Status Audio Magazine

Agnieszka Paczynska’s research focuses on the relationship between economic and political change and conflict, development and conflict, security-development nexus, post-conflict reconstruction policies, the relationship between globalization processes and local conflicts, and conflict resolution pedagogy. She is the author of State, Labor and the Transition to a Market Economy: Egypt, Poland, Mexico and the Czech Republic (Penn State University Press), and editor of Changing Landscape of Assistance to Conflict-Affected States: Emerging and Traditional Donors and Opportunities for Collaboration (Stimson Center), Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone: Pedagogy, Methodology and Best Practices in Field-Based Courses (with Susan Hirsch, Ohio University Press), and The New Politics of Aid: Emerging Donors and Conflict-Affected States (Lynne Rienner Publishers). Her research has been published in Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, PS Political Scienceand other peer-reviewed journals.

Her research has been supported by United States Institute of Peace, U.S. Department of Education, Franklin Fellowship Program, Social Science Research Council, International Research Exchange Board and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars among others. Her current project focuses on how states labeled as fragile engage in international debates about development assistance.

Together with Susan Hirsch Paczynska is co-editing a book series, Studies in Conflict, Justice, and Social Change, with the Ohio University Press. She is a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center and serves on the Board of Trustees of Saferworld USA. Most recently, she has also been a Visiting Professor at the Maria Curie Skolodowska University in Lublin, Department of Political Science (2018-2019) and Visiting Researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)(Summer 2019)

Paczynska engages in policy relevant research and discussions. She has consulted for the United Nations, U.S. Department of State, United States Agency for International Development, and the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and has observed elections in Afghanistan, Egypt and Liberia.

Most recently Paczynska has been teaching classes such as the Introduction to Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Foundations of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Structural Theories, and Conflict in Development.

Benjamin Gatling is a folklorist and Associate Professor in the English Department, Director of the Folklore Program, Director of Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS), and affiliate faculty of the Institute for Immigration Research and the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from The Ohio State University and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to Mason, he was a Lecturing Fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. His research interests include oral narrative, performance, the ethnography of communication, Persianate oral traditions, and Islam in Central Asia. His first book, Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan, was published with the University of Wisconsin Press in 2018. His current book project considers the experiences of Afghan refugees and migrants in the U.S. His research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, IREX, and Fulbright-Hays, among others. He serves as associate editor of the Journal of American Folklore.