News of the GIGA Doctoral Programme

Julia Köbrich was on a research visit at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research from January 29 to February 18. Moreover, she attended a workshop on Security, Conflict, and Peace co-organized by GIGA and IBEI on February 22-23 in Barcelona, along with other members of the RP2 like Cornelius Haritz. In addition, she wrote a GIGA Focus Africa titled Peaceful or Contentious? How to Promote Interreligious Peace in Africa in collaboration with Dr. Lisa Hoffmann and Hervé Akinocho.

Ardahan Özkan Gedikli presented the theory and literature review chapters of his ongoing PhD research (“The Political Economy of AKP's Foreign Aid: A Regional Assessment of Middle East and North Africa”) in the annual German-Danish colloquium, organized by the GIGA and Universities of Hamburg, Kiel, Aarhus, and Odense at the Ansgar house in St. Georg on February 23-24. The workshop brought together young researchers from those institutions to present their projects and exchange. Moreover, Diba Mirzaei will participate in the same colloquium with her Ph.D. research “Iran's Foreign Policy towards Saudi Arabia from 1971-1979: The Twin Pillar Policy and its Effects”.

Mahima Duggal participated in a panel discussion in the ISDP Webinar: South Korea, India, and the Emerging Quad Plus Calculus, which aimed to look into the prospects of India-South Korea cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region through a Quad Plus format.

Hager Ali wrote a GIGA Focus Nahost titled The War in Sudan: How Weapons and Networks Shattered a Power Struggle.

Désirée Reder wrote a GIGA Focus Latin America titled Guatemala: A Vote for Turning the Tide in collaboration with Alina Ripplinger and Sabine Kurtenbach. Moreover, both Désirée and Alina were part the workshop "Violent Legacies, Social Mobilization - uncertain futures" on February 14-16, organized in collaboration with the UCR-CIEP. On March 6, Désirée also hosted a GIGA Forum: Violence against Women – A Global Crisis, with the collaboration of the Visiting Doctoral Researcher Marcela Villalobos as one of the speakers.

Alina Ripplinger is currently conducting a research stay combined with exploratory field research in San José, Costa Rica from February to mid-March. She has also engaged as a guest researcher at the University of Costa Rica and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, combined with exploratory field research, particularly in exchange with experts in matters of human rights, legal mobilization, and resistance. Finally, Alina is attending sessions of the EuroMeSCo Workout course on “Ethics in research involving vulnerable populations or politically sensitive information”.

Johanna Pieper started her five-month fieldwork in Peru in Bolivia at the end of February. During her stay, she will conduct interviews with several actors involved in the child labor policy process in both the capitals and various subnational regions.

Cornelius Haritz presented a paper draft for quantitative research on the interaction of conflict issues and the termination mode of civil wars. He also participated in the course of the komex-methods network of the University of Konstanz "Introduction to QCA in R" (online). The course was structured with independent reading and programming exercises together with online courses every afternoon. At the end of March, Cornelius will present the status of his research project on civil war issues in the doctoral colloquium, most likely with Johan Brosché from Uppsala University as discussant, who is one of the authors of the dataset Cornelius is working with.

Indi-Carolina Kryg wrote an article for the Leibniz-Magazin (Schwerpunkt Nr. 23, Wald): Wald der Hoffnung und Verzweiflung. about the experiences of refugees she met in migrant shelters in Mexico in 2023. The article deals with suffering, hope, and the need for safe migration routes.