(Hay una versión en español)
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime “recognizes the need to promote strong partnerships with civil society organizations in dealing with the complex issues of drug abuse and crime which undermine the fabric of society”. However, the UNODC itself admits that it is far from clear how to achieve such collaboration.
How can civil society organisations collaborate effectively with state agencies, on the one hand, and with diverse communities, on the other?
The challenges are even more acute in contexts of state corruption and societal violence. Assembling collaboration to address the issues may seem impossible in these contexts.
Our project builds on a previous project in Mexico led by CISRUL Director Trevor Stack with Salvador Maldonado, and a second one led by Jenny Pearce:
- Stack and Maldonado’s previous project examined how a range of actors organised in response to crime-related violence across 6 localities of the Mexican state of Michoacán.
- Pearce focused on still more marginal contexts where residents had difficulty organising, one of which was in Michoacán, working with residents to co-produce Human Security Agendas.
We paid some attention in those projects to how societal actors engage with institutions. Stack and Maldonado’s looked at local security councils set up to monitor police, while Pearce’s Human Security Agendas were aimed at institutions.
Yet in this current project, Stack, Maldonado and Pearce agreed to focus more centrally on how societal actors can transform how government works by collaborating more effectively with it. We look to identify principles for effective collaboration between state, civil society and communities in challenging contexts.
We are proceeding by:
- extending the research to other Mexican contexts
- stimulating experiments in collaboration, where there is little existing
- incorporating leading academic and non-academic partners to the team.
You can find out more about our research in Mexico below
Whither Mexico?
Forum hosted by CISRUL on Thursday 13 March 5.45 – 7.30 pm Topic In 2013 Mexico signed into law an important though controversial set of structural reforms, one of which…
Citizens beyond corruption and crime: The case of Mexico
Dr. Trevor Stack (CISRUL Director), Irene Álvarez, Irán Guerrero, Denisse Román and Ariadna Sánchez (visiting postdoctoral researchers from Mexico) presented findings of their ESRC-funded project involving seven ethnographic researchers in Michoacán, a Mexican region heavily affected by…
Citizen Participation in Contexts of Crime-Related Violence and Institutional Fragility
ESRC-funded Workshop hosted by the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL) at the University of Aberdeen Thursday 22nd November, 2018 The aim of the workshop was…
Council Democracy as a Mode of Autonomy: The Cases of Rojava, Chiapas and Cherán seminar
The Cases of Rojava, Chiapas and Cherán Dr. Hanifi Baris Seminar, Friday 30 April at 2 – 3.30 pm via Zoom Please email hanifi.baris@abdn.ac.uk to request the Zoom link. Dr. Hanifi Baris…
Art and culture initiatives
Practitioner brief (pdf) This briefing paper is part of a broader project investigating societal responses to violence in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. It explores the role that art…
Local citizen security councils
Practitioner brief (pdf) This briefing paper is part of a broader project investigating societal responses to violence in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. It explores the establishment of local security…
Legal mobilisation
Practitioner brief (pdf) This briefing paper is part of a broader project investigating societal responses to violence in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. It explores how local organisations and…
Eventos
Tanto en el Reino Unido como en México, el equipo del proyecto Activismo en regiones de violencia ha llevado a cabo una serie de eventos académicos y de participación pública,…
Publicaciones
Entre los resultados planeados del proyecto Activismo en Regiones de Violencia, nos comprometimos a: publicar 3 libros académicos: dos en español y uno en inglés participar en conferencias académicas, presentar…