The aim of the symposium is to build a community of feminist peace researchers in Finland, share experiences in research and teaching, but also think of ways to collaborate in the future. It is organized as part of the Feminist Peace Research Course (PEACE060) of the PEACE MA programme (Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research). It will run between 10.30am-4pm, starting with a morning coffee at 10am. It will consist of a keynote lecture by Tiina Vaittinen, a roundtable discussion chaired by Élise Féron, poster presentations by the participants and an opportunity for informal networking.
The official program of the symposium is as follows:
- 10.00 Coffee/ Registration/ Setting up of posters
- 10.30 – 11.30 Opening words and keynote lecture, Q&A
- 11.45 – 12.30 Poster round I
- 12.30 – 13.15 Lunch break (at one’s own cost)
- 13.15 – 14 Poster round II
- 14 – 14.30 Coffee break
- 14.30 – 16 Panel discussion
- 16.00 Closing words
Among the speakers, we have Tiina Vaittinen and Élise Féron, as mentioned, but also Violeta Gutiérrez Zamora, Leena Vastapuu, Ana Tarazona and Deanna Reder.
First, Tiina Vaittinen is Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Management and Business in Tampere University. She has a PhD in Peace and Conflict Research (TAPRI, 2017) and is a co-founder of the Feminist Peace Research Network. As a care ethicist, ethnographer, and scholar of global political economy, she is specialized in the study of indirect forms of violence and their transnational, postcolonial entanglements, particularly in the realm corporeal care needs. Presently, she leads a project on emergent un/sustainablities of care that develops ecologically, socially and economically sustainable continence care, locally and globally. In addition, she works in a project that examines the assemblages of postcapitalist international political economy.
On the other hand, Élise Féron is Docent and Senior Research Fellow at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (Tampere University, Finland). Her main research interests include feminist peace research, conflict-generated diaspora politics, as well as the multiple entanglements between conflict, violence and peace. She has published widely on these issues. She is notably the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Feminist Peace Research (2021, co-edited with Tarja Väyrynen, Swati Parashar and Catia Confortini), and the co-author of the Routledge Textbook on Feminist Peace Research (2023, forthcoming, with Tarja Väyrynen).
Then, as panelists, Violeta Gutiérrez Zamora is a Mexican sociologist living and working in Helsinki, Finland. 
She is currently a Postdoctoral researcher at Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) and recently earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences with a major in Environmental policy at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). She holds a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In her research, she brings insights from feminist political ecology, decolonial theories and ethnographic methods to bear on community forestry, forest conservation and environmental justice. She has published her research in journals like Geoforum, Environmental Sociology, and Forest Policy and Economics. In recent years, Violeta has taught undergraduate courses at UEF and the University of Helsinki. She has also volunteered in human rights grassroots organizations like Sin Fronteras I.A.P in Mexico and, more recently, in La Red de Mujeres and Somos La Colectiva in Finland.
From Finland, Dr Leena Vastapuu is an assistant professor of war studies in the area of gender, peace and security at the Swedish Defence University (SEDU). Her current research concentrates on girl and women soldiers’ life trajectories in war and its aftermath, as well as feminist theories of International Relations. Leena is the author of ‘Liberia’s Women Veterans: War, Roles and Reintegration’ (Zed Books 2018), and the recipient of the Raimo Väyrynen dissertation prize of 2019. In addition to academia, Leena has worked in the development cooperation and consultancy sectors, and in numerous NGOs. Before joining SEDU, she was the Planning and Reporting officer for the EU Civilian Crisis Management Mission in the Central African Republic, being a member of the core team setting up the mission.
Finally, Ana Tarazona is a Colombian PhD researcher at Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) working on the role of female agents in the promotion of peace and non-violent means of conflict resolution. 
As part of her research, Ana is exploring the dynamics and strategies used by Colombian women as active knowledge producers to promote a more comprehensive and embodied notion of peace from a decolonial perspective. Ana holds a master’s degree in Peace, Mediation, and Conflict Research from Tampere University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the National University of Colombia. In addition to academia, Ana has worked with the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-repetition, a set of mechanisms that aims to guarantee the rights of victims in Colombia.
Last but not least, Deanna Reder is a 2023 MPhil candidate for St Andrews’s Peacebuilding and Mediation programme, currently doing an exchange semester at Tampere University. She is a student of the Feminist Peace Research (PEACE 060) course. Deanna’s interests are women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda, women in extremist sub-cultures, and how non-combatants respond to violent extremism in their everyday life.
Register for the symposium by April 30th through this link.