War & Peace Series: Oxford 2026
Merton College, University of Oxford, & Belfast, Northern Ireland
Duty of Care—Global Violence, Intergenerational Memory, Narrative Ethics, and the Work of Peacebuilding
SPRING SESSION:
29 March — 5 April 2026 | Oxford & Belfast
Regular application deadline is 10 December 2025. If spaces remain, the second deadline will close 15 January 2026.
FALL SESSION:
13 — 20 September 2026 | Oxford & Belfast
The Duty of Care short courses in trauma-sensitive interviewing and narrative ethics is held for four days at Merton College, Oxford, followed by three days of intergenerational narrative fieldwork in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Global conflicts have more than doubled in the past five years, with civilian casualties rising over 70 percent since 2022. Grave violations against children in armed conflict surged 25 percent in 2024. Emerging research shows that war-related violence can reverberate across generations—socially, psychologically, and even biologically. The War & Peace 2026 Symposium sessions explore this escalating global crisis through current research, centering the experiences of women, families, and communities, and highlighting pathways toward resilience and the work of peacebuilding.
Join a dynamic community of leading scholars, influential practitioners, and innovative policymakers for a transformative program that explores the personal and collective power of lived experiences. Several sessions at Oxford will feature speakers from Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, and Sudan. Special workshops will focus on writing ethically about conflict and trauma, and the evolving field of conflict journalism. We welcome accomplished practitioners, researchers, journalists, and students—graduate and advanced undergraduates alike—who bring relevant experience and a commitment to ethical, creative engagement.
The study of war and peace at the University of Oxford dates back to the 1500s, with notable contributions to just war theory and the ethics of conflict. Building on this legacy, our workshop-symposium explores contemporary challenges in war and peacemaking, with a particular emphasis on trauma-sensitive interviewing. We foreground the roles and agency of women in both war and peace—how they participate in conflicts, how they tell their stories, and how inter-generational trauma shapes the persistence of intractable struggles.
This program is especially valuable for those preparing to conduct trauma-informed fieldwork with vulnerable populations in conflict-prone areas. Participants receive the Oxford Initiative’s Duty of Care Training Certificate in trauma-sensitive interviewing techniques, developed in partnership with Resonate Joy trauma specialists. Duty of Care training is required for further collaboration with the Global Women’s Narratives Project.
The days in Northern Ireland will be hosted by poet and playwright Damian Gorman and Advisory Board member and renowned community leader Anne Carr. One of the central challenges at the heart of the peace process is recognizing that it demands more than agreements, institutional reform, security measures, and economic development—it requires a transformation in attitudes between communities to reflect genuinely new relationships. This fieldwork centers on culture, change, and reconciliation. We will engage with community members to explore how cultural leadership, political evolution, and social renewal contribute to the process of communal reconciliation.
SPRING SYMPOSIUM
29 March - 2 April | University of Oxford
3 - 5 April | Belfast, Northern Ireland
Narrative fieldwork (optional)
The Spring Symposium will convene at the University of Oxford from Sunday, 29 March to Thursday, 2 April 2026. Daily sessions run from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, with one special evening gathering and an afternoon reserved for exploring Oxford. Participants arrive and check in on Sunday afternoon, and depart Thursday afternoon from Oxford. Delegates continuing with the Global Women’s Narratives Project team to Belfast, will begin meetings on Friday morning, 3 April, through Sunday, 5 April 2026. Additional details about the Belfast fieldwork and estimated costs will be shared early in the new year.
FALL SYMPOSIUM
13 - 17 Sept | University of Oxford
18 - 20 Sept | Belfast, Northern Ireland
Narrative fieldwork (optional)
The Fall Symposium will convene at the University of Oxford from Sunday, 13 September to Thursday, 17 September 2026. Daily sessions run from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, with one special evening gathering and an afternoon reserved for exploring Oxford. Participants arrive and check in on Sunday afternoon, and depart Thursday afternoon from Oxford. Delegates continuing with the Global Women’s Narratives Project team to Belfast, will begin meetings in Belfast on Friday morning, 18 September through Sunday, 20 September 2026. Additional details about the Belfast fieldwork and estimated costs will be shared in late Spring.
The symposium workshops are uniquely curated each session, shaped by the themes and participants of that year. To offer a sense of its scope, structure, and depth, we’ve included links below to several previous workshops and symposia.
The Resonate Joy Nonprofit, an arm of the Optimum Joy private practice in Chicago, IL, USA, partners with the Global Women’s Narratives Project to provide trauma-informed training and therapeutic support.
Trauma specialists lead several sessions in our Oxford training and travel with global interviewing teams.
