International Speakers Series
Cambodia
December 2024: Soksamphoas Im “Debt, Dependency, and Cash Transfers: Evaluating Cambodia’s IDPoor Program and Its Impact on Rural Households”, 12/3/24
This presentation provides an in-depth assessment of Cambodia’s IDPoor cash transfer program, focusing on its role in addressing poverty and debt among rural households. It highlights key findings from interviews with 40 program recipients across Cambodia’s southern provinces, uncovering the complex relationship between microfinance debt and social assistance. Despite the government’s efforts, many rural Cambodians remain trapped in cycles of debt, with the cash transfers often being insufficient to cover basic needs or debt repayment. The presentation discusses the broader implications of such welfare programs in combating poverty within a highly microfinance-dependent society.
India
November 2024: M. Neelamalar “Regulations for Media in India: An Overview”, 11/20/24
This presentation outlines the constitutional provisions governing media freedom in India. It addresses the following subtopics: legislation pertaining to traditional media (including print, radio, and television), regulations related to film media, and the legal framework surrounding digital media.
Egypt and China
May 2024: Ismail Yaylaci “Norm Contestation and the Liberal International Order”, 5/8/24
Over the last decade, the constitutive norms of the postwar liberal international order have been increasingly challenged by various state and non-state actors. What are the strategies through which actors contest these norms, and what kinds of effects do such contestations have on the norms and the international order? This talk will try to address these questions by discussing two main strategies of norm contestation, namely cultural translation and appropriation. To illustrate the analytical purchase of this framework, I will discuss the examples of the cultural translation and appropriation of democracy by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the current Chinese regime. PowerPoint slides from the talk
Algeria
April 2024: Issrar Chamekh “How does de-politicization serve political causes? A Case Study of Kabyle Berbers in Algeria”, 4/17/24
This talk explores the ways in which generally non-controversial concepts such as cleanliness can be used to advance political causes. By observing the case of the Kabyle Berbers in Algeria, the speaker examines how a community exercises agency through the instrumentalization of legitimate tools to counter the delegitimization imposed by the state. In other words, how does de-politicization serve political causes?
Türkiye
March 2024: Zeyno Kececioglu “Forced Migration and Intergroup Relations: Arab-Turkish Citizens’ Perceptions of Syrians in Türkiye”, 3/6/24
This talk explores how Arab-Turkish citizens with different sectarian affiliations perceive Syrian migrants in Türkiye. Using semi-structured interviews from original fieldwork conducted in Türkiye, the presentation tests existing theories as to why inter-group relations between immigrants and receiving society members become strained and how this might be mitigated.
Ecuador
November 2023: Ernesto Espindola “Constitutional Instability in Ecuador”, 11/7/23
Characterizing and accounting for Ecuador’s constitutional instability from a psychoanalytically informed perspective.
Video: watch the Ecuador speaker series recording
Suriname
May 2023: Jonneke Koomen “Labor and Listening in Suriname: Anticolonial Archives and Afterlives”, 5/17/23
This talk explored the work of labor organizer and poet Anton De Kom, based on his book about Dutch colonial rule from the vantage point of those who sought to overthrow it. De Kom’s efforts to uncover the resistance of enslaved people in Suriname (formerly known as Dutch Guyana), as well as ongoing scholar-activism to recover and reclaim anticolonial archives in the Netherlands, Suriname and beyond were discussed.
Video: watch the Suriname speaker series recording
Powerpoint slides from the talk (with video and reference links)
Iran
February 2023: Kourosh Ziabari: “Understanding the Iran protests: a civil society revitalized”, 2/16/23
The protests that have been rocking Iran since September 16 last year over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. Award-winning Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari explained why the protests in Iran represent a watershed moment in the country’s contemporary history, elaborating on how this uprising can cultivate dialogue between the people of Iran and the United States.
Video: watch the Iran speaker series recording
Nigeria
November 2022: Ibrahim Anoba, “The African Imagination on Freedom”, 11/10/22
This talk considered how African peoples have strived to politically understand their place in the world at different times and spaces. Of particular concern is to consider what freedom means in the African epistemic consciousness. And more importantly, how African thought leaders make sense of their encounters with Westerners from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.
Powerpoint: This talk was not recorded, but the PowerPoint slideshow is available
Ukraine
May 2022: Tatiana Terdal, “Growing up in Ukraine: Reflections and Current Perspectives”, 5/10/22
Tatiana Terdal was born in Soviet-occupied Ukraine. While she was visiting the U.S. as a tourist in 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. American families sponsored her to stay and study at colleges and universities in the U.S. She is involved in local and national Ukrainian organizations, has spoken on NPR, WorldOregon, and Harvard University, and has helped to organize events in the Portland area supporting Ukraine. Tatiana will share her experiences growing up in Soviet-occupied Ukraine, teaching at Ukrainian Catholic University in independent Ukraine, unique cultural and historical aspects of her home country, and her perspective on the Russian war on Ukraine.
Video: watch the Ukraine speaker series recording
Cuba
February 2022: Jose Fernando: “Cuba, An Insiders View”, 2/17/22
PCC student Jose Fernandez left Cuba in 2017 with the hope of getting to the United States and staying through the provisions of the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act. His adventure involved planes, buses, boats, and walking through multiple countries, crossing jungles and rivers, paying bribes, meeting kind people who helped him and his friends along the way, and good luck. Jose will share the story of his life in Cuba, his adventure getting to the U.S., and the current challenges of the Cuban people.
Video: watch the Cuba speaker series recording
Brazil
November 2021: “Samba as a Window into Afro-Brazilian Identity”, Ana Carla Laidley
A native Brazilian, Ana Laidley grew up in the culture of Samba and continues the tradition through her teaching and counseling work. She will share a journey of acculturation and Afro-Brazilian identity reconstruction, based on her personal experience and research. Ana currently works as a psychotherapist and Samba instructor in Los Angeles.
Video: watch the Brazil speaker series recording
Vietnam
May 2021: “A Window into the Politics of Contemporary Vietnam”, Dr. Tuong Vu, University of Oregon
Dr. Vu discussed the evolving worldview of Vietnamese revolutionaries, showing the depth and resilience of their commitment to a communist utopia in their foreign policy. He will also update us on the current political situation in southeast Asia. Dr. Vu is the author of the book “Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology”.
Video: watch the Vietnam speaker series recording
Tanzania
February 2021: “Building Connections: Tanzania”, Cynthia Strong, Seattle Pacific University
What is it like to respond to an invitation to travel to a majority world country that you have never visited to start a library? Cynthia shared her story about being asked by a Tanzanian friend to set up a library in his village school. She shared stories, tips, and things she learned along the way. In sharing about working with the Chamwino Secondary School administration on the structure for a library, she hopes that viewers will catch a vision of the partnerships that people want to have with us and the beautifully rich diversity of humanity that exists beyond our borders. Learn more about Chamwino Connect (Seattle).
Video: watch the Tanzania speaker series recording
Estonia
November 2020: Kalev Sepp, “The All Digital Society of Estonia”, 11/12/20
Kalev Sepp is an electrical engineer and technologist with experience ranging from a Soviet-era computer lab in Estonia to the development of measurement methodology for advanced computer and data center communication interfaces that run the Internet and Cloud today. He had a long career in Tektronix as a principal engineer and now works as a consultant for Video Electronics Standards Association. Kalev has a diploma from Tallinn Technical University in Estonia, and an MSEE and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington. He is closely involved with the Estonian Community in Oregon and follows Estonian e-Government initiatives that have received acclaim worldwide. In this talk, he will give you an Estonian perspective of their all-digital society.
Video: watch the Estonia speaker series recording
Slides: view the Estonia speaker series slides