Liaison Fellowship

Liaison Fellowships

Liaison Fellowships connect graduate students with WSIP partners beyond academia by offering short-term internships. The fellowships enable UMass PhD students to build networks, hone new skills, and explore future work in non-academic social-justice arenas. At present, WSIP has a liaison fellowship with International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN). The Fellowship is linked to the WSIP Graduate Certificate in Decolonial Global Studies (DGS) though UMass PhD students from all departments, colleges, and schools are invited to apply.

Mellon and International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) Liaison Fellowship

Organized by the UMass-Amherst World Studies Interdisciplinary Project (WSIP), and funded by the Mellon Foundation and the UMass-Amherst Provost’s Office, the liaison fellowship at ICAN offers UMass Mellon Fellows the opportunity to learn about both local women’s peacebuilding practices and the workings of a global, coalition-building, peace-building organization. Fellows meanwhile put their skills in research, writing, collaborative conceptualization, and relation-building at the service of a social-justice organization. Mariam Parvez Sheikh and Meenakshi Nair were awarded the 2023 and 2024 liaison fellowships respectively.

Applications are currently open for the ICAN Liaison Fellowship. Deadline: August 1st, 2024.

Call for Applications

PhD students from all departments, colleges, and schools at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are invited to apply for a 2024 Mellon Liaison Fellowship, working with the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN). The Fellowship entails weekly online collaboration over three-six months, with a $5000 stipend. Application form can be accessed here.

Applications are due by midnight Thursday August 1, 2024. Early submission welcomed.

About ICAN

ICAN promotes inclusive and sustainable peace in countries affected by violent conflict, extremism, militarism, and closing political space. Recognizing the gendered impact of conflict and the critical role of women peacebuilders, we fulfill our mission through a dual strategy of:

Shaping and influencing the peace and security policies of governments, multilateral organizations, and the wider international community by providing thought leadership, strategic advice, and gender-responsive analysis and operational guidance; and
Sustaining and strengthening a global movement of innovative locally rooted women peacebuilders to have voice and influence wherever matters of peace, violent conflict, rights, and human security are determined (the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL), a global network of 90 women-led peacebuilding organizations across 40 countries.)

ICAN brings to life the word and spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, recognizing the role of women peacebuilders in advancing global peace and security.

Fellowship Description

The UMass Mellon Liaison Fellow will collaborate with ICAN on specific archival and communications projects over a period of several months. Most of the fellowship work will be conducted online, but it may also include travel to one ICAN meeting. In this case, travel costs would be covered. Begin date is somewhat flexible, as is the distribution of weekly hours and overall Fellowship timeline. Specific arrangements would be decided in consultation with the Fellow, within these parameters: a three-six month consecutive Fellowship period, starting in September at the earliest and December at the latest, with a weekly commitment of between 6 and 13 hours.

Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Fellowship is conceived as a two-way partnership between ICAN and the UMass-Amherst World Studies Interdisciplinary Project (WSIP/). ICAN offers the UMass Mellon Fellow an opportunity to learn about both local women’s peace-building practices and the workings of a global, coalition-building, peacebuilding organization. Fellows meanwhile put their skills in research, writing, collaborative conceptualization, and relation-building at the service of a social-justice organization. In addition, the Fellowship enables UMass PhD students to build new networks, hone new skills, and explore future work in non-academic social-justice arenas.

The Mellon Liaison Fellow’s projects would include: review and consolidation of ICAN archives; online attendance and notetaking at biweekly WASL community check-in meetings; interviews with peacebuilding partners working on the ground; identification of the key themes, practices, and principles of peacebuilding work, developed in collaboration with the ICAN team; and, on this basis, creation of messaging, media, and other documents. These materials would aim to capture the distinctive power and practices of women peacebuilders and to draw interest in ICAN from a wide range of audiences, including foundations and potential donors.

To apply, please submit a letter of interest, a current CV, a short writing sample, and the name, dept, and email of a faculty advisor at the application form. Please let the faculty member know that we may contact them about your candidacy. The letter of interest should describe your research, your relevant background, your qualifications and skills, and the reasons you are interested in this opportunity. See below for a list of relevant qualifications and skills. Your writing sample may be an abstract of a current research project (1000-3000 words) or a piece of writing (or excerpt) related to your current studies, published or unpublished (maximum 6000 words). The Fellowship is linked to the World Studies Interdisciplinary Project at UMass and its Graduate Certificate in Decolonial Global Studies (see: WSIP/ and WSIP Mellon Liaison Fellowship). Candidates need not be pursuing the DGS Certificate, but preference will be given to students enrolled in DGS core courses.

The Fellow will be jointly selected by the WSIP Co-directors and ICAN.

Desired Qualifications:

Excellent writing, research, and analytic skills
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
Strong interpersonal skills and respect for people from diverse cultures and backgrounds
Previous experience using Microsoft Office, WordPress, and social-media platforms
Language proficiency valued (e.g. Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, and/or others)
Knowledge of and interest in one or more of the following is particularly desirable: contemporary gender issues; the geopolitics affecting regional or local violent conflicts; practices of peacebuilding, activism, and/or conflict mediation; and interest/experience in a particular region, including but not limited to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

WSIP Mellon PhD Liaison Fellowship with Cooperation Vermont, Building Solidarity Economies (BSE), and Land Decommodification Networks

Applications are currently open for this Liaison Fellowship. Deadline: August 1st, 2024

Call for Applications

PhD students from all departments, colleges, and schools at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are invited to apply for a 2024 Mellon Liaison Fellowship, working through Building Solidarity Economies (BSE) and in collaboration with partner organization Cooperation Vermont and possible collaboration with Global Village Farms, Land in Common, and Cooperation Jackson.

The Fellowship entails weekly online collaboration over three-six months, with a $5000 stipend. Applications are due by midnight Thursday August 15, 2024. Early submissions welcomed. Details of the position and application are below.

About Cooperation Vermont

The People’s Network for Land & Liberation (PNLL), a BIPOC-led Consortium consisting of Community Movement Builders, Cooperation Jackson, Cooperation Vermont, Incite Focus, Native Roots Network, and Wellspring Cooperative. The mission of PNLL is to decommodify the land to reestablish right relationship with the earth and all our relatives and relations. We aim to advance democratic ownership of the means of production and liberatory social relationships. We are committed to building communities that regenerate the earth’s lifegiving ecosystems.

As part of the PNLL consortium, Cooperation Vermont (CVT)is an intentionally seeded organization established to further this work in this bio region. Vermont was chosen to implement a Build and Fight strategy because it is projected to be one of the most climate resilient bio regions on the North American continent and has a political and cultural history conducive to scalable experimentation.

At its core CVT works to further cooperative development within Vermont. CVT was established specifically in this bioregion in preparation for future generations to continue liberatory movement work in a world that will look vastly different in the decades to come because of both climate change and a global end stage for the current capitalist framework. The mission of Cooperation Vermont is to build thriving community economic and environmental democracy. By organizing with local communities and existing efforts in the state, Cooperation Vermont is preparing for continued deterioration of economic and environmental conditions and for the inevitability of displaced peoples, specifically BIPOC people from the Gulf South and the Southeast. The vision is to shift away from extractive systems of economic development and, through a Just Transition, collectively create self-sufficient, resilient communities with thriving, ecologically sustainable economies. With Cooperation Vermont’s Community Land Trust, CVT CLT is decommodifying land to be communally stewarded and used for the purposes of forming and supporting worker owned cooperative businesses, cooperative food production, and equitable housing initiatives.

About BSE

BSE (Building Solidarity Economies) is a project to advance a post-capitalist politics through collaborative teaching and learning. Partially situated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Anthropology, BSE works closely with community organizations and movements to both efface and re-bridge academic/community divides. BSE mobilizes courses, research projects, internships and independent studies, organizing efforts, public dialogues and popular education, writing and communications, and gatherings and events in order to:

create lines of connection for students—ideological, relational, libidinal—to communities, social movements, and initiatives that are creating the conditions for ways of being in the world that reject and evade the dictates of colonial capitalism and
help to support, advance, and amplify the work of such communities, movements, and initiatives.

For questions about BSE contact Boone Shear at bshear@umass.edu

Fellowship Description

The UMass Mellon Liaison Fellow will collaborate with Cooperation Vermont (CVT), and possibly other related land decommodification projects, on specific research and communications projects over a period of several months. Much of the fellowship work with Cooperation Vermont will be conducted online, but it may also include some travel to CVT and other land-based projects in the region. In this case, travel costs would be covered.

The Fellow will also work closely with BSE (Building Solidarity Economies) which has existing relationships with CVT and related movement networks. BSE will be a place for community and support throughout the internship collaboration, and it will include an orientation to the political and movement landscape, regular check-ins with BSE coordinator, and a BSE community reading group that will provide theoretical and political context for the work (as well as other engaged opportunities that the Liaison Fellow can choose to take part in, or not).

The begin date is somewhat flexible, as is the distribution of weekly hours and overall Fellowship timeline but will be decided in dialogue with CVT within these parameters: a three-six month consecutive Fellowship period, starting in Fall 2024 with a weekly commitment of between 10-15 hours.

Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Fellowship is conceived as a collaboration between Cooperation Vermont, Building Solidarity Economies, and the UMass-Amherst World Studies Interdisciplinary Project (WSIP/). CVT and BSE offers the UMass Mellon Fellow an opportunity to learn about place-based land decommodification and solidarity economy efforts, as well as regional and national level movements and organizing efforts. Fellows meanwhile put their skills in research, writing, collaborative conceptualization, and relation-building at the service of organizations and communities engaged in post-capitalist and decolonial politics. In addition, the Fellowship enables UMass PhD students to build new networks, hone new skills, and explore future work in non-academic arenas.

The Mellon Liaison Fellow’s projects may include: review and consolidation of existing organizational archives and publicly available data; attendance and notetaking of designated meetings; developing and conducting interviews and surveys; identification of potential strategic collaborators in place-based organizing efforts; creation of messaging, media, and other documents for outreach and relationship building around a politics of land decommodification and community autonomy.

The Fellow will be jointly selected by the WSIP Co-directors and BSE.

Desired Qualifications:

Excellent writing, research, and analytic skills
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
Strong interpersonal skills and respect for people from diverse cultures and backgrounds
Previous experience using Microsoft Office, WordPress, and social-media platforms
Language proficiency valued (e.g. Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, and/or others)
Knowledge of and interest in one or more of the following is particularly desirable: land justice and land decommodification; community production, local and regional food systems, post-capitalism and solidarity economies.

The Mellon Liaison Fellowship is a valuable opportunity for doctoral students dedicated to empowering civil society. My fellowship at ICAN strengthened my understanding of the link between theory and practice, and the broad applications of this experience will be relevant whether I pursue an academic or practitioner path. With a focus on women, peace, and security (WPS), the ICAN fellowship gave me a comprehensive understanding of gender dimensions in conflict, peace-building and international policy-making. I also benefited from the mentorship of ICAN’s leaders, engagement with their extensive international network of partners, and access to their peace-building resources.
Mariam Sheikh, (Center for International Education, School of Education, UMass Amherst)

ICAN is incredibly proud to partner with UMASS for the Andrew Mellon Liaison Fellowship. For the pilot process, we had fifteen fantastic candidates, two of whom offered the skills set and knowledge that were a particularly brilliant fit for key aspects of our work. The first fellowship period has concluded successfully. It’s been incredibly productive and helpful for us. We are looking forward to our next UMASS Fellow and hope to continue the partnership into the future!
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini (Founder and CEO, ICAN)

Having previously developed curricula, During her fellowship, Mariam reviewed ICAN material and conducted research to map existing curricula in Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). She organized and created an outline of resources to identify potential entry points for sharing ICAN’s materials with academic and professional institutions. In addition, she reviewed existing online platforms for remote learning to explore the possibility of ICAN developing an online curriculum which would be accessible for women peacebuilders globally. Her work helped to lay the foundation for ways in which ICAN and our partners can share our knowledge and expertise with key leaders and future peacebuilders. Mariam was also reflective of her experience as a fellow at ICAN and shared ideas for further developing the fellowship program. As a PhD student and specialist in international education, Mariam brought to ICAN strong research and writing skills, ethnographic fieldwork, knowledge of gender, student activism in Pakistan, and practical teaching experience.
Stacey Schambers (Senior Program Officer, ICAN)

New liaison fellowship opportunities will be announced as they become available.