ARCHIVED SPECIALIST PROFILE

Senior Fellow
Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program
October 2002-July 2003

Project Focus

The Political and Martial Role of Youth in Violently Divided Societies and the Implications for Peace Processes

Areas of Specialization

South Africa • Northern Ireland • Conflict Resolution • Post-Conflict Transformations • Political Participation • Youth and Conflict

Background

Marie Smyth is a founder of the Ulster-based Institute for Conflict Research, an independent research organization working mainly in Europe and Africa since 1994. She has also been on the academic staff of the School of Community Studies of the University of Ulster since 1985 and has taught as an adjunct faculty member at Smith College since 1992. She is a member of the British Council Committee for Northern Ireland (1999 to the present) and of the Board of Directors of the Mediation Network for Northern Ireland (1997-2001). She has also served as adviser to the Ireland Victims' Commission (1998). In 1995 and 1996 she co-chaired hearings on victims for the Government of Ireland's Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. As a board member of the Healing Through Remembering Trust, she explored the feasibility of instituting a truth and reconciliation process for Northern Ireland. She has worked closely with the Office of the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on the impact of the Northern Ireland conflict on children, and in 2001 she participated in an initiative by the special representative and the Social Science Research Council to establish an international network of researchers on children and armed conflict. She has written, co-authored, and co-edited books, reports, and articles on racism, sectarianism, segregation, mixed marriage, the humanitarian impact of armed conflict, research ethics and methodology, youth in conflict, and Northern Ireland. Smyth holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ulster.

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