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International Workshop – University of Leeds & the University of Buenos Aires

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LSSI Internationalisation
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Research
Security and Justice
Supporting Interdisciplinarity
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An international workshop on ‘Enhancing Urban Safety and Crime Prevention through Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships’ will take place as a result of strategic research collaborations between the University of Leeds and the University of Buenos Aires.

 

A  strategic research relationship has been developing between the University of Leeds and the University of Buenos Aires, with particular areas of collaboration being forged between the Leeds Social Sciences Institute (University of Leeds), and the Gino Germani Institute (University of Buenos Aires). From 17-19 February 2020, researchers from LSSI and the Gino Germani Institute will come together to present a major international workshop on ‘Enhancing Urban Safety and Crime Prevention through Multi-stakeholder Partnerships’. The workshop, which will take place in Buenos Aires, has been organised by Professor Adam Crawford (LSSI Director) and Dr Emilio Ayos (Gino Germani Institute). Funding for the conference has been received from the British Council.

The Workshop

The workshop will explore the contribution of differing state and non-state actors in the provision of urban safety and how these might best be harnessed in the public interests. It will develop our comparative understanding of the complex relations between actors, processes and networks that constitute urban safety, with particular regard to specific neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires and elsewhere around the globe. It will map these relations and the array of regulatory structures responsible for steering them. It will explore the interactions between these and the manner in which they might better be harnessed to the prevention of crime and reduction of victimisation.

Workshop Aims

One of the workshop aims is to build new research capacity in collaboration with academic and non-academic stakeholders both in Argentina and internationally. Local practitioner, civil society organisations, scholars and PhD researchers will contribute to the conference deliberations. The conference will also benefit from contributions from international experts, including Juma Asiago of the UN Habitat Safer Cities Programme, Karen Bozicovich of the Organisation of American States, Professor Mahesh Nallah, Michigan State University from the US, Professor Franz Vanderschueren, at the Alberto Hurtado University in Chile and Professor Philip Stenning of Griffith University, Australia (also a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds). Colleagues from the University of Leeds contributing to proceedings include: Professor Adam Crawford, Dr Conor O’Reilly and Dr Anna Barker (all from the School of Law).

The intention is to develop the basis for co-produce comparative research insights and knowledge exchange aligned to the workshop aims. A longer-term outcome will be to develop a programme of comparative research and funding applications to advance this. The programme of research will focus on the roles, responsibilities and relations between multiple stakeholders in delivering crime prevention and urban safety with particular regard to public spaces.

On the first day, the conference will be opened by Professor Carolina Mera the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires and Milagros Mendez Prato from the British Council. The conference will conclude with a public engagement discussion panel chaired by Dr Emilio Ayos and include Josefina Kelly, the Secretary of Policies Against Violence for Gender Reasons at the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, and Raúl Eugenio Zaffaroni, Judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (and ex Supreme Court of Argentina).