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Upcoming Events
This page is currently under construction.
Stay tuned for 2024 news coming soon!
This page is currently under construction.
Stay tuned for 2024 news coming soon!
November 17‒19, 2023
The Transforming Military Cultures (TMC) Network, headquartered at SICEMA, held its second symposium, Dare to Disrupt the Status Quo: Envisioning Alternatives for Military Culture, in Ottawa, Ontario. SICEMA played an important role in organizing this event.
September 28, 2023
SICEMA’s director, Dr. Maya Eichler, along with Drs. Tammy George and Dr. Nancy Taber, published “The Arbour Report and Beyond” in the Spring 2023 issue of Canadian Military Journal.
June 27, 2023
SICEMA director, Maya Eichler, together with Christine Wood, Nadine Schultz-Nielsen, and Karen Breeck, recently spoke at the panel “Canadian Sexual Misconduct Class Action: Lessons Learnt” for the International Colloquium on Military Sexual and Other forms of Abuse of the Australasian Services Care Network. You can watch this panel below.
April 20, 2023
Dr. Maya Eichler gave testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs for their first-ever study on The Experience of Women Veterans. Click here to learn more.
March 23, 2023
Veteran Ombud Nishika Jardine visits SICEMA to discuss Veteran issues and research with us.
February 17 – 20, 2023
The Transforming Military Cultures (TMC) Network, co-directed by Drs. Maya Eichler, Tammy George, and Nancy Taber, held its first annual symposium, Military Culture Change Beyond the Checkbox, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Hosted by Mount Saint Vincent University, SICEMA played an important role in organizing and facilitating this event.
November 30, 2022
The new collection Speaking Up: New Voices on War and Peace in Nova Scotia was launched at the Halifax Central Library. The collection is co-edited by Dr. Maya Eichler and her colleagues Dr. Reina Green and Tracy Moniz. It brings many previously neglected voices to the fore — voices of current members of the Canadian Armed Forces and military veterans, members of the African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities, refugees and immigrants displaced by war, historians and other academics who study war and militarization, artists who reflect on war’s impact, and peace activists who vigorously protest against the militarization of the region.
June 4-5, 2022
SICEMA hosted the Workshop: How a Revised Masculinity Can Help Foster Culture Change in the Canadian Armed Forces at Mount Saint Vincent University. This workshop received funding through a Targeted Engagement Grant from DND MINDS, and was co-organized by Dr. Maya Eichler and Dr. John Whelan. Check out the briefing paper produced from this workshop!
April 2022
Dr. Maya Eichler and her colleagues, Dr. Tammy George and Dr. Nancy Taber, were awarded a DND MINDS funded collaborative network grant. Transforming Military Cultures (TMC) is a network of Canadian and international academic researchers, defence scientists, military members, veterans, and people with relevant lived experience who are collaborating to challenge, reimagine, and transform the Canadian Armed Forces culture into one that embraces inclusivity and difference. To learn more about TMC, see www.msvu.ca/tmc
March 6, 2022
Co-director Dr. Maya Eichler participated in the My Patient is a Veteran podcast on Women Veterans, University of Ottawa Family Medicine.
January 18, 2022
Dr. Maya Eichler gave testimony on the topic of “Women and Gender Diverse Veterans Issues” to NS Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. The transcript can be found here: https://nslegislature.ca/legislative-business/committees/standing/veterans-affairs/archive/veterans-affairs/va2022jan18
The testimony was covered by Global News, CBC, and CTV News.
Our Centre Director, Dr. Maya Eichler, will be moderating an upcoming GBA+ webinar of the Defence and Security Foresight Group (DSFG) on May 25, 2021.
Dr. Eichler has intervened into the ongoing public debate on military sexual misconduct with two Op-Eds co-authored with women veteran advocates Dr. Karen Breeck and Marie-Claude Gagnon:
M. Eichler and K. Breeck, “Canada’s problematic military culture warrants an oversight agency,” Policy Options.
M. Eichler and M.-C. Gagnon, “Only a fundamental culture change will address military sexual misconduct: Long-term independent oversight and accountability is required to ensure the well-being of all women and men serving in the Canadian military,” Policy Options.
Dr. Eichler provided testimony to the Standing Committee on National Defence, (opening statement from Dr. Eichler at 12:31:49).
Also, Dr. Eichler provided testimony to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, (testimony by Dr. Eichler at 12:35:00), on issues related to military sexual misconduct, military culture, and the need for external oversight.
In October 2020, Dr. Eichler helped organize and spoke at CIMVHR’s first symposium fully dedicated to bringing a sex and gender lens to military, veteran, and family health and well-being research. The symposium was moderated by Canada’s Women, Peace and Security Ambassador Jacqueline O’Neill. You can find a recording of the sex and gender symposium here.
SICEMA hosted the GBA+ Convenor Workshop for the DND MINDS-funded Defence and Security Foresight Group.
SICEMA hosted a screening of “The Fruit Machine”, a documentary by Sarah Fodey about the decades-long persecution of 2SLGBTQ+ military service members and public servants in Canada.
Welcome to our new Centre Post-doctoral Fellow, Leigh Spanner! Leigh’s PhD research focused on Canadian military families. At our Centre, she will contribute to research on gender and military-to-civilian transition.
Dr. Eichler participated in this workshop hosted by the Gender Lab at the Centre for International and Defence Policy (Queen’s University) in Kingston, ON.
Dr. Eichler attended this annual conference, held this year in Ottawa-Gatineau, where she presented a talk entitled, “The Experiences of Military Sexual Trauma Survivors with the Veterans Review and Appeal Board”.
Dr. Eichler participated in a panel discussion related to the book Dis/consent: Perspectives on Sexual Consent and Sexual Violence.
Please see the full description of the position here:
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Gender and the Transition from Military to Civilian Life in Canada
Dr. Brunner is visiting the Centre for the month of April. She is an assistant professor at the Centre for PeaceResearch and Peace Education at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. Her research focuses on gender, peace studies, and epistemic violence. She will be giving a guest lecture on April 15 entitled, “Rethinking Violence from Modernity’s Epistemic Territory”. For more information on her research, please click here.
Dr. Eichler participated on a panel discussion on gender dimensions of Canada’s involvement in multilateral peace support operations abroad, with Jenny Baechler, David Black, Isabelle Caron.
Sandy Greenberg and Sarah Morgan from NS Voice of Women for Peace presented a guest lecture in Dr. Eichler’s “Women, War, and Peace” course at MSVU.
Dr. Eichler and MSVU student Ellie Lamothe (middle) present on a panel on Sexual Violence in the Canadian Armed Forces at IUS 2018.
Dr. Eichler hosted a workshop at the CIMVHR 2018 Forum entitled, “Female Veterans: What do we know and where do we go from here?”
Dr. Eichler attended the “Roundtable on Women, Peace and Security: Halifax” at Dalhousie University.
Dr. Eichler was invited as a witness to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence to talk about sexual harassment and violence in the Canadian Armed Forces. Her testimony can be seen here, beginning at 15:05:30.
Dr. Eichler participated on a panel organized by the MSVU Feminist Collective entitled, “Transcending Toxic Masculinity.”
Dr. Eichler participated in a panel discussion of the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment that was organized by students at Dalhousie University.
Add Women, Make Change?
Women as Provincial and Territorial Leaders in Canada
Women’s Representation in US Diplomacy
Gender, War, and Peace Film Night – A film screening and discussion based on women’s organization and the peace movement in Liberia.
Refreshments provided and accessibility needs will be accommodated upon request.
Please contact Elizabeth or Sophie with questions or more information at elizabeth.hill2@msvu.ca or sophieroseboileau@gmail.com.
This event is a joint initiative of our Centre, the Alexa McDonough Institute, and Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace.
September 22-October 27, 2017 at 1:30 – 2:30 pm
Keshen-Goodman Library, 330 Lacewood Drive, Halifax, NS, B3S 0A3
(Oct. 6 lecture cancelled)
Gender, War, and Peace Film Night – a film screening and discussion based on the film Persepolis on gender, the Islamic Revolution, and islamophobia.
Refreshments provided and accessibility needs will be accommodated upon request.
Please contact Elizabeth or Hayley for questions or more information at elizabeth.hill2@msvu.ca and hayley.bone@msvu.ca
This event is a joint initiative of our Centre, the Alexa McDonough Institute, and NS Voice of Women for Peace.
Gender, War, and Peace Film Night – a film screening and discussion based on the film “PBS’s Women War & Peace, Episode 1: “I Came to Testify” about the Bosnian War and sexual violence as genocide.
Refreshments provided and accessibility needs will be accommodated upon request.
Please contact Elizabeth or Hayley for questions or more information at elizabeth.hill2@msvu.ca and hayley.bone@msvu.ca
This event is a joint initiative of our Centre, the Alexa McDonough Institute, and NS Voice of Women for Peace.
Gender, War, and Peace Film Night – a film screening and discussion based on the film “The Invisible War” about military sexual violence.
Refreshments provided and accessibility needs will be accommodated upon request.
Please contact Elizabeth or Hayley for questions or more information at elizabeth.hill2@msvu.ca and hayley.bone@msvu.ca
This event is a joint initiative of our Centre, the Alexa McDonough Institute, and NS Voice of Women for Peace.
Prismatic Arts Festival – Session 2: Conflict/Culture/Community
How is culture shaped and impacted by conflict and war? Which stories are visible and which stories are not being heard, and how war has impacted the diverse fabric of our Nova Scotia communities?
Our Centre’s Network for Community-Engaged Research on War was partnering with Prismatic Arts Festival to present current academic work that examines artistic expression during times of war.
Dr. Maya Eichler, assistant professor of Political Studies and Women’s Studies at the Mount, and local artist Jessica Lynn Wiebe modeled the task of sharing weight of their stories with one another. They sought dialogue across differences in experience and politics; sharing stories is about talking as much as it is about listening. This interactive performance piece encouraged people to engage in difficult dialogue on military conflict and experience.
Our Centre was excited to host the 9th Annual Women in International Security Canada (WIIS-C) Workshop 2016, “Women in Security across Military and Civilian Lines” from June 17-19, 2016.
Overall, the workshop included around 70 participants mostly from Canada but also a few international participants from Argentina, Georgia, Algeria, and Ireland.
The Mount’s Network for Community-Engaged Research on War (NCERW) held a full day workshop on the theme of “Community Stories of War and Peace”. The workshop brought together researchers from the Mount and other Nova Scotia universities with local communities affected by war. The Workshop seek to find out who was interested in participating and to begin a conversation on how to collect these stories.
The goal was to explore the impact of war and conflict on various communities, from veterans and family members of combatants to refugees, immigrants, visible minorities, and First Nations people; as well as to develop a collection of stories that can serve as educational tool and a means of community building.