About Us
The following partners and Course Team have brought together their respective expertise in realizing this project so far:
The Network University (TNU)
is a centre for collaborative learning. TNU is rooted in the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It offers innovative academic courses via the Internet to a worldwide audience of students and professionals. Participants with different professional backgrounds share their experiences in interactive group discussions and assignments. They become co-producers in joint knowledge networks. TNU's activities are aimed at generating new knowledge and insights and then spreading these throughout the participating networks. These activities include the development and supervision of online courses, online debates, commissioned research, workshops combining online and face-to-face learning experiences and consultancy and strategy development on E-learning.
Modus Operandi is an independent research institute, based in France, focusing on conflict transformation and state reform. Its research programs take place in the framework of post-conflict and post-Soviet contexts, with a social science approach (anthropology and sociology). Geographical areas of expertise are: Africa, post-Soviet Central Asia and Afghanistan. Modus Operandi also organizes a series of regional debates in Southern Africa (June 2008) and Central Asia (September 2009). Its researchers are moderators of the course and simultaneously teach at several universities.
The Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation is our financial partner in the creation of this course. It committed to contribute to the long-term changes of our societies. Therefore it backs the emergence of a global community capable of conceiving and driving three major mutations:
- new social, political and institutional regulations from local to global (the transformation of governance)
- a common ethical ground (the Charter of Human Responsibilities)
- new modes of development.
- promotion of ideas and proposals;
- support to the emergence of citizens' alliances;
- promotion and improvement of methods.
Course team
Claske Dijkema
After obtaining a Masters in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies in Amsterdam and Berkeley, Claske worked in South Africa for the " African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) ", a training and research center on conflict resolution in Africa. Of Dutch origin, she has developed with the Network University of Amsterdam, online courses on the transformation of conflicts for a global audience (www.netuni.nl). She currently works at Modus Operandi studying the political transformation in post-crisis states, the dynamics State disintegration, as well as the experiences and perspectives of the reorganization and reform of the State in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Horn of Africa.
Karine Gatelier
For her PhD in social anthropology (EHESS, Paris), Karine Gatelier has conducted extensive field research in Cantral Asia (Uzbekistan) on the question of the construction of social identity. She currently works at Modus Operandi. Within the wider topic of political transformation in post-crisis states, she focuses on the issue of political legitimacy in Central Asia. She is equally preparing a seminar in Central Asia on this topic. Karine Gatelier also teaches at several universities in France.
Alexia Stainer
Alexia Stainer's experience is based around human rights issues, with a special interest in transitional justice and reconstruction. After obtaining a bachelors degree in Anthropology and a masters in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, she pursued her research interests in the Republika Srpbska (one of the entities of Bosnia Herzegovina). She works with a peace project that is being set up called 'Mira Most' meaning Peace Bridge, carrying out fieldwork on the continuing conflict in the region. She is engaged in a study on States in transition to democracy and more specifically looking at the issues of rights and justice in post-conflict reconstruction.