BIARI at Brown 2018: June 2-16

Forced Population Displacements and the Making of the Modern World

Massive population displacement has long been an engine for the formation of the modern world as well as for producing modern knowledge regimes. The institute explores the historical roots of displacement from the colonial conquest of the Americas and the slave trade to industrialization and rise of nation states. It brings together scholars, practitioners, and activists working on present day displacements from the Syrian civil war to the Three Gorges Dam project in China. Participants will discuss the conceptual tools and forms of political and social mobilization shaping our understanding of and responses to the human and ecological dynamics of forced displacements.
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Governance and Development in the Age of Globalization

Development in the age of globalization presents new challenges and opportunities. Globalization has not only accelerated the pace of economic transformation and social change, it has also fundamentally reconfigured the nature of governance. While global and regional governance institutions (both public and private) are playing an ever more powerful role of shaping possibilities at the local and national level, national and local governments still provide the principal arenas of democratic contestation. The central axis of politics in an age of globalization is the complex interaction of governance institutions at different levels. Tackling the core problems of development, from economic growth to social provisioning and environmental sustainability, requires understanding how processes and institutions of governance operate and interact at multiple levels.

This interdisciplinary institute will bring together specialists in these different domains to focus on efforts to expand the regulatory capacity, institutional efficacy and democratic legitimacy of governance institutions that shape development. Areas of focus will include labor standards, social provisioning, democratic participation and urban transformation. The goal of the institute is to develop a critical understanding of these issues by exploring the latest theories and empirical work through comparative lenses.
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Social Entrepreneurship within Health and Humanitarian Innovation

Social entrepreneurship stimulates social change by addressing root causes of problems with a systems lens and creating solutions that are transformative, ethical and sustainable. Social entrepreneurship is a young field that transforms inequitable conditions, including within the healthcare and humanitarian spheres. This field embeds ethics and community engagement into its core approaches, and promotes scholarship to bring a rigorous and critical lens to the effectiveness and impact of the emerging models. This institute will provide a foundational knowledge of social entrepreneurship as a field of practice and research; a critical review of social entrepreneurship curriculum and pedagogy; and an examination of case studies from successful and failed partnerships in social entrepreneurial endeavors and research projects. Sessions will include scholars and practitioners, with workshops that support the development of research projects that balance the often conflicting goals of academia and practice.
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