ICAR Welcomes Dwyer and Flores as Assistant Professors of Conflict Resolution

Leslie Dwyer, who comes to ICAR from Haverford College, has joined the Institute's faculty as an Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution. Dr. Dwyer – an anthropologist with extensive expertise in social science research methodology; the social and political life of discourse, narrative, and ritual; and discourses of transitional justice – received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2001. Before joining the faculty at Haverford, Dr. Dwyer was awarded postdoctoral fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, and UCLA’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Dr. Dwyer has conducted fieldwork and research in Indonesia, specifically, Bali, since 1993 – and it is essentially through the relationships developed there that she was drawn into conflict resolution work. As she describes it, “conflict resolution work found me.” Dr. Dwyer is currently collaborating with her husband, Degung Santikarma, also an anthropologist and human rights activist, on a book entitled: When the World Turned to Chaos: Violence and its Aftermath in Bali, which addresses the implications of the 1965-66 state-sponsored violence against alleged communists. Her next project will be an ethnography of the social and political life of discourses surrounding “trauma” and PTSD in Indonesia, and their emergence within contexts of clinical practice, humanitarian intervention, democratization, and the “war on terror.” This semester, Dr. Dwyer will teach CONF 801, Theories of the Person and looks forward to engaging students at the graduate level in courses designed to invite collaborative, creative thinking, and to encourage intellectual risk-taking. In addition to her academic endeavors and activism, Dr. Dwyer is the mother of three busy children: Ariel, age 10, Devin, age 8, and Aileen, age 4.

Thomas Flores, a researcher and educator in international development and political economy, joins the ICAR faculty this year as an Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution. Coming from a faculty position in the New York University Global Affairs Program, Flores brings a wealth of experience. Not only has he received a Fulbright for work in Colombia and funding from the Ford Foundation, he was awarded two teaching prizes while in the doctoral program at the University of Michigan. In his work, Flores focuses on the interaction between political foundations and economic growth, security challenges in developing countries, and the politics of Latin America, especially Colombia.

He hopes to supplement the traditionally qualitative elements of the ICAR approach with a quantitative lens that acknowledges the value of utilizing various methods in achieving positive results for the advancement of the field. According to Flores, “I think it is important to show our commitment to conflict resolution by asking such questions as how can we do it better? And, how can we better evaluate civil conflicts, elections, etc?” Specifically, Flores sees opportunity for exploration into the relevance of conflict resolution in the policy arena. Stemming from his belief that democracy can be implemented in post-conflict areas in a more responsible way, Flores’ hope is to, “produce policy relevant resolutions by triangulating cases, and doing such things as using statistics in an anthropological context, for example.” Additionally, Flores expressed openness to providing students additional learning experiences based on research for such cases. Flores is coauthoring a book on economic recovery from violent civil conflicts with Professor Irfan Nooruddin of Ohio State University.