Professor Bernard McGuirk delivers plenary session at First World Forum of Critical Thinking

The profile of Nottingham’s Centre for the Study of Post-Conflict Societies reached new heights at the First World Forum of Critical Thinking celebrated in Buenos Aires in the week 19-23 November 2018.

Arising from Nottingham’s successful 2014-2017 EU-funded project MEMOSUR (Lessons in Democracy from Latin America to Europe), Professor McGuirk  (Emeritus Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies) was asked to deliver the plenary session on “Decolonizing the World”, addressing the plight of veteran ex-combatants and introducing a joint UK-Latin American research and social engagement programme on working with PTSD victims involving both government and charitable support agencies in various post-conflict societies. In a subsequent closed session, held in the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Parliament, McGuirk debated on the specialist topic of the “Falklands-Malvinas and Sovereignty in Latin America” alongside  the Nobel Peace Prize holder Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, senator Daniel Filmus, former Argentine Minister of Education and co-leader of the Buenos Aires-Nottingham research project “Veteranos nunca más olvidados”/”Veterans never again forgotten”, and Ernesto Alonso, ex-conscript combatant and leading advocate on Human Rights. The University of Nottingham’s Centre for the Study of Post-Conflict Societies will host in 2019 a follow-up colloquium bringing together veterans from both sides of the 1982 Falklands-Malvinas South Atlantic conflict.