Beth W. Stewart
Instructor of Social Sciences & History @ Fairleigh Dickinson University in Vancouver, BC and History instructor @ Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC. I have a PhD (2018) from the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and an MA and BA in History. At UBC, I was also a Liu Scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. My PhD dissertation, "‘I Feel Out of Place’: Children Born into the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Politics of Belonging," was based on five years of research with 29 youth who were born into the rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
I am also an abstract expressionist artist (www.artbybws.com). My art is informed by historical and contemporary stories of resistance and has been featured in academic journals, on book covers, and at conferences around the world.
As an educator, I have expertise in the following areas: social justice, gender, conflict, transitional justice, children and youth, world history, imperialism/colonialism, postcolonial history, cultural studies, and qualitative methodologies.
In addition to art and teaching, I also work as a freelance editor. In this capacity, I edit political science and history books and articles and humanitarian publications.
I live in Vancouver with my three sons on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
Supervisors: Dr. Erin Baines (supervisor), Dr. Pilar Riano-Alcala, and Dr. Philippe Le Billon
I am also an abstract expressionist artist (www.artbybws.com). My art is informed by historical and contemporary stories of resistance and has been featured in academic journals, on book covers, and at conferences around the world.
As an educator, I have expertise in the following areas: social justice, gender, conflict, transitional justice, children and youth, world history, imperialism/colonialism, postcolonial history, cultural studies, and qualitative methodologies.
In addition to art and teaching, I also work as a freelance editor. In this capacity, I edit political science and history books and articles and humanitarian publications.
I live in Vancouver with my three sons on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
Supervisors: Dr. Erin Baines (supervisor), Dr. Pilar Riano-Alcala, and Dr. Philippe Le Billon
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Publications by Beth W. Stewart
In this chapter, I present the mixed-method approach I employed to engage the youth and build trusting relationships. Specifically, the methods used included play, journals, drawing, drama, interviews, and home visits. I illustrate why this combination of methods was effective for working with the children and what challenges arose. Significantly, I suggest how this methodology can be adapted for research with other young people born of war to produce knowledge beyond the expected narratives of war-affected children.
These are children that were born into the violence of war to courageous mothers who were not yet ready to have them. Many have experienced tremendous loss and suffering, and those still in the bush continue to do so. But, when they are 'rescued' they face often violent struggles to exist; many return unaccompanied with neither parent and/or as orphans. These kids are bright and full of laughter and big ideas. They want to be lawyers, judges, social workers, doctors, journalists, and teachers. More than anything, though, they want to be treated equally, as Acholi children. But the divisions inherent in the simplistic policy prescription of the Kony2012 campaign make this impossible.
If Invisible Children took the time to listen to the children in northern Uganda, they would hear a wealth of alternative ideas about peace building. Invisible Children's Kony2012 is not only misguided but its violent message is quite likely a death sentence for many such children and their beloved brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. If you want to truly help the war-affected children in northern Uganda, then do something that will make a difference: support the countless local organizations that have been listening to war-affected children and working for decades with them to improve their lives.
2012
By: Beth W. Stewart
PhD Candidate UBC, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Liu Scholar, Liu Institute for Global Issues
Talks by Beth W. Stewart
Northern Uganda has been the site of decades of armed conflict. For 20 years, the conflict between the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government forces destroyed the landscape, economy, communities, culture, relationships, and lives. Both sides hold responsibility for the violence and terror inflicted on the Acholi people (the ethnic group populating most of the north). And while the active conflict moved out of Northern Uganda in 2007, the legacy of war lives on in people’s everyday lives.
While tens of thousands of children and adults were abducted and forced to serve the LRA, most of the remaining population was forced to live in internally displaced camps in which life expectancy plummeted. Virtually everyone experienced significant suffering and loss and Northern Uganda today remains impoverished. As one frontline justice worker described me in August 2014, “Our whole society is traumatized.”
About the collection:
Despite this difficult context, I believe that if we look and listen closely and creatively we begin to see impressive acts of resistance and resilience. This belief in human agency despite such dire constraints lies at the heart of each painting in this collection. The collection seeks to challenge our assumptions about war-affected people, and children especially, while also inviting you, the viewer, to bear witness to their stories and experiences.
Since early 2013, the children have been writing poems and drawing images for the purpose of some kind of artistic collaboration; I began painting in October 2013.
About the artist:
I (Beth W. Stewart) am a PhD candidate at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at UBC, supervised by Dr. Erin Baines. I am also a Liu Scholar here, at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. In Northern Uganda, I am partnered with The Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu – a grassroots transitional justice organization.
My PhD research is based in Gulu town in Northern Uganda where for over three years I have worked with the same group of 32 children who were born into the LRA. These are children whose mothers were abducted as girls and forced to marry into the ranks of the LRA and forced to bear children. The children in the project, like other children born into LRA captivity, either escaped with their mothers or were 'rescued' by the Ugandan army and subsequently transitioned to civil society. Some are complete orphans, most have only their mothers, and some long to be reunited with a parent who remains in the bush, including a few who are the children of the leader, Joseph Kony.
When the project started in 2011, the children were aged 11-16. They have become part of our lives. 'Our' meaning my research assistant (Aloyo Proscovia) and I, as well as my own three children (Thomas, Forrest, and Luke) who lived with me in Gulu for close to 5 months in 2011. We have watched them grow and struggle with who they are and the repercussions of their pasts.
In this chapter, I present the mixed-method approach I employed to engage the youth and build trusting relationships. Specifically, the methods used included play, journals, drawing, drama, interviews, and home visits. I illustrate why this combination of methods was effective for working with the children and what challenges arose. Significantly, I suggest how this methodology can be adapted for research with other young people born of war to produce knowledge beyond the expected narratives of war-affected children.
These are children that were born into the violence of war to courageous mothers who were not yet ready to have them. Many have experienced tremendous loss and suffering, and those still in the bush continue to do so. But, when they are 'rescued' they face often violent struggles to exist; many return unaccompanied with neither parent and/or as orphans. These kids are bright and full of laughter and big ideas. They want to be lawyers, judges, social workers, doctors, journalists, and teachers. More than anything, though, they want to be treated equally, as Acholi children. But the divisions inherent in the simplistic policy prescription of the Kony2012 campaign make this impossible.
If Invisible Children took the time to listen to the children in northern Uganda, they would hear a wealth of alternative ideas about peace building. Invisible Children's Kony2012 is not only misguided but its violent message is quite likely a death sentence for many such children and their beloved brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. If you want to truly help the war-affected children in northern Uganda, then do something that will make a difference: support the countless local organizations that have been listening to war-affected children and working for decades with them to improve their lives.
2012
By: Beth W. Stewart
PhD Candidate UBC, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Liu Scholar, Liu Institute for Global Issues
Northern Uganda has been the site of decades of armed conflict. For 20 years, the conflict between the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government forces destroyed the landscape, economy, communities, culture, relationships, and lives. Both sides hold responsibility for the violence and terror inflicted on the Acholi people (the ethnic group populating most of the north). And while the active conflict moved out of Northern Uganda in 2007, the legacy of war lives on in people’s everyday lives.
While tens of thousands of children and adults were abducted and forced to serve the LRA, most of the remaining population was forced to live in internally displaced camps in which life expectancy plummeted. Virtually everyone experienced significant suffering and loss and Northern Uganda today remains impoverished. As one frontline justice worker described me in August 2014, “Our whole society is traumatized.”
About the collection:
Despite this difficult context, I believe that if we look and listen closely and creatively we begin to see impressive acts of resistance and resilience. This belief in human agency despite such dire constraints lies at the heart of each painting in this collection. The collection seeks to challenge our assumptions about war-affected people, and children especially, while also inviting you, the viewer, to bear witness to their stories and experiences.
Since early 2013, the children have been writing poems and drawing images for the purpose of some kind of artistic collaboration; I began painting in October 2013.
About the artist:
I (Beth W. Stewart) am a PhD candidate at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at UBC, supervised by Dr. Erin Baines. I am also a Liu Scholar here, at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. In Northern Uganda, I am partnered with The Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu – a grassroots transitional justice organization.
My PhD research is based in Gulu town in Northern Uganda where for over three years I have worked with the same group of 32 children who were born into the LRA. These are children whose mothers were abducted as girls and forced to marry into the ranks of the LRA and forced to bear children. The children in the project, like other children born into LRA captivity, either escaped with their mothers or were 'rescued' by the Ugandan army and subsequently transitioned to civil society. Some are complete orphans, most have only their mothers, and some long to be reunited with a parent who remains in the bush, including a few who are the children of the leader, Joseph Kony.
When the project started in 2011, the children were aged 11-16. They have become part of our lives. 'Our' meaning my research assistant (Aloyo Proscovia) and I, as well as my own three children (Thomas, Forrest, and Luke) who lived with me in Gulu for close to 5 months in 2011. We have watched them grow and struggle with who they are and the repercussions of their pasts.