What is the expected human childhood? Insights from evolutionary anthropology

In psychological research, there are often assumptions about the conditions that children expect to encounter during their development. These assumptions shape prevailing ideas about the experiences that children are capable of adjusting to, and whether their responses are viewed as impairments or adaptations. Specifically, the expected childhood is often depicted as nurturing and safe, and characterized by high levels of caregiver investment. Here, we synthesize evidence from history, anthropology, and primatology to challenge this view. We integrate the findings of systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and cross-cultural investigations on three forms of threat (infanticide, violent conflict, and predation) and three forms of deprivation (social, cognitive, and nutritional) that children have faced throughout human evolution. Our results show that mean levels of threat and deprivation were higher than is typical in industrialized societies, and that our species has experienced much variation in the levels of these adversities across space and time. These conditions likely favored a high degree of phenotypic plasticity, or the ability to tailor development to different conditions. This body of evidence has implications for recognizing developmental adaptations to adversity, for cultural variation in responses to adverse experiences, and for definitions of adversity and deprivation as deviation from the expected human childhood.

War or peace tweets? The case of Pakistan

This study explores the application of social media in a violent conflict and examines the role that Twitter can play in communicative processes in light of peacebuilding practices. It bridges a gap in communication research by conducting a war/peace framing analysis on Twitter regarding the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan. Our results challenge the idealistic perspectives of peace communication scholars, who predicted that digital platforms would lead to a strong peace framing approach. Similar to traditional media, the tweets were dominated by war frames. Results also showed the amount of war and peace indicators varied over time. Further, findings suggest the narrative that ultimately failed to highlight a peace framework, was largely shaped by local events and the power of traditional stakeholders.

Tending To The Devastating Wounds Of Nigerian Girls And Women

In 2018, one thousand, one hundred people were murdered across six states of north- west Nigeria, in 2019, two thousand two hundred people and between January and June 2020, one thousand, six hundred people were killed. In addition, more than 200,000 have been internally displaced [Strife 2021]. These are what we read daily; and further alarming are that the attacks and abductions seem to be more targeted at educational institutions of all levels in recent times, particularly across north-western Nigeria. For example, the abduction of at least 20 college students and two staff from Greenfield University Kaduna in April 2021. In February 2021, gunmen seized 279 girls from a school in Zamfara state and the abduction of 200 students by some reports; from a school in Tegina, Niger state. In early July 2021, more than 100 students were also abducted from Bethel Baptist High School, Damishi, Kaduna. While these attacks are not restricted to girls and women alone, this report aims to explore what the effects and related trauma of this seemingly intractable violent conflict on girls and women in Nigeria are and answer how we can curb the continuous occurrences. We reflect with women activists across the country, on ways to address the violence, and support the healing and rehabilitation. The paper also outlines fifteen major recommendations in response to the key question of how to support recovery and the past everyone can play to halt the menace. KEYWORDS: Girls, Women, Violence, Nigeria, Abduction, Kidnapping, Rehabilitation, North-West Nigeria, Effects, Healing.

The Role of Local Actors in Peacekeeping: The Cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone

With the advent of multidimensional peacekeeping, in considering the changing nature of conflicts in the post–Cold War period, the role of local actors has become crucial to the execution of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mandate. Just as peacekeeping does not have space in the UN charter, local actors do not have a clearly defined space in the UN-led conflict resolution process. However, they have gained recognition, especially in policy work, and slowly in the academic discourse, as academics and practitioners have begun to find ways of making peacekeeping and peacebuilding more effective in the 21st century. Therefore the construction and perception of local actors by international arbitrators play an important and strategic role in creating and shaping space for the former to actively establish peace where violent conflict is imminent. Local actors have independently occupied spaces during and after the conflict, and although they bring a comparative advantage, especially as gatekeepers to local communities, they have largely been kept on the periphery.

The humanitarian alibi: an overview and a redefinition

This paper explores and illustrates the diverse manifestations of the phenomenon of the ‘humanitarian alibi’, drawing upon historical and contemporary cases of violent conflict in order to identify substitutionary phenomena by governments and international actors. It affirms the existence of substitution process where humanitarian aid intervention substitutes for the prevention and resolution of violent conflict and the protection of civilian populations. The paper argues for expanding the humanitarian alibi, however, to take into account how international aid intervention compensates for both the systemic neglect of conflict related crises and for the systemic harm that exacerbates and perpetuates these crises. It also challenges the suggestion that the humanitarian alibi phenomenon is the product of a bygone era, and finds that the use of aid as a substitute for peacemaking can co-exist alongside the use of aid as a direct component of international intervention.

Double Trouble: Analyzing the Impact of Statelessness on the Status of Kurdish Women

The struggle of Kurdish women at large has been, as many media outlets suggested, an extraordinary and unique example of women’s status in the Middle East. In contrast to the widespread, surface-level narrative of Kurdish women’s empowerment, a complex political, socio-historical background of Kurdish statelessness has intensified women’s empowerment or oppression. This essay will demonstrate how nationalist ideology, autonomous spaces, and violent conflict may provide the conditions for a 'double revolution' and/or 'double oppression' of stateless Kurdish women through the lens of statelessness. These three features of statelessness intersect with unique features of the stateless Kurdish populations across the Middle East to determine a woman’s status. More specifically, the case of Syrian Kurdistan exemplifies a 'double revolution' while Iraqi Kurdistan exemplifies a case of 'double oppression' for Kurdish women.