Faculty News

Professor Yasemin İpek’s new book, Crisiswork, presents a story of Lebanon through the lens of activist lifeworlds, showing how, amid crisis, both political structures and everyday life become a terrain of generative possibility.

Dr. Johanna Bockman, Associate Professor of Global Affairs, presented her ongoing research project titled "Beyond Debtors as Undisciplined, Ignorant Others: Socialist Yugoslavia as Creditor and Debtor" on March 19 to other residential program fellows, faculty, and staff.

Dr. Lisa Gilman, Professor of Folklore and English at George Mason University and IIR Faculty Affiliate, has released the Dzaleka Art Project website. The art project is a community-based collaborative project by and about the arts and artists living as refugees in the Dzaleka camp in Malawi.

A new fund has been established to support the land management efforts of four Indigenous groups in Bolivia's Madidi Landscape: Tacana, Lecos, T’simane Mosetene, and San José de Uchupiamonas. Launched by the Wildlife Conservation Society in collaboration with Bolivia’s FUNDESNAP, the fund aims to channel conservation funds to these Indigenous organizations. The initiative, supported by $650,000 from the Bezos Earth Fund, will help preserve the region's rich biodiversity, one of the most diverse in the world

The first Conservation Data Justice Symposium took place in Girona in May 2024, bringing together scholars and practitioners from various disciplines to explore topics in Conservation Data Justice. A primary focus was identifying the systematic biases and distortions present in conservation data and algorithms. Laura Sauls, a Global Affairs professor at George Mason University, contributed to discussions on how methodological choices and epistemological assumptions in mapping can lead to injustices in conservation's geo-spatial approach. While the symposium was a positive first step, there is room for improvement, particularly in enhancing representation of scholars from the majority world.

The Center for Security Policy Studies-Korea (CSPS-Korea) hosted its 5th international security symposium, bringing together security experts from Korea and the US to discuss Korea's strategic role in the evolving Indo-Pacific security landscape.

Dr. Jihye Lim, an assistant professor of global affairs at Mason Korea, has recently been appointed as a standing commissioner for the international cooperation subcommittee of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council (PUAC).