CPCS events for Michaelmas term 2026-2027 (details, eligibility and booking information below):
- Talk; Theoretical Engagements in PCS: In Conversation with Rebecca Buxton (Bristol) and Samuel Ritholtz (Oxford) | The Way Out: Justice in the Queer Search for Refuge, moderated by Roxani Krystalli, 7 October
- Talk; Virtual Teach-in: Resurgent War in Ethiopia, 29 October
- Reading Group; Forests of Refuge: Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield by Ariadne Collins, 9 November
- Workshop; Responsible and Care-ful Approaches to Research in Settings of (Armed) Conflict, Political Violence, and Peace Processes, 27 November
- Film; Dacia, vita mia – Dialoghi giapponesi (2025, Dir. Izumi Chiaraluce), 10 December
Open to ALL STAFF & STUDENTS
🗣️ Theoretical Engagements in PCS: In Conversation with Rebecca Buxton (Bristol) and Samuel Ritholtz (Oxford) | The Way Out: Justice in the Queer Search for Refuge
Moderated by Dr Roxani Krystalli
Weds 7 October 2026, 3–5pm, School II
Dr Roxani Krystalli (Core Affiliate) will moderate a conversation with Drs. Buxton & Ritholtz about their book, The Way Out: Justice in the Queer Search for Refuge (University of California Press, 2026). The Way Out examines the complexities of queer and trans displacement around the world. Centering personal narratives of LGBTIQ refugees, the book exposes the shortcomings of an international protection regime that is unable to address the harms that drive displacement.
Co-sponsored with support from the Centre for the Critical Reimagining of Human Rights (CCRHR), with thanks to Prof David Herd and Dr Natasha Saunders.
Image © 2026 by Samuel Ritholtz & Rebecca Buxton
Open to ALL CPCS STAFF & PHD AFFILIATES
🎥 CPCS Goes to the Cinema
Note: Book your own ticket and email Jaremey/CPCS Director that you’re going, and he’ll put attendees in touch with each other to meet up before or after the film.
Dacia, vita mia – Dialoghi giapponesi (2025, Dir. Izumi Chiaraluce)
10 December 2026, 17:30
Italian Cultural Institute (Italy House, 20–22 East London St, Edinburgh)
Free entry but booking required. Email [email protected] for info and to reserve a seat.
A film recalling writer Dacia Maraini’s childhood in Kyoto during WWII, when her family was interned after refusing loyalty to the Republic of Salò. In Italian with English subtitles.
Open to ALL STAFF & STUDENTS
📣 Virtual Teach-in: Resurgent War in Ethiopia
Amid renewed military hostilities in Ethiopia, this online teach-in aims to raise awareness about the evolving crisis in Ethiopia and especially the impact on everyday civilians. Students and faculty will have the chance to hear short talks/mini-lectures from experts and advocates currently on the ground, from multiple perspectives and lived experiences. The event will also include time at the end for audience questions for speakers and comments/other points of discussion about the crisis.
Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to):
Speakers include:
Open to CPCs STAFF & PHD AFFILIATES
📖 Next Reading Group Session:
Introduction & Chapter 1 in Yolanda Ariadne Collins (2026) Forests of Refuge: Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield (University of California Press)
Monday 9 November (Week 9) 2026, 4–5:30pm
Check email for more details and to register.
Full text e-book available via the Library.
Forests of Refuge questions the effectiveness of market-based policies that govern forests in the interest of mitigating climate change. Yolanda Ariadne Collins (Core Affiliate) interrogates the most ambitious global plan to incentivize people away from deforesting activities: the United Nations-endorsed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative. Forests of Refuge explores REDD+ in Guyana and neighboring Suriname, two highly forested countries in the Amazonian Guiana Shield with low deforestation rates. Yet REDD+ implementation there has been fraught with challenges. Adopting a multisited ethnographic approach, Forests of Refuge takes readers into the halls of policymaking, into conservation development organizations, and into forest-dependent communities most affected by environmental policies and exploitative colonial histories. This book situates these challenges in the inattentiveness of global environmental policies to roughly five hundred years of colonial histories that positioned the forests as places of refuge and resistance. It advocates that the fruits of these oppressive histories be reckoned with through processes of decolonization.