Swedish professor of peace and development visits, discusses academic cooperation

Helena Lindholm, a professor of peace and development at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, visited Birzeit University on March 18, 2019, and met with the university’s Vice President for Academic Affairs Henry Giacaman and Officer of External Academic Relations Amir Khalil. The two parties explored areas and ways to expand their cooperation.

Birzeit University and the School of Global Studies are partners in a project titled CREATE “Comprehensive Cooperation for Research, Action, Teaching and Engagement in Conflicts of Mobility, Space and Heritage Studies.” It aims to build networks that facilitate accessible modes of interaction to enable teachers, researchers and students in the fields of languages, cultural heritage, and conflict and peace studies to engage in knowledge exchange and to conduct joint research.

During her visit, Lindholm met with Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies Lena Meari and faculty member at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies Islah Jad. She also sat with the project’s coordinator at the Ibrahim Abu Lughod Institute of International Studies, Suhaila Abdullatif, and Director of the Center for Development Studies Linda Tabar to discuss the possibility of offering exchange opportunities for students within the Erasmus+ program and of establishing cooperation between PhD programs in social science of the two universities.

Lindholm was a student at the Palestine and Arabic Studies Program at Birzeit University in 1994. She is a professor of peace and development studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research area covers conflicts in the Middle East with a special focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Palestinian politics, identity, the refugee crisis, and the reconstruction of war-torn societies.