Dr Anouk Ride contributed one of many articles on research methodology to the new Springer title: Methodologies in Peace Psychology: Peace Research by Peaceful Means. The article “Involving Participants in Data Analysis” discusses the researcher’s experience with different methodologies in which participants conduct analysis and includes a checklist of things to consider if you are designing participatory research. As it states in the introduction to Methodologies in Peace Psychology its relevance is broader than just psychologists: “Much of the work on peace psychology exhorts researchers to be peaceful but does not provide ideas as to how one might proceed in practice. This book offers a range of creative and sound ideas as to how to go about conducting research with people whose worldview might differ considerably from that of the researchers.” It is available online here: http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319183947 and at most book resellers.

TALEMAOT: Solomon stories of peace and conflict” is a collection of creative writing on the topical issues facing the country today by Solomon Islands writers and includes poems, short stories and short film scripts now printed and available for sale at University of South Pacific. TALEMAOT includes stories about everything from politics to disasters, family disputes to enduring friendships and humour to tragedy.

The publication began with a participatory writing workshop conducted by Anouk Ride in 2013. It enjoyed a sold-out first print run, republication in the curriculum and by UNDP and now is in its second edition, with new stories added.

ORDER BOOK ONLINE HERE: http://uspbookcentre.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=UBC&Product_Code=9789820109513

Save the Children Australia’s Solomon Islands office is undertaking a groundbreaking project on alcohol and violence entitled: “Supporting Youth in Dealing with Alcohol Use to Reduce Violence against Women and Children in Solomon Islands” (abbreviated as the Youth and Alcohol Project). In June 2016, the office commissioned a gender analysis regarding alcohol and violence which would be applicable to its ten project sites, five situated around the towns of Honiara, Guadalcanal, and five situated around Auki, Malaita, conducted by Dr Anouk Ride. She also prepared a discussion guide for youth leaders to use in communities to engage all youth in participatory exercises which would increase their conflict resolution and protective behaviour skills.

Told through the voices of local community leaders, “Community Resilience in Natural Disasters” by Dr Anouk Ride and Prof. Diane Bretherton analyzes how communities respond to natural disasters and how outsiders contribute positively – or negatively – to their response, promoting debate on the role of aid and the media in times of crisis. A critical read for those working in development, peace and community mobilisation, the book  is available in a Kindle edition: https://www.amazon.com/Community-Resilience-Natural-Disasters-Anouk-ebook/dp/B009AYK610/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1478737229&sr=8-1&keywords=%22community+resilience+in+natural+disasters%22

In December 2016, Anouk Ride was selected to participate in a workshop designed to assist early career female academics to identify strategies and opportunities to advance their career. With a rousing keynote from reknowned law academic Hillary Charlesworth, facilitation by historian Joy Damousi, and dozens of sessions sharing knowledge of female researchers and lecturers, the scheme illustrated the challenges and potential of participation of women in academia.

UNDP commissioned a national report, Status of Youth in Solomon Islands, which was drafted by Dr Anouk Ride in 2017. The report and its recommendations is currently undergoing revision following feedback from the National Youth Forum in February and a Stakeholders Consultation in May and is due to be released later this year.

This report is an activity of the United Nations Development Programme under the Supporting Peaceful and Inclusive Transition in Solomon Islands Project.

Kind thanks are provided to all the agencies which provided information to the researcher including Ministry of National Unity, Peace and Reconciliation, Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs, Guadalcanal and Malaita Provincial Governments, Honiara City Council, Royal Solomon Islands Police Force, Solomon Islands Development Trust, Save the Children, World Vision, Youth at Work, Consultant Dr Jimmie Rogers and various church and chief representatives and participants at the National Youth Forum February 2017.

The šCommunity Governance and Grievance Management Project of the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (with funding from World Bank) is currently preparing an analysis of and strategy for gender and social inclusion in local conflict resolution, drafted by Dr Anouk Ride.

The project aims to strengthen community grievance management capabilities and enhance the effectiveness of linkages with government in targeted communities. šWorks with participating provincial governments to fulfill key responsibilities associated with the selection, contracting, coordination, reporting, performance management and supervision of Community Officers (COs). The aim of the COs work is to build relationships between community leaders and members to address disputes and to build relationships and links between communities and the Police, Provincial Government and the Solomon Islands Government.

The Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy will be launched later in 2017.

Working for the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs of the Solomon Islands, Dr Anouk Ride is collaborating with local researchers on the first social marketing research about attitudes to violence against women and girls to be conducted in the Pacific Islands region. The pilot study will be complete in March 2018, and detail messages that are used to reinforce or stop violence against women and girls. What attitudes allow violence to take place unchecked, and what attitudes would support intervention prior to and after violence is the central research question.

The research will be conducted with women who have experienced violence, men who have perpetrated violence, and male, female and youth representatives from different communities (in Guadalcanal, Malaita and Temotu provinces).

The research is intended to have a practical use – to increase the effectiveness of messages and communications materials, activities and events that the various government, church, women’s organisations, INGOs and refuge services conduct and/or to stimulate new actions that can lead to social change. A review of the previous violence against women policy (2010-2015) found that “greater coordination is required for key messaging” particularly for awareness raising about violence and the Family Protection Act and this research is intended to inform such joint efforts[i].

The report is commissioned by the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs (MWYCFA) which will be the first to read the report recommendations and then share this with other organisations working on this issue. This project is supported by Oxfam Australia as part of the Safe Families Fund, an initiative funded by the Australian Aid Program aimed at eliminating violence against women in the Solomon Islands.

Dr Anouk Ride and Professor Diane Bretherton presented to the Peace Psychology Conference at University of Notre Dame, Indiana, on “Peace Research by Peaceful Means’, each putting forward principles, approaches and examples of doing research in a peaceful way that advances peace in various different contexts. The session drew on chapters from the book “Methodologies in Peace Psychology: Peace Research by Peaceful Means” released in the Springer Peace Psychology series edited by Daniel J. Christie.

Recently I have been spending less time on Facebook and more time on LinkedIn and my outlook on life is better for it. The shift started earlier this year, there were two events in my social circle that made me realise Facebook is destructive, particularly for women’s self-esteem, solidarity and respect.

The first one was an acquaintance who was having an extra marital affair (all the while posting ‘happy family’ pictures of her and her children on Facebook). The happy family photos and all the comments made me feel uneasy, and then it got worse when the affair was finally out in public, of course a lot of people defriended the woman and posted hate comments and ridicule about her on other people’s pages. Yes, this acquaintance made a mistake and a fairly colossal one, but rather than talk to her about it, all her friends and family spent hours on Facebook posting venomous spurts into the internet’s thin air. I did not agree with what she did, but I began to feel sorry for her, she may not have any idea that her closest friends were re-posting her selfies and calling her a whore.

The second one was a female acquaintance who won an award and since it was self-nominated process there was a lot of controversy around whether she was a ‘deserving’ recipient of the award. Again, rather than having a discussion directly about this, people vented on Facebook, behind her back, often the same people that made positive posts on her own page congratulating her on winning the award were then posting on a different page suggesting she did not deserve the award, was entitled and self-promoting, was of the wrong age, ethnic background etc, etc.

It made me doubt the sincerity of people on Facebook, and doubt myself as well. Were Facebook “friends” a bunch of people using their posts to hide their two faces? If someone congratulated me on something, was it sincere? If I made a mistake in my life at any point, how would I be treated online, would it be the same as these two women were treated? What gossip or jokes did people say about me on Facebook? It sent me into a bit of a tailspin.

Then I thought, what impact would something like this make on a teenage girl? It was an eye-opener on how destructive Facebook could be, damaging people’s ability to trust others, their own self-esteem, their own lives. This is in addition to all the other risks of Facebook for young girls – type in “Facebook” and “girls” into a search engine and a long list of “girl drugged”, “girl tricked” and sexual content will soon be revealed. And there is the pressure of living a “Facebook-worthy” appearance, I mean looking perfect and being ready for a selfie or Facebook pic at all times, as you can never escape friends taking them, photos being posted and then being judged in multiple ways – not pretty, too sexy, looking old, looking photoshopped, too this, too that.

But I am rather addicted to social media, just a few minutes in the morning or at the 3pm energy slump, to expose myself to a bit of inspiration and ideas and take a brain break from work. So, I turned to LinkedIn instead. I made a rule that I could spend around 15 minutes a day on Linkedin and only go on Facebook to see if anyone had left me a message.

LinkedIn was like visiting a world which was the complete opposite of Facebook. On Facebook, women post photos seeking compliments of how they LOOK. On LinkedIn women post about what they are DOING seeking feedback, recognition and connections (compliments come too of course but it is about their work, their passions, not their hair). On LinkedIn EVERY DAY there were posts about successful women being shared, on Facebook that was rare. On LinkedIn, I found connections to people based on my ideas and work, on Facebook a lot of the connections were about friends stalking other friends. On LinkedIn, I could happily accept invites from men I had never met, knowing they were interested in my work, not in sending me suggestive messages when they were bored which was always a risk with Facebook. The hacking of accounts in LinkedIn seems rare, in Facebook hacking is a daily occurance, Prime Ministers and Presidents are not immune from it.

LinkedIn is a social media network with etiquette. People post about their work, ideas and inspiration. There are always a few that are not polite – there was one LinkedIn acquaintance who posted about her naked boyfriend, and another that posted about what they were having for lunch – both rather flippant posts that sit in isolation from the other interesting debates and discussions on LinkedIn – but in my experience so far, 99% of users are not like that. Apart from that one naked boyfriend post (which I should clarify was words not photos), I have never seen any sexual content on LinkedIn. It is one of the few forums on the internet where women and girls can be valued primarily for their ideas and achievements.

People are there to make genuine connections. Yes, I know, LinkedIn arose primarily as a way to network for work purposes, to know people who could get you jobs, promotions, clients and the like. And it’s a good idea not to accept invitations from people not in your field of work who look like they are friending people for marketing purposes. But I have found a lot of the dialogue is not necessarily about self promotion and marketing, it is about finding like-minded and different people and talking about practices, processes, goals and achievements in particular fields of work. I discovered through LinkedIn that some of my friends I’d connected because they were distant family, or had kids at my kids’ school for example, had similar outlooks to me on what is effective aid, how to foster social inclusion in policy and supported gender equity at work. I was able to get to know much more about them. For people I didn’t know so well, I could see the attitudes and approaches of people before I worked with them, through looking at their LinkedIn posts of what they liked and what they had achieved. Since I work as a research consultant, and jump around from one organisation to another, it was a way to keep in touch with projects and staff I had worked with before and how they were doing. People wrote to me for advice and shared stories, I responded and felt connected and valued.

The advertising and sponsored content is also profoundly different in nature. Firstly, there is much less of it, and secondly it’s based on your work field, so it can be quite useful to know about what the World Economic Forum is doing, or what are the top ranking universities are this year, which is what you find in sponsored content on LinkedIn. On Facebook, I get ads about washing detergent and clothes (I can’t remember if Facebook asked me what I was interested in, but I guarantee you it isn’t washing detergent!)

These days I am encouraging young women to spend less time on Facebook and go on LinkedIn, especially those who work on issues like violence, conflict and social exclusion like I do. Such work can be isolating and stressful and it helps to learn from what others do, share ideas and celebrate small successes dealing with monumental problems. I can see there are very active LinkedIn members who are women in science, technology and engineering and probably other male-dominated fields too, and I can understand why. Positive reinforcement from people who have the same challenges as you do helps keep you going.

I might be optimistic, but I hope the future of women and girls is the reality I have experienced on LinkedIn. There are only so many females that can survive mainly on their looks, and beautiful Facebook selfies. We need our work, our wits and a supportive environment to achieve our best, and LinkedIn can help.

p.s. if you want to be linked this is me: