Two scholar-practitioners have joined Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies as visiting research fellows for the 2012 spring semester.
Fanie Du Toit is the executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, South Africa. His previous research, practice, and writing have centered on post-conflict reconstruction in Africa. He recently published an edited volume analyzing South Africa’s reconciliation process, and he has written on Rwanda’s transitional justice processand developed post-apartheid school texts that received UNESCO’s 2008 Prize for Peace Education. Du Toit holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University. At Kroc, he will conduct research on political transition in Africa.
Elton Skendaj, a 2001 graduate of the Kroc Institute’s master’s program, holds a Ph.D. in comparative politics and international relations from Cornell University. As a research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., he conducted research on ethnic violence and arms proliferation in southeastern Europe. He has worked as the National Coordinator for the joint project between the U.N. Department for Disarmament Affairs and the Hague Appeal for Peace. This two-year international pilot project on “Peace and Disarmament Education Initiatives to Disarm Children and Youth” identified and created venues for peace and disarmament education in Albania. Its best practices were replicated nationally and internationally. While at Kroc, Skendaj will examine the role of international actors in building effective state bureaucracies and democratic institutions in post-war societies.
Each year, the Visiting Research Fellows Program brings scholars at the post-doctoral junior and senior scholar level to the Kroc Institute to conduct research and participate in the life of the Institute. Du Toit and Skendaj join two other visiting research fellows currently at the Kroc Institute.
Contact: Fanie Du Toit, dutoit.1@nd.edu, or Elton Skendaj, skendaj.2@nd.edu