientists was crucial for how the project developed and formative for me as a social scientist. But the journey towards that achievement was long and sometimes painful. One example of the differences we encountered, and eventually learnt to appreciate, came on one of these first days in Sri Lanka in February 2005. With Sri Lankan academics and the collaborating organisation, we were invited by the head-planner in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka to visit some of the sites they were planning to use for building houses. When we arrived to the site, the architect and geographers encountered the field in fundamentally different ways.

Arriving at the site used for transitional shelters for people affected by the tsunami, the architect went off with the planner to assess the site, discuss the challenges, and produce drawings. The ethnographically-oriented geographers sat down with the people in the settlement who wanted to talk about the experiences, the losses, the needs and most of all their worries for the future. People in the settlement frequently experienced becoming a silent audience to all the delegations arriving at the site. It was difficult for them to distinguish between the different actors that arrived, foreign and national do-gooders, academic researchers, international humanitarian organisations, journalists. People came – and left – without making much difference, except hassle, for the people affected by the disaster.

At the time, we – the social scientists – considered the architect’s attitude to the field unethical, insensitive and offensive. How could he not see the people, understand their losses, their histories, their plans for the future and take time to be with them? He, on the other hand spent his energy explaining to the planner why – based on his experiences from other disaster- and war-zones – the plans would not work, why they needed to change their approach to rebuilding and recovery.

He, the architect, was right and we, the social scientists, were right too. It took some time, before we managed to understand, appreciate and utilise the different approaches to the field, but it was when we managed to see how our different interests and approaches could help to understand how the material world and the social world came together that we could actually make a difference.

The process of rebuilding the coastal communities in Sri Lanka after the tsunami was highly politicised. After the tsunami and more recently after the end of the war in the country,  a highly technocratic understanding of recovery and development  has dominated the discourse and the practices.  But what we can learn from the RIBA exhibition, Creation from Catastrophe, is that the coming together of the social and the material is needed if we want to create something from catastrophe.

The exhibition showcases grand plans from the cities of the Global North. Creating an entirely new city after the fires in cities such as London and Chicago proved impossible. The grand plans, we now know, did not succeed, largely because the complex property- and landowner structures prevented the planning efforts of the architects and technocrats from materialising. Additionally, the grand plans did not take into account how people went about their lives in the cities. More recently, we are witnessing the same taking place in Aleppo in Syria. The government is designing grand plans for the city, but the residents and users of the city are not being heard.

Rebuilding after a human-made or natural disaster does not provide us with a blank sheet: There is a history already there, a social structure and aspirations among the residents that may not correspond with an abstract idea of the city. War and disasters tend to change the relationship between people and places, but the places are formed by a history that started before the catastrophe struck. The possibilities of recovery in a particular context need to take into account the holistic meaning of a particular building, a particular neighbourhood, and the city. A major challenge for training architects to work in a disaster is thus to integrate the understanding of the social into their work. The main challenge for training social scientists to work in the same context is to open up for an understanding of the role of the material and physical environment. It is about opening up for and being able to work in an interdisciplinary way, to be able to see and understand the context in which housing is created after a catastrophe.

Social scientists, architects and others working in a disaster setting need to learn how to connect theory and practice, and at the same time learn how to think with other disciplines and cross-fertilise different experiences, perspectives and knowledges. This is not only about the architects and the social scientists: more importantly it is about the residents of the houses and neighbourhoods that are being built. It is this relationship between theory and practice and between the different actors and contexts that we aim to create a critical understanding of through our teaching in the Development and Emergency Practice MA at Oxford Brookes.

An exhibition – Creation from Catastrophe - is on at the RIBA till the 24th of April.

These reflections were prepared for a seminar  
“Creation and Catastrophe” on the 7th April 2016 which CENDEP co-organised.

Cathrine Brun, April 7th 2016
  

If you want to read more:

Attanapola, C., C. Brun and R. Lund. 2013. Working gender after crisis: partnerships and disconnections in Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean tsunami. Gender, Place and Culture 20(1): 70-86.

Brun, C. and R. Lund. 2010. Real Time Research: Decolonising practices or just another spectacle of researcher-practitioner collaboration. Development in Practice 20(7): 812–826.

Brun, C. and R. Lund. 2009. ‘Unpacking’ the narrative of a national housing policy in Sri Lanka. Norwegian Journal of Geography 63(1): 10–22.

Brun, C. and R. Lund. 2008. Making a home during crisis: Post-tsunami recovery in the context of war, Sri Lanka. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29(3): 274–288.

Skotte, H. 2014. Teaching to learn – learning to teach: learning experiences from the reality of an ever-changing world. In Brun, C., P. Blaikie and M. Jones. (eds.) 2014. Alternative Developmend. Unravelling Marginliazation, Voicing Change, pp. 39 – 54. Ashgate, Farnham. 

‘Observatory of Symbolic Violence’, Colombia 2016

Fatima with her DEP colleagues

In January 2016, I had the opportunity to engage in the ‘Observatory of Symbolic Violence’, an action research project in Colombia conducted by students and members of staff from Oxford Brookes University and CERAR. The research began in 2014 and this follow up participatory mode of research focused on the impact of stigmatization on different communities.

The places visited in Colombia are physically and culturally as well as literally and figuratively distant from Quetta (Pakistan) where I was born and raised. The long history of conflict and guerilla insurgency carries with it the negative perceptions of Colombia. Although armed groups still operate in limited capacity in some of the rural areas, the country is astonishingly safe, not to mention the scenic landscape and friendly people.

The experience of the trip taught me that the war affected people are mostly affected by a type of violence which goes beyond the realm of the physical. They face the most powerful forms of symbolic violence such as discrimination and stigmatization. What struck me the most was the forms of stigmatisation of people and places found within different levels? I found it difficult to comprehend that displaced people from areas like Trujillo and Florida have limited access to jobs and housing opportunities because of their place of origin. They are often stigmatized as guerilla sympathizers or fear that they will bring the conflict with them to the urban areas. This, in many cases, results in another phenomenon, that of people preferring to continue their life in a high risk zone rather than move to a place which inflicts on them more pain and even poverty.

Group discussion with coffee producers

The negative stigma on cafeteros and campesenos who are seen as peasants has impacted adversely on the youth who are migrating to the urban area in search of employment. This puts at risk the distinctive way of life based on generations’ worth of legacies, threatening their sense of identity and culture. To counter this challenging issue, I was fascinated to learn that FECOOP (Foundation for Cooperative Education) has began rolling out innovative educational projects, based on reconnecting the youth with traditional jobs and trades. On the contrary, the worst form of symbolic violence I felt was that of self-stigmatisation. One of the victims described it as, ‘when they talk about the past, they cry and stigmatise themselves by reliving the past instead of moving on’.

In spite of the stigmatisation and normalisation of violence, individuals and communities showed immense resilience in their coping strategies and adaptation to the new way of life.

Fatima Hashmi (DEP 2015/16)