Storytelling in den Vereinten Nationen: Mahbub ul Haq und menschliche Entwicklung

Ausgehend von der Beobachtung, dass Mitarbeiter der Vereinten Nationen eine wichtige Rolle in Prozessen des ideellen Wandels auf internationaler Ebene spielen können, beschäftigt sich dieser Beitrag mit einer bestimmten Form individuellem Einflusses – dem storytelling. Mein Verständnis von storytelling als Einflusstaktik kombiniert dabei kollektive Elemente der soziologischen Praxistheorie mit den reflexiven, akteursbezogenen Überlegungen von Michel de Certeau. Ich analysiere storytelling anhand von drei analytischen Elementen: einem (chronologischen) Plot, einer Reihe von Charakteren und einem interpretativen Thema – die jeweils ihre Wirkung im Zusammenspiel mit der Subjektivität ihres storytellers entfalten. Ich illustriere diese theoretischen Überlegungen mit dem Fall von Mahbub ul Haq, dem es als Sonderberater des United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-Administrators zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre gelungen ist, die Idee der menschlichen Entwicklung im System der Vereinten Nationen und der internationalen Entwicklungspolitik zu etablieren

Promoting Reconciliation Through Community Relations Work: A Comparison Among Young People in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Vukovar, Croatia.

This study is an attempt to classify community relations work and projects which have been focused in more recent years in promoting peace education, breaking down enemy images, and reducing fear and distrust among young people in Belfast. A description was made of the types of civic organisations, of approaches used, as well as of the sustainability, strength, weakness, opportunities and barriers for peace education through community relations work. A number of in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives of civic organisations in Belfast. Moreover, the methodology involved an analysis of programmes and activities promoted by the community organisations. Findings showed that different strategies and activities have been used by the community organisations, involving relatively small number of participants, and without a developmental plan to follow young people after the termination of project

Critical and Emancipatory Peacebuilding and Ethnopolitical Conflicts

As a legacy of colonialism, ethnic chauvinist leaders led virulent chauvinistic ethnonationalist movements within a segmented cultural milieu to manufacture boundaries amongst ethnic groups and intensify polarization, competition, and violence (Anastasiou, 2010; Sandole, 2003). The recent re-emergence and escalation of protracted ethnopolitical conflicts in places like Kordofan and Darfur-South Sudan, Molo and Mount Elgon-Kenya, West Papua-Indonesia, Kivu-DRC, Ossetian-Georgia, Republika Srpska-Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kurds-Turkey and Syria, Oromos and Somalis-Ethiopia, Kashmir-India and Pakistan, Catalonia-Spain, Houthis-Yemen, the Crimea-Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Cyprus, the Sahel, Afghanistan, Roningya-Myanmar, Indigenous peoples and ethnic refugees in North America and Europe, and Biharis-Bangladesh, among others, remain major threats to international peace and security. The urgency and complexity of these conflicts have brought increased interest in exploring the issues anew within critical and emancipatory peacebuilding. Analyzing these conflicts and resolving them tend to move along separate paths. Consequently, this panel explores the role of economic aid, ethnographies of peacebuilding, civil society and digital space, measurements of positive peace, and UN intervention in critical peace and emancipatory peacebuilding. This panel is part of a series of chapters in the forthcoming Handbook of Peacebuilding and Ethnic Conflict

Organic Electrochemical Transistors functionalized with Protein Minibinders for Sensitive and Specific Detection of SARS‐CoV‐2

Abstract There is a need for rapid, sensitive, specific, and low‐cost virus sensors. Recent work has demonstrated that organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) can detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) spike protein. Here, a simple and low‐cost approach to the fabrication of OECT devices with excellent stability and unprecedented sensitivity and specificity for the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 virus is demonstrated. The devices rely on the engineered protein minibinder LCB1, which binds strongly to SARS‐CoV‐2. The resulting devices exhibit excellent sensitivity for the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 virus and SARS‐CoV‐2 spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD). These results demonstrate a simple, effective, and low‐cost biomolecular sensor applicable to the real‐time detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 virus and a general strategy for OECT device design that can be applied for the detection of other pathogenic viruses