Welcome to The DSAA monthly webinar series!
Development is a dynamic space, bringing together research and practice across a range of disciplines. Our webinar series explores this diversity, bringing a new speaker who shares their expertise on a critical theme of interest every month. Each session will explore diverse topics, from building a CV for the international development sector to conducting community-based research and decolonising research practices. Through these interactive webinars, we aim to support HDR and ECR students in expanding their networks, gaining real-world insights, and advancing their academic and professional journeys.
You can replay previous webinars from our YouTube Channel @DSA_Australia
UPCOMING WEBINAR
New Research in Peacebuilding
Join our upcoming DSAA webinar on Wednesday 28th October 2026, exploring the changing nature of peacebuilding, drawing on new research from Africa, South America, Asia and the Pacific.
Bringing together researchers working across anthropology, sociology, international relations and peace and conflict studies, the panel will consider questions of resistance, community order-making and modes of governance. The discussion will draw on interdisciplinary research, policy experience and recently peer-reviewed work to explore contemporary approaches to peacebuilding across diverse political and regional contexts.
Panellists:
Dr Sophia Htwe is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Initiative for Peacebuilding, University of Melbourne, and holds a Master of International Community Development from Victoria University. Her research focuses on peace and conflict, international and community development, and ethnic politics in Myanmar. She has over a decade of experience across research, policy and peacebuilding practice in Myanmar.
Dr Michael Main is a researcher with the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University, working on community order-making and state-building in Melanesia. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University and has maintained a research focus on armed conflict and grassroots peacebuilding in Hela Province in the Papua New Guinea highlands. He is also a Research Affiliate with the Initiative for Peace at the University of Melbourne. His recent research includes “Who here is a volunteer?” Peacebuilding, brokerage, and moral authority in Papua New Guinea.
Connor Clery is a PhD Candidate, Sessional Tutor and Research Assistant in social and political science. His research draws on critical theory to examine resistance, security, peace and conflict in global politics, with particular interests in sociological and anthropological approaches to critical international relations. His work involves developing institutional partnerships, engaging with stakeholders and managing complex research projects in challenging contexts.
Dr Emmanuel Lohkoko Awoh is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, where he examined the relationship between conflict and development in Africa. His research spans ethnic conflict, governance, legal pluralism, carceral systems and hybrid political orders, with a particular focus on traditional authority and state power in Cameroon. Imprisoned in Cameroon between 2020 and 2025 for academic work deemed threatening to national peace, his current project, Wives in Waiting, explores how women navigate disappearance, prolonged absence, widowhood and survival amid the Anglophone war in Cameroon. His recent work includes Behind the cell door: life and survival in shared prison cells.
Chair:
Associate Professor Jasmine Westendorf is Co-Director of the Initiative for Peacebuilding, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict at the University of Melbourne, and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow.
Date: Wednesday 28th October 2026
Time: 7:30–9:00pm AEDT
For more information, you can check our website or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Zoom meeting details:
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This initiative aligns with the DSAA’s core objectives of engagement, research, and teaching, strongly emphasizing decolonizing research and connecting with Majority-World scholars.