Maria Luisa Olavarria

In January 2012, a group of MIIS students, led by Dr. Pushpa Iyer, travelled to Nepal in the hopes of uncovering the challenges to peacebuilding the country has encountered after the end of the civil war. Depending on their personal and academic preferences, each student chose a particular topic they would research and develop throughout the trip, trying to gear the interviews and questions towards uncovering specific facts about their topic of interest. Given my background in security and development, I was extremely interested in the Security Sector Reform that had taken place in Nepal. More importantly, their Reintegration and Rehabilitation programs offered a unique case to study given the characteristics of their conflict and the agreements that were reached. I was keen to find out what were the major challenges former Maoist combatants are finding when trying to integrate into a new security force or back into society.

This past October, a part of this group travelled to Atlanta to take part in the International Studies Association (ISA) – South Conference. The topic of the Conference was “Contestation and Change in International Relations” and we were there to present our final research on the Politics of Maoism in Nepal. The Conference would give us the opportunity to present our findings to other students, teachers and experts. It was an interesting and exciting opportunity since it was the first time I would actually be presenting a research paper in front of an audience. It was interesting to attend other presentations as well, and have a look at what other students around the country are researching and writing about. Personally it was encouraging to see the level of motivation surrounding international relation topics throughout the conference, from Women’s Rights in Afghanistan to Sanctions on the Iranian Nuclear Program, it was apparent to me that a lot is done in schools around the US to deal with international conflicts. And by looking at other presentations, the lessons were learned quickly: an engaging and interesting presentation will capture your audience, and draw them to ask further questions and encourage recommendations; a monotonous and simple presentation will leave the audience bored and wanting for more. For that reason it was decided that our presentation had to captivate the audience, be concise and also engaging.

My intervention in the presentation was, as I mentioned before, about the Reintegration and Rehabilitation of Maoist combatants after the civil war ended. It was extremely hard to condense so much information and experiences into a 10-minute intervention, but it also served as an important reminder to only highlight bases of our research and most important findings. Amongst our audience were people of different backgrounds and occupations, and it was very interesting to see what they thought about our findings and our own personal conclusions. Through their questions and comments, I was able to see what perhaps could be done to further enhance my research, as well as collecting new and alternative ideas and solutions to problems I faced during my research and writing process. I believe that it was also extremely useful to step out of the classroom mentality and see what other people critique about our work, in order to work on those aspects more.

All in all, I believe attending the ISA Conference was an excellent idea, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I would also encourage other MIIS students to go that extra mile and sign up for conferences or presentations around the country; it may seem like an arduous and long process, but after it’s done the rewards are substantial. Attending these types of Conferences truly gives you an opportunity to get your name out there, network with like minded students, as well as getting a sense of what research is being done and the accomplishments of other students.