Sydney researchers go global

Africa

Sierra Leone

This summer Dr Wendy Lambourne of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies is conducting field research in Sierra Leone. Her research will contribute to understanding the application of peacebuilding theory in practice and an inventory of lessons learned for future peacebuilding interventions

Dr Lambourne is interviewing local civil society and state actors about their views on how successful the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) has been in fulfilling its mandate and the challenges of building a sustainable peace.

Asia

Indonesia

Dr Russell Toth from the School of Economics will be setting up a new study on the impacts of sustainability certification for smallholder cocoa farmers in partnership with Dr Jeff Neilson of the Faculty of Geosciences, in Aceh province, Indonesia.

Dr Toth will be working with a large international NGO that facilitates a sustainability program for cocoa farmers, and helps connect them to higher-value buyers for their cocoa.

Also in Indonesia, the Sydney Law School’s Professor Simon Butt is currently conducting fieldwork for his ARC Future Fellowship project on Indonesia’s regional anti-corruption courts.

Israel

In early January Dr Joseph Toltz from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music will travel to Israel for a month, to meet with Dr Anna Boucher (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) and continue their research on Mima’amakim, the first collection of Holocaust songs. They will be working with archives in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Antarctica

The Faculty of Agriculture and Environment’s Associate Professor Margaret Barbour set sail on the largest all-female expedition to Antarctica in early December.

The inaugural Homeward Bound expedition unites a team of 76 women scientists from across the globe. Throughout their 20-day voyage, the team will be mentored in leadership practices and develop strategies to address some of the world’s most difficult challenges, including climate change.

Europe

Nea Paphos

The University’s Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project recently completed its 17th season of excavations at the World Heritage-listed archaeological site of the theatre of Nea Paphos in Cyprus. Archaeologists from the University have been working at this important site since 1995.

Sydney University Museums’ Dr Craig Barker, co-director of the research team, reports that the most recent season was a huge success. The team excavated more of a 2^nd century AD Roman paved road to the south of the theatre and a large medieval building to the rear of the ancient theatre. The building appears to have been a warehouse, potentially associated with sugar trade.

London, Geneva, Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna

Professor Dirk Moses will spend January and February in Europe to conduct research for his project on 'the diplomacy of genocide'.

Focussing on secessionist civil wars in relatively new states in Africa and South Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, Professor Moses is planning to visit diplomatic and NGO archives in the UK, Geneva (United Nations), Amsterdam, Berlin, and Vienna.

North America

Akron, San Diego and New York

In December, Dr Joseph Toltz from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music is travelling to Akron, Ohio to continue his research for the Performing the Jewish Archive project. The University of Akron is one of the archival repositories for the work of Dr David Boder, a psychologist and ethnographer who was the first to capture Holocaust survivors singing and giving testimony in the immediate aftermath of the war.

After this brief research trip, Dr Toltz will present a paper as part of a special seminar at the Association of Jewish Studies (AJS) Annual Conference in San Diego. He will then travel to New York to continue work in the private archive of the Grosz-Forman family.