Striving for world peace may not be a novel idea, but a new research venture at ASU will explore how collaboration and technological integration can spark global discourse on the issue.
The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict is planning an in-depth worldwide study to identify areas where peace and counter-extremism succeed despite a strong presence of extremist groups.
“The problems are too big and too isolated for one little group of scholars and one little department to look at,” said Carolyn Forbes, assistant director of the center.
As a result, the project incorporates experts from religious and global studies, anthropology, social sciences, engineering and computer sciences.
These experts will conduct surveys and collect data of people living in Africa, Southeast Asia and Western Europe to determine how local communities in different regions relate to global conflicts.
“You may have a conflict simmering in some local community in, say, West Africa, and that’s a pretty local conflict,” Forbes said. “But there’s this global discourse about Islam under assault … What we want to see are the linkages.”
Teams in each of the several regions around the world will interview local residents and conduct surveys with Gallup to get a better understanding of how communities generate resistance to extremist groups and ideals.
On the other side of the project are engineers and computer scientists who will collaborate data and create new ways to distribute it.
Hasan Davulcu, computer sciences assistant professor, said he wants to create a representation of where and how peace is working around the world.
“We want to know who are the influential groups, what are their opinions on various issues [are] so that we can chart our course while we are sensitive to … their perceptions and opinions,” he said.
His vision is to construct an interactive timeline that plots major incidents in specific areas and links them together to form a trail.
“When a new event comes in, we automatically figure out if it’s a new event or whether it’s a continuation of an event,” he said.
The timeline will be connected to a regional map, and both will be coordinated through news outlets and blogs in the area and allow users to get a better understanding behind what is going on, he said.
“We split out from the map all the related people, locations [and] groups, so it gives you a sort of dashboard to see when an event happens, [and] who maybe is behind this thing,” he said. “I think this will be a great system for visualizing news.”
Additionally, the project could help organizations decide the best courses for implementing peaceful projects, he said.
Decision-makers could identify places for peaceful projects like building hospitals, schools or factories and work with supporters of peace in regions suffering from religious conflict and violence, he said.
The research project is funded by a grant from the Minerva Research Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Defense.
ASU learned it won the award of around $5 million in late December. The award is granted over five years and the defense department could choose to continue funding the project afterward.
Jim Harvey, a spokesman for the Minerva program, said the grant was created to engage the social sciences in policymaking.
“The social science community has a lot, potentially, to contribute to the Department of Defense through understanding of other cultures and other countries and to influence our policy and deal with other cultures,” Harvey said.
And ASU’s commitment to research was a key factor in the defense department’s decision to grant the award.
“ASU has a strong reputation — a strong scientific reputation — and they’re dealing with an issue that’s of significant importance to the U.S. military,” he said. “They had an outstanding approach to deal with that issue.”
Reach the reporter at adam.sneed@asu.edu.
