Join ACCS and the RPA Conflict & Society for On One Stage, a powerful theatre performance created by students and staff of the University of Amsterdam, exploring conflict and identity through Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed!
Over the past few months, members of the University of Amsterdam community – students and staff who had never met before – have come together. They explored and investigated the various layers of identity and conflict through theatrical and performative practices. In a series of workshops led by Dr. Chen Alon (visiting scholar at the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies), they engaged with the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed developed by Augusto Boal. You are warmly invited to attend their performance, which is the outcome of these weeks of intensive work.
Date: 24 June 2026
Time: 19:30 -21:00
Location:University Theatre (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16-18, Amsterdam – NB this not the CREA theatre!)
You are invited to immerse yourselves in stories of conflict and identity drawn from the participants’ own experiences – a space where the oppressors are also the oppressed.
We hope that you, too, will leave with new questions and the passion to become an active agent in shaping the narrative of your own life, within the realities and contexts in which you live.
Lunch Talk by Ronay Bakan, organized by ACCS and the RPA Conflict & Society
Date 12 March 2026 | Time12:00 -13:30 | Location Roeterseilandcampus – Room B3.05
Emerging technologies of war and counterinsurgency increasingly target urban landscapes, populations, and infrastructures. This talk will explore the role of the built environment in counterinsurgency campaigns. Dr. Bakan will address questions such as: Why do states expend the time and resources to engage in developmental projects targeting urban spaces in the midst of counterinsurgency campaigns? What is the spectrum of tactics so used? How do inhabitants whose self-identity is shaped, in part, through attachments to urban landscapes conceive, adopt, or repurpose the land-heritage-military nexus in the everyday?
Focusing on the civil war between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Turkish state, Dr. Bakan argues that states intervene in the everyday environment of ostensibly unruly populations as part of a broader security strategy to prevent future insurgent formation. She terms this set of processes “counterinsurgent urbanism.”
She identifies three core mechanisms of counterinsurgent urbanism: legal-institutional restructuring of land; policing of the urban landscape; and selective development. Her research draws on a multi-method approach that includes urban ethnography, in-depth interviews, neighbourhood mapping, photography, tourism surveys, and archival research to demonstrate how everyday, non-spectacular forms of violence operate in global counterinsurgencies.
This talk is co-organised by the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS) and the RPA Conflict & Society.
About the speaker
Dr. Ronay Bakan is currently a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute and incoming Assistant Professor at Fordham University/USA. She works on Kurdish insurgency and Turkey’s urban policies of counter-insurgent action.
The RPA Conflict & Society is very happy to announce Eda Kiriscioglu as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Conflict & Society Research Priority Area (RPA) at the University of Amsterdam.
Eda works on the GRIID project (Government Responses to Internal and International Displacement), which examines how states respond to displacement through protective and repressive policies and practices across different levels of governance.
Her research focuses on forced displacement, migration governance, and government responses to mobility, with particular attention to inconsistencies between de jure policies and de facto practices. A central strand of her work examines migration aspirations, risk perceptions, and decision-making under uncertainty among refugee and migrant populations. Methodologically, she works with mixed methods, combining qualitative fieldwork with survey research, experiments, and cross-national data analysis.
Her research has been published in journals such as Journal of Refugee Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Disasters, and Open Democracy. She holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam and has extensive research experience in Turkey and the EU context.
RPA Conflict and Society Sudent Fellowships – Call for conflict researchers looking for research assistants for the third round of the fellowship programme (starting February 2026)
Could you use a bachelor-level student assistant for your research on conflict and violence? The Research Priority Area (RPA) Conflict and Society facilitates bachelor’s student research assistance on projects of FMG researchers. We offer fellowships of €1,000 per year per bachelor student research assistant, which corresponds to about 53 hours of work (€19 per hour) per student.
‘The RPA’s aim with the Student Fellowships is to bring students from all backgrounds into contact with academic research. To that end, we prefer to advertise positions to students through an open call and actively prioritise applicants from underrepresented groups in science/research, such as first-generation-university students and students from minority backgrounds.’
Interested?
Please send us a short project description (around 100–150 words). Please highlight the tasks of the research assistant and any requirements for the RA. If applicable, you may also include a short statement on ethics.
The Student Fellowships are open to all bachelor students from the FMG, 2nd year and up. Project leaders decide whom to hire.
Apply before January 12th 2026, by sending an email to: edu-rpa-conflictsociety-fmg@uva.nl.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out.
Responsible Digital Transformations (RDT) is pleased to announce a new call for Seed Grant proposals, with a thematic focus on Datafied Warfare & Societal Resilience.
Contemporary warfare and security practices are significantly shaped by digitisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with all aspects of conflict becoming increasingly data-driven. Data analytics and AI are crucial in modern conflicts for information gathering, military strategy, automated targeting, and battlefield simulation, enhancing precision, speed, and autonomy of warfare systems. Big Tech companies and governments are playing significant roles in data-driven battlefield targeting and experimentation, potentially signalling a new regime of warfare.
These developments raise profound and urgent legal, societal, behavioural, ethical, cultural, economic, ecological and health questions that cut across all disciplines and faculties at the UvA.
RDT therefore invites seed grant proposals that map, understand, and analyse these developments from an interdisciplinary perspective, with a core focus on questions of digital responsibility. Collaborations can combine technical and non-technical disciplines – for example, between computer scientists, ethicists, legal scholars, and social scientists. The totality of different proposals will contribute to developing societal resilience around datafied warfare.
Submit your proposal before 15 February 2026. Find the Seed Grant Call on the RDT website →Register for the information sessionJoin us for an information session on 15 January 2026, 9:00-11:00.
This session is open to all UvA colleagues who are curious to learn more about the topic and the call. It is also a great opportunity to meet other interested colleagues. We look forward to your participation. Register by 6 January 2026 →
Lunch talk by Prof. Miguel García-Sánchez, hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS) and the RPA Conflict and Society
In this lunch talk, on Demcember 12th, Prof. Miguel García-Sánchez will examine the intricate relationship between public opinion and the 2016 peace agreement, drawing on more than one decade of research on peace-related issues.
The presentation will highlight how citizen attitudes toward peace are complex, multidimensional, evolve over time, and are shaped by elite discourse, political polarization, and expectations of future benefits derived from the agreement. Prof. García-Sánchez analyzes the 2016 Havana Peace Accord not merely as a conflict resolution mechanism but as a multidimensional public policy framework aimed at addressing structural democratic deficits.
Findings reveal that public support for negotiated solutions to armed conflict coexists with resistance to components related to democratic inclusivity and transitional justice. Similarly, it is shown that political elites and future expectations about the agreement (rather than experiences of violence) played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion toward the peace process.
In sum, the Colombian case offers broader insights into other peace agreements and into how public opinion interacts with major policy debates. It underscores the importance of understanding multidimensional citizen perspectives, the strategic simplification of complex issues by political actors, and the challenges posed by inclusivity in contemporary democracies. These findings contribute to comparative discussions on peacebuilding, democratic resilience, and the role of political elites in shaping public opinion.
Hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS) and the RPA Conflict and Society.
About the speaker
Miguel García-Sánchez is a Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and Co-Director of the Observatorio de la Democracia at the same institution. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on public opinion, particularly how social and political contexts shape citizens’ attitudes and behaviors. His most recent work bridges political behavior and peace and conflict studies to understand how citizens form opinions about peace agreements. Through the Observatorio de la Democracia, he has led multiple consultancies on topics such as police reform and the impact of local development programs linked to Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement.
He is a member of the Colombia Working Group at the Folke Bernadotte Academy and the Citizens in Peace Processes research network and serves on the Executive Committee of the Latin American Peace Science Society. His work has appeared in journals such as The Journal of Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Journal of Development Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Política y Gobierno, and Revista de Ciencia Política.
Workshop with Dr. Sebastian van Baalen, hosted by ACCS and the RPA Conflict and Society
Join us for this writing workshop with Sebastian van Baalen, Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. This workshop will offer a practical guide to moving from research to published article, taking participants step-by-step through the writing, submission, revision, and proof stages of the publication process.
Drawing on more than a decade of professional writing experience and extensive insights from publishing, peer-reviewing, and supervising, the workshop demystifies common hurdles and provides concrete, actionable strategies for improving your academic writing and better selling your research. The aim of the workshop is that participants will leave with a clearer sense of how to craft a strong publishable manuscript, respond effectively to editors and reviewers, and manage the often opaque journey from first draft to final publication.
This workshop is hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS) and the RPA Conflict and Society.
About the speaker
Dr. Sebastian van Baalen.
Sebastian van Baalen is Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. His research focuses on civilian agency and resistance in contexts characterized by violence and authoritarianism. He is currently leading a three-year research project on the consequences of election boycotts. Sebastian’s research has been published in a range of high-ranking academic journals, including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Peace Research, Political Geography, and World Development. He has a background as a freelance journalist, and still considers writing the most exciting of his daily tasks.
Last week, the RPA Conflict & Society officially kicked off the Student Fellowships for the first semester of this year. 12 student fellows work on 10 projects, ranging from issues such as violence against children, intergenerational mental health, global conflicts that receive little media attention, experiences of microaggressions, the digitalisation of drug markets, cannabis supply modes, and Black Studies. They use different approaches, from experiments and surveys to fieldwork, data analysis, and systematic reviews.
A warm welcome to all student fellows! All projects can be found here.
For the second semester, new positions on new projects will open near the end of this semester.
The RPA Conflict & Society at UvA had the pleasure of hosting a talk by Prof. Kent Eaton (UC Santa Cruz) on Democratic Erosion and Resistance from Below. Prof. Eaton presented his research on how democratic erosion unfolds at the subnational level in the Americas, highlighting the role of local actors in both enabling and resisting autocratisation.Thanks to Prof. Eaton for his insights and all the participants’ thoughtful questions and remarks!
In this talk, Professor Kent Eaton will explore how democratic erosion unfolds at the subnational level in the Americas, highlighting the role of local actors in both enabling and resisting autocratisation.
