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Role in the University
Lecturer in Peace Studies
Background
Dr Ryan Joseph O’Byrne is a sociocultural anthropologist and Lecturer in Peace Studies with the Global Humanity for Peace Institute (GHfP) and the Institute of Education and Humanities at UWTSD. He holds a MA in Cultural Anthropology from Victoria University Wellington (New Zealand), a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London (United Kingdom), and has held academic positions in the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa (FLIA) at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
His most recent fieldwork investigated the connections between mobility, resilience, and public authority among South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda. He has published in Australasian Review of African Studies, Civil Wars, Human Welfare, The Journal of Refugee and Immigrant Studies, The Journal of Refugee Studies, The Journal of Religion in Africa, Sites, and Third World Thematics. He has chapters forthcoming in Informal Settlement in the Global South, (Gihan Karunaratne, ed.) and Migration, Borders, and Refugees in Africa (Joseph K. Assan, ed.), and is editor of a special issue on vernacular understandings of resilience in Uganda for the journal Civil Wars (co-edited with Julian Hopwood).
Enterprise, Commercial and Consultative Activities
Expert Or Advisory Experience And External Engagement
2023: Discussant, FLIA Lunch & Learn Seminar Series on Resilience: Refugee Resilience, LSE.
2022: Expert Advisor on Dafuri asylum cases in the USA for Ropes & Gray LLP, Boston (MA).
2022: FLIA Knowledge Exchange and Impact Coordinator, LSE Knowledge Exchange Framework and Higher Education Business & Community Interaction Submission Board, LSE.
2021: Expert Advisor on “Displacement, Return and Reintegration in South Sudan” for the Research & Evidence Facility (REF) via Samuel Hall.
2021: Expert Advisor with Naohiko Omata on “Transnational Blindness: International Institutions and Refugees’ Cross-Border Activities”, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
2019: Workshop Leader for “Karamoja Capacity Building, Knowledge Exchange, and Methodology Workshop”, Moroto, Uganda. Deconstructing Notions of Resilience, LSE.
2019: Workshop Leader for “Northern Ugandan Capacity Building, Knowledge Exchange, and Methodology Workshop”, Gulu, Uganda. Deconstructing Notions of Resilience, LSE.
2018: Expert Advisor on Northern Uganda: European Union External Action Service Help Desk Review on “Conflict, instability, risk and resilience in North-West and South-West of Uganda”, the University of Birmingham and the European Union External Action Service.
2018: Expert Advisor on Northern Uganda: Thomson Reuters Foundation. (See: ‘We don’t need men’: Widows and rebel wives rebuild war-scarred Uganda)
2018: Workshop Leader for “Programme for African Leadership Capacity Building, Knowledge Exchange, and Methodology Workshop”, Mombasa, Kenya. CPAID, LSE.
2018: Workshop Participant for ESRC-funded “How Academic Research Can Inform Humanitarian Thinking in South Sudan”, London, LSE.
2016 to 2018: Expert Advisor and workshop participant for AHRC-funded “‘Witchcraft’ and Conflict: Exploring Alternative Discourses of Insecurity”, University of Birmingham and Durham University.
Publications
Academic Publication Record – Refereed Journal Articles
Hopwood, J. & O’Byrne, R.J. (2022). Introduction – Conceptual resilience in the language and lives of resilient peoples: Cases from northern Uganda. Civil Wars Special Issue “Vernacular Resilience in Post-Conflict Uganda”, 24 (2-3): 145-158.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2022). Resistant Resilience: Tactics of Resilience among Refugees Resisting Humanitarian Corruption in Uganda. Civil Wars Special Issue “Vernacular Resilience in Post-Conflict Uganda”, 24 (2-3): 328-356.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2021). Marriage and Belonging among South Sudanese Acholi Refugees in New Zealand. The Journal of Immigration and Refugee Studies, 20(3): 444-458.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2021). Occult Economies, Demonic Gifts, and Ontological Alterity: An Evangelical Biography of Evil and Redemption in Rural South Sudan. The Journal of Religion in Africa, 50(3): 137-155.
O’Byrne, R.J. & Ogeno, C. (2020). Pragmatic Mobilities and Uncertain Lives: Agency and the Everyday Mobility of South Sudanese Refugees in Uganda. Journal of Refugee Studies Special Issue “Trajectories of Displacement and the Politics of Return”, 33(4): 747–765.
O’Byrne, R.J. & Ogeno, C. (2018). The Illegal Economy of Refugee Registration: Insights into the Ugandan Refugee Scandal. Rights in Exile: The International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter, July.
Storer, E., Reid, K., & O’Byrne, R.J. (2017). Poisoning at the Periphery: A Multi-Sited Investigation of Allocating Responsibility across the Uganda/South Sudan Borderlands. Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 2(2-3): 180-196.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2014). Christmas in South Sudan: Fieldnotes from a Warzone. Australasian Review of African Studies, 35(1): 95-102.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2014). ‘Dancing is Like Our Identity. It Shows Us Who We Are’: Performing Identity Among Refugee-Background South Sudanese Acholi in New Zealand. Human Welfare, 3(1): 5-21.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2014). Narratives of Return Among Refugee-Background South Sudanese in New Zealand. Australasian Review of African Studies, 35(1): 76-94.
O’Byrne, R. (2011). Collective Person, Connected Gift: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Taonga, Whakapapa, and ‘The Gift’ in Māori Art. Sites (NS), 8(2): 126-146.
Academic Publication Record – Forthcoming
Vancluysen, S., & O’Byrne, R.J. “Everyday (Im)mobilities During Displacement: Critical Reflections on the Movements of South Sudanese Refugees in Northern Uganda.” Migration, Borders, and Refugees in Africa, Joseph K. Assan, ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Academic Publication Record – Special Issues Edited
O’Byrne, R.J. & Hopwood, J., eds. (2022). Civil Wars Special Issue “Vernacular Resilience in Post-Conflict Uganda”. 24(2-3).
Academic Publication Record – Peer Reviewed Book Chapters
O’Byrne, R.J. (2023). “Understanding Everyday Movements among South Sudanese Refugees in Uganda.” Informal Settlement in the Global South, Gihan Karunaratne, ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
O’Byrne, R.J. (2020). South Sudan. Brill Encyclopaedia of Global Pentecostalism. M. Wilkinson, C. Au, J. Haustein, T. Johnson, & E. Ramirez, eds. Leiden: Brill.
Academic Publication Record – PhD Thesis
O’Byrne, R.J. (2017). Becoming Christian: Personhood and Moral Cosmology in Acholi South Sudan. University College London (UCL).
Additional Information
Research Experience And Funding Success
2022: Public Authority through Refugees’ Eyes: A Collaborative Photo-Voice Initiative. London School of Economics. P-I, sole author (indirect, internal ESRC funding).
2022: Religion and Public Authority among Acholi-Speaking Refugees in Palabek Refugee Settlement, Northern Uganda. London School of Economics. P-I, sole author (indirect, internal ESRC funding).
2021 to 2023: Transition Funding - CPAID: The Centre for Public Authority and International Development. London School of Economics. Co-I, co-author (ESRC funded).
2017 to 2022 : CPAID: The Centre for Public Authority and International Development. London School of Economics. Co-I, co-author (ESRC funded).
2017 to 2020 : Deconstructing Notions of Resilience: Diverse Post-Conflict Settings in Uganda. London School of Economics. Co-I, co-author (Institute of Global Affairs and Rockefeller Foundation funded).
2013 to 2016 : Justice and Security Research Programme. London School of Economics. Research only.
2010–2011: Research Assistant, Anthropology Programme. Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Research only.
Conference Activity/Participation – Conferences/Panels/Seminars Organised
2023: Co-convenor: Migration and Diaspora Studies Research Seminar Series. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK.
2018: Panel: ‘The Contradictions of “Resilience” in the Aftermath of Displacement and Return’. American Anthropological Association, San Jose, USA.
2015: Panel: ‘Escalation, Aftermath: The Beginnings and Ends of Conflict’. American Anthropological Association, Denver, USA.
2011: Conference: ‘Kinship at the Margins’. Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand.
Conference Activity/Participation – Papers Presented
2022: Everyday (Im)mobilities During Displacement: Critical Reflections on the Movements of South Sudanese Refugees in Northern Uganda. Co-authored with Sarah Vancluysen. HDCA, Antwerp, Belgium.
2019: Beyond the Hamites, the Ethnography: Reflections on the Works of C.G.Seligman in the “Decolonising the Curriculum” era. LSE Department of Anthropology Re-naming the Seligman Library Seminar Series, London, UK.
2018: Resilience in Crisis: Parasitic Humanitarianism and the Ugandan Refugee Industry. Co-authored with Ogeno Charles. American Anthropological Association, San Jose, USA.
2018: Poisoning and Public Authority: The Fragility of Formal Governance in Palabek Refugee Settlement. Co-authored with Ogeno Charles. ‘Witchcraft’ and Conflict Workshop, Kampala, Uganda.
2017: Occult Economies and the Demonic Gift: An Evangelical Biography of Evil and Redemption in Central Africa. Cambridge University Social Anthropology Seminar Series, Cambridge, UK.
2017: Cosmologies and (In)Security. JSRP Policy Recommendations Workshop, Gulu, Uganda.
2016: Formal Justice Mechanisms in Acholi South Sudan. JSRP Research Workshop, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2016: Governance Without Borders: Humanitarianism and Governance in Pajok, South Sudan. World Conference of Humanitarian Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
2016: ‘We had the LRA in South Sudan too!’: The (Largely Forgotten) South Sudanese Dimensions of Uganda’s LRA Conflict. LRA Conflict Workshop, Birmingham, UK.
2015: Dragon Boats and Demon Cities: End Time Prophecy and the Global Flows of the Demon Possessed. Anthropology on the Move, London, UK.
2015: From the Customary to the Christian? The Dynamics of Cosmological Transformation in Acholi South Sudan. IAHR, Erfurt, Germany.
2015: Making Meaning Out of Chaos: Resilience, Rumours, and Ethnopolitical Violence in Contemporary South Sudan. Resilience, trauma and cosmology workshop, London, UK.
2015: Singing, Sermons, and Status: Christian Worship as a Liminal Space in Acholi South Sudan. AAI, Cork, Ireland.
2014: ‘War, and Rumours of War’: The Social Lives of Rumours in Acholi South Sudan. AAA, Denver, USA.
2014: Witchcraft, Medicine, and Magic among the Acholi. MAGic, Brighton, UK.
2011: At the Margins of it All: The Study of Kinship in Contemporary New Zealand. Conference introduction for “Kinship at the Margins” workshop, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
2011: Going Back, Coming Home: The Ambiguity of ‘Return’ in Transnational Acholi Wedding Arrangements. AAA, Montreal, Canada.
2011: Ideas, Ideals, and Issues of Resettlement and Return among South Sudanese Acholi Refugees in New Zealand. AFSAAP, Adelaide, Australia.
2011: Structure and Agency, a False Distinction: The Debate as Viewed Through Acholi Marriage. Kinship at the Margins workshop, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.