PRIO researcher Jennifer Schirmer recently received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Grant in the Program on Global Security and Sustainability. Out of 350 international applicants in 2001, the grant was given to 37. She received the 18-month individual grant for her project "Protagonists of War: The Insurgents' View. Memories and Justificatory Narratives of the Guatemalan Guerrilla Leaders and Cadre".

This research is to complement her work on the Guatemalan military, and attempts to provide an understanding of the ideology and perceptions of the armed actors in internal/internationalized armed conflict (of 36 years in the case of Guatemala): to provide a sense of why and how armed conflict is initiated, who joins revolutionary insurgent movements (viz gender and ethnicity) and how such participation is justified, how armed conflict is sustained and how it is ended, and finally, how it is remembered among the cadre and leadership of the guerrilla movements for the next generation of youth.

Jennifer Schirmer will be holding a lecture at the doctoral course Globalization and Transnationalization: Lessons from Latin America, organized by the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo. Further info and application form can be found at the SUM web site