Julia Schiwal is a program officer for the religion and inclusive societies program and the disruptive technologies program at USIP.

Before joining USIP, she worked at George Washington University and volunteered with the Xinjiang Victims Database. Her research interests include history, law and society — with a particular focus on how people engage religion and technology.

She has a master’s degree in imperial and colonial studies from the George Washington University and a bachelor’s in global humanities and religions from the University of Montana.

Publications By Julia

Beyond the Dayton Accords: Resolving Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Frozen Conflict

Beyond the Dayton Accords: Resolving Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Frozen Conflict

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Looking out from the town hall in downtown Sarajevo, you’d be hard pressed to find evidence of the nearly four-year-long siege that devastated the city during the Bosnian War. The surrounding area is clean and filled with new and repaired buildings — even the town hall itself is a restoration of the pre-war library that once occupied the space. 

Type: Analysis

Democracy & GovernancePeace ProcessesReligion

Indigenous Pathways to Peace

Indigenous Pathways to Peace

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Many of the world’s Indigenous peoples live in unstable areas, struggling to survive as conflicts, transnational organized criminal networks and extractive projects upend their lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, peace processes in these contexts are often negotiated at high political levels without the inclusion of Indigenous peoples. This can undermine the chances for success, as Indigenous peoples are a crucial population in some of the world's longest-running conflicts. But even further, excluding Indigenous people means overlooking how Indigenous traditions, rituals, and religious and political practices can help advance peace and resolve deadly conflict.

Type: Analysis

Peace Processes

The U.S. Strategy for International Religious Engagement: 10 Years On

The U.S. Strategy for International Religious Engagement: 10 Years On

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

In 2013, the United States adopted its first ever “National Strategy on Integrating Religious Leader and Faith Community Engagement into U.S. Foreign Policy.” This White House strategy acknowledged the significant contributions of religious leaders and faith communities to human rights, global health and development, and conflict mitigation; and provided an interagency blueprint for integrating more robust engagement with religious actors across a broad range of foreign policy and national security issues. A decade later religious engagement remains a vital but underdeveloped capacity in U.S. foreign policy, and the strategy’s 10th anniversary offers a natural opportunity to revitalize strategic thinking and spur new action on this agenda.

Type: Analysis

Religion

A New Approach for Digital Media, Peace and Conflict

A New Approach for Digital Media, Peace and Conflict

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Discussions about the negative effects of online communication on society — including its potential to contribute to violent conflict — tend to focus primarily on misinformation and disinformation. The former refers to factually incorrect information that manages to reach audiences at scale, whereas the latter refers to inaccurate information that is spread deliberately and malignantly by some actor or agent in order to produce specific perceptions and outcomes in physical or digital space.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

A Democratic Ukraine Must Include All LGBTQ+ People

A Democratic Ukraine Must Include All LGBTQ+ People

Monday, July 18, 2022

As Ukraine fights for survival, it has relaxed some barriers to the social inclusion of gay, lesbian and other gender and sexual minorities—for example, welcoming some gay people into its armed forces. Yet this change should be expanded and made permanent. Often countries recruit marginalized minorities during wartime emergencies only to revive old practices of exclusion in peacetime. The more inclusive democracy that Ukraine aspires to, and that its transatlantic allies support bringing into full membership of Europe, will require transformations in laws, institutions and social norms for the equal inclusion of Ukrainian gender and sexual minorities.

Type: Analysis

GenderHuman Rights

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