Georgetown Students Embark on Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace (ZCZP) Field Trip to Cambodia

This reading week, a contingent of students, staff and parents from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) arrive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the annual Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace (ZCZP) trip.

Each spring semester, SFS-Q offers the ZCZP co-curricular program, bringing to life the textual study of conflict management and conflict resolution undertaken by students in preceding months. In order to prepare for the rigorous schedule of meetings, tours, and discussions involved in ZCZP excursions, students attend weekly non-credit classes starting in November, designed to familiarize them with the history of the conflict. They will post their findings and reflections on the Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace blog (http://sfsqzones.blogspot.com/), and post-trip, they will engage in multimedia projects designed to share their experiences abroad with their peers in Education City.

Past destinations have included Israel-Palestine, where students sought to understand the motivations of both sides in the ongoing, politically-charged conflict; Germany and Poland, where the legacy of the Holocaust was explored; South Africa, where the challenges of development after the apartheid era were examined; Rwanda, to witness the efforts being undertaken to bring victims and perpetrators of the 1992 genocide together under the banner of a single country; and Northern Ireland, to look at the uses of art and education in ongoing reconciliation efforts.

In this year’s trip to Cambodia, students will explore the reconciliation and memorialization efforts in the aftermath of the 1975-1979 genocide and subsequent civil war, with a focus on the ongoing Khmer Rouge trials. During the trip, which takes the group to the capital city of Phnom Penh and to Siem Reap (home of the Angkor Wat temple complex), students will meet with politicians, journalists, academics, community organizers, and other change-makers. Points of historical interest, such as the Killing Fields and Angkor Wat, will also be visited.

Accompanying the students will be SFS-Q Student Development Officer Erica Haviland, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Brendan Hill, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Stoll, Associate Director of Student Development Kathryn King, and Associate Director for the Center for International & Regional Studies John Crist.

The group will also be joined by Ms Yukino Kawabata, a master’s student from Georgetown’s main campus in Washington, DC, studying conflict resolution.

Brendan Hill, cofounder of the ZCZP program, described the importance of the ZCZP program: “As students of international relations, we expect our graduates to not only be familiar with different conflicts throughout the globe; it is also very important for our students to study conflict in all of its various phases, from open-hostility to peace.”