The Burn

Every year, the Marshall Scholars take a weekend retreat in the low Scottish Highlands. After a truly gorgeous 6.5-hour-train ride through northern England, Edinburgh, and the Forth of Fife (including views of the world's best bridge), we end up at this beautiful country estate, where we proceed to enjoy ourselves pretending to be the British aristocracy at a house party for several days.

This year's delights included swimming in the North Sea (the weather was warm enough that I wasn't the only one to go in!), hiking the cliffs between a fishing village and Dunnotar Castle, and a staged murder mystery roleplay. (I am happy to report that I was neither murderer nor murderee.)

This year was especially fun since Hamza, my best friend from Jordan, was still in the country after the AMENDS Conference - as was his mother, since he's just had his graduation ceremony from the University of Manchester. So we brought along Jordanian mama, the educational entrepreneur, and a handful of miscellaneous international mates to join the American postgraduates in Scotland. It was quite the intercultural hoot, to say the least.

Hilariously, the blond boy pictured below in the University of Manchester t-shirt is not the Jordanian who graduated from the University of Manchester last week. We're just a very mobile bunch.

A grand time was had by all. And now...back to real life.

The growth of AMENDS

Many of you have heard me talk about AMENDS, the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford. Being selected as a delegate for the 2013 AMENDS Summit was the proper launch of my PhD, as the people I've met through this network are directly responsible for all three of the organisations I partnered with to build knowledge around environmental peacebuilding.

I've just gotten back to London from an amazing several days in Oxford with a reunion conference for AMENDS Fellows - alumni of the Launch Summits the Stanford team host every year with new delegates. I'm very, very happy to announce some big news for the AMENDS Global Fellows:

1. We are now a registered 501c3 non-profit in the US, giving us legal status independent of Stanford University, and the ability to receive tax-deductible donations (as well as applying for a multitude of grants)
2. We have a brand new flashy website! Check out more at amendsfellows.org.

More about AMENDS:

The AMENDS Global Fellows are a network of young leaders from the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States who are working to build a more equal, sustainable, and prosperous world.
AMENDS began in 2011, when Arab youth led a wave of popular protests across the MENA region. Two Stanford University students, Khalid Shawi from Bahrain and Elliot Stoller from Chicago, imagined a platform and space for MENA and US youth to gather, collaborate, and share their stories of working for change. AMENDS welcomed its first class of 36 delegates to Stanford in 2012 for a week-long Summit.
Since then, AMENDS has welcomed 177 fellows from 26 countries to annual gatherings at Stanford University, Koç University, and the University of Oxford. These alumni form an active network committed to transformative work in the areas of arts and culture, business and technology, education and empowerment, health and environment, and human rights and political activism.
To better serve this growing network, AMENDS Global Fellows became an independent non-profit organization in 2017. We aim to support our fellows by:

• providing a platform for fellows’ ideas and initiatives;
• facilitating active engagement and communication among fellows and with the public;
• providing resources and opportunities for capacity building, mentorship, networking, and project implementation.

The AMENDS student team at Stanford continues to lead a core part of our programming, selecting new delegates annually to participate in a launch summit and join the AMENDS Global Fellows network.

 

Family in London!

Thanks to the process of applying for a long-term work visa in the UK, I wasn't able to travel to the US and Canada at the end of June as originally planned to attend a conference and be present for my niece's graduation from high school.

But fear not! I somehow suckered my sister and brother-in-law into bringing everyone to visit me here instead. Mwahaha.

So there I was for my birthday yesterday, with my brother, sister and brother-in-law, and three adorable youngsters. Utterly miserable, of course, especially as we went to the Harry Potter Studios Tour in the evening. And since it was my birthday, Izzy and I got to open the doors into the Great Hall!

Their visit came immediately upon the heels of the Ellis Clan - my parents' best friends and the woman I was named after, plus various of their family members I grew up with. We frolicked about Greenwich, the London Zoo, and boat tours to the great enjoyment of all and sundry.

This is all to say: I have been rather spoiled by visitors of late. Are you going to be the next one?? :)

First Aid Training

On 1 August, I'll begin a full-time position at Syracuse University London as their Community Relations Manager, which includes running their internship program, creating volunteering opportunities for students abroad, and mentoring undergraduates' professional development. I will also be teaching three classes a semester, on themes of environmental justice and global citizenship.

One of the reasons I was so happy to say 'yes' to this job offer was the emphasis Syracuse London places on their staff's personal development. I've been working part-time with them for almost a year, and have had a lot of opportunities already - and seen others for my colleagues.

This week's 'fun' was a three-day intensive first aid training, including emergency action in the case of cardiac arrest, gunshots, roadside collisions, and the like. I've had a fair bit of training in the US through Girl Scouts, church, etc., but it was nice to add a formal UK qualification, and get a concentrated brush-up of the various bits and pieces I've picked up over the years!

Our full reception team, the facilities staff, and another professor we're trying to launch a second travelling seminar with also attended - so it ended up being quite a fun team bonding exercise as well, especially when we had our scenario and exam roleplaying sessions. You never quite know who you're working with till you see just how well they can fake a faint. ;)

Anyway, now I get to carry an official card and everything!

I'm not saying you should get into a life-threatening emergency just because I'm around. But if you do, mayhap I'll be of some use?!

Thoughts on Volunteer Tourism

A professor from Michigan State poked me on Facebook, asking for comments on the following video about some of the problems with volunteer tourism (or 'voluntourism'):

So for this week's random post, my response: 

Travelling to places and performing 'service' can be and is often valuable - so long as you recognise and make explicit that it is service learning. The trip should be understood by all parties as an investment in the professional and personal development and worldivew of the traveller, at least as much as (and generally more so) a concrete form of support for a host community.

The inherent inequalities in the relationship also need to be addressed: Oftentimes, volunteer tourism involves a privileged person going to an underprivileged place and interacting with individuals whose level and types of privilege will not allow them to travel in the other direction. Tourists, hosts, and programs should consider how they want to tackle this issue - both within the trip and more systematically.

For my PhD, I spent time with three local organisations as 'free' staff while conducting fieldwork - but I wasn't really free labour; I interrupted work patterns and required plenty of attention and care. And I will always worry that I got more out of it than they did.

One concrete action I took in response to this concern: After my fieldwork, I used some of my research funds and applied for an additional grant to bring youth representatives from the organisations that had hosted me to a conference in the UK. Two of the students had never been on a plane or been able to leave their home country before. It was an absolute joy to be with them as they experienced a new place, and actively challenge the dominant flow of humans, expertise, and cultural exchange in the world.

Travel has massive impacts on people. It's up to us to make those impacts as positive as possible, and as equitable as possible. That means questioning when and where we and others can and can't go and why - and once we know some of those answers, to try and change them.

"Drops of Diplomacy"

For those of you interested in (1) what I was exploring with my PhD, (2) water, (3) politics, (4) the Middle East, (5) study abroad, (6) climate change, or (7) some random combination of the above: Feel free to check out a piece just published in The Journal of Hydrology. We've a window (till mid-July) during which you can read the article free online via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169418303378. After that, unfortunately it shifts to paid access through a corporate journal - though this means I will finally get a 'pretty' version of the PDF all formatted! If you'd like, do get in touch and I'm happy to send a copy of my accepted manuscript version as well.

The paper is a case study of one of my doctoral research partners. It argues that, by intentionally using fog to facilitate collaborative exchange, Dar Si Hmad is engaging in a form of hydro-diplomacy. Drawing from ethnographic data and building on international relations theories of Track Diplomacy, the paper demonstrates how fog water is being used to lay the groundwork for durable peace, intercultural understanding, and symbiotic growth. Such local iterations of hydro-diplomacy should be better understood and integrated with the emerging literature on state-to-state water cooperation in order to develop holistic expertise, share best practices, and promote positive policy interventions.

Enjoy! (Or don't. It's definitely the nerdy version of what I'm doing. You can always skim Dar Si Hmad's blog for the more-action, less-theory version of the story: http://www.darsihmadorg.blogspot.com/).

Oops...it's been a while

Hello, all...and apologies! It's been far longer than I meant it to be.

Last I posted, I had submitted my initial thesis to King's College London. Since then, I:

• Went to Israel for a friend's wedding and hosted my brother in London for Christmas;
• Served as the geography professor for 17 students, leading them around Scandinavia and the Nordic region on a twelve-day field studies course on sustainability and environmental justice;
• Took on a six-month contract covering some staff leave at Syracuse London, focusing on internships and communications;
• Had my PhD viva, which was a very vibrant and fulfilling conversation that resulted in some really exciting revisions to the thesis;
• Traveled to San Diego for a conference on preventing ocean plastics and other marine debris alongside partners from the Kuwait Dive Team;
• Introduced my Moroccan fog-harvesting partner Dar Si Hmad to a handful of undergraduate and postgraduate students during a field school visit to Agadir;
• Spoke at a conference in Lund, Sweden, on the 'Nature of Peace'; and
• Played with lots of fabulous kids around London - most notably, hosting a sleepover for four young ones all at once one weekend.

It's been a very joy-filled and busy several months!

And, the big news:

Following the fun I've had with Syracuse London in a variety of roles, I am happy to announce that today I signed a contract with them for a full-time role. They are sponsoring me for a visa to remain in the UK, which has been a long journey and I'm very honoured that they have taken the trouble. I'll be their Community Relations Manager as well as an Adjunct Professor. In addition to teaching classes on sustainability, global citizenship, and professional development, I will be running programming on volunteering, internships, and community engagement. This means I get to do a loaded combination of teaching, event management, individual and group mentorship, and research impact activities. It's quite a perfect role for me, with my hands in lots of pies and my days never the same.

I imagine I will be blogging less frequently, as it won't be appropriate for me to share daily stories about my students here, and that will be the bulk of my time! But I will endeavour to send updates more than every five months, for goodness' sake. You can also check out the Syracuse London to get an idea of what I'm up to - for example, check out this blog written by one of my students describing our environmental journey up north: http://sulondon-blog.syr.edu/sustainable-europe-signature-seminar/.

All in all, life is grand and happy here in Londontown...especially as spring/summer is finally coming to the British Isles, and blue skies and green leaves are giving everything a glorious glow! All the best to everyone. :)