Sramana Majumdar

"Violence, Identity and Self-determination: Narratives of conflict from the Kashmir Valley" 4:15 PM, Monday 18 Nov Room 239, BYC Bryn Mawr College

Exposure Index

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RSS Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict

  • The base: an analysis of recruiting, vetting, and motivations of potential members March 28, 2025 Rebecca A. Wilson Katherine Kountz John P. Hendry Allison Betus Mor Yachin Dror Walter Michael Loadenthal Anthony F. Lemieux a Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USAb Department of Communication, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USAc Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USAd School of Public and International Affairs, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
  • Stabilizing post-conflict states: evaluating the impact of resources December 31, 2024 Rula Jabbour Michelle Black Abigail Cawley a Department of Political Science, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincolnb Department of Political Science, Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NEc Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Development Department, Lincoln, NE
  • The science of zero-sum thinking: a scoping review of 10 years of empirical research December 30, 2024 Lucas Heiki Matsunaga Jacob Petersen Toshiaki Aoki Cristiane Faiad a Department of International Environment and Resources Policy, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japanb Center for International Education, Iwate University, Morioka, Japanc Department of Clinical Psychology and Culture, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil
  • Psycholinguistic signals of terrorist attacks December 24, 2024 Natasha K. Mather Michael D. Young Shilpa Hanchinal a Department of History, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USAb Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, University at Albany, Albany, NY, USAc Leadership Analysis and Influence Operations Laboratory(LA/IO), Albany, NY, USA
  • Predictors of terrorist use of suicide attacks: group age and state power December 22, 2024 Samuel K. Goldenberg Independent Scholar, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

About

Solomon and Florence Asch

Solomon and Florence Asch

The social psychologist Solomon Asch was famous for his groundbreaking laboratory experiments. Asch insisted that lab investigation must maintain contact with real human experience, and that behavior cannot be separated from the social world of the individual. The mission and goals of the Asch Center reflect our commitment to Solomon Asch’s vision of balance between theoretical and practical concerns.

In a world drawn closer together through global commerce, culture and technology, no country is immune from the consequences of ethnic, political and religious conflicts. The United States has found that climate change, energy supply, financial equilibrium, and immigration all depend, in significant part, on political events beyond our borders. Salient in the turbulence of globalization, ethnopolitical conflict is perhaps THE major political problem of the 21st century.

For a decade the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, now located at Bryn Mawr College, has brought together social scientists from many disciplines-history, political science, psychology, linguistics, economics, law, sociology or anthropology — to analyze the underlying causes of ethnic conflict, how conflict can be managed constructively to avoid widespread violence, and how to ameliorate the refugee problems that flow from ethnic violence.

The unique contribution of the Asch Center is this interdisciplinary and holistic view of ethnic conflict. There are centers that focus on understanding the origins and special viciousness of ethnic conflict. Other centers focus on peace-building interventions designed to control or reduce ethnic conflict. Still other centers focus on assisting the tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons created by ethnic conflict. Only the Asch Center attempts to understand these issues in their complex interrelations. We believe that the protracted nature of ethnic conflict often depends on the plight and politics of diasporas, that useful interventions to control ethnic conflict depend on understanding the special mobilizing power of ethnicity, and that assisting refugees to return to their homes depends on interventions that can help move violent conflict toward nonviolent political competition.

Substantively, the Center’s current work emphasizes four issues of ethnic conflict:

The Asch Center seeks to build research and education on these issues with support for the following activities: continuing the summer institutes that introduce young scholars and NGO officers to interdisciplinary perspectives on ethnic conflict; developing postdoctoral fellowships to bring together scholars working on Asch issues; developing a summer course for high school students interested in ethnic conflict; developing summer and semester internships for undergraduate students interested in ethnic conflict; launching a yearly film festival built around ethnic conflict issues; continuing Asch’s weekly seminar series; and developing the Asch Center website as a resource for studying the role of visual culture in ethnic conflict. Support for research and intervention projects can draw on the cooperation of the 78 fellows Asch has trained in its four past summer institutes, including fellows from India, the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Israel-Palestine, and Northern Ireland.