The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

Pamina Firchow

Associate Professor

Pamina Firchow's photo

Contact

Email: pfirchow@brandeis.edu
Office: Heller-Brown Building 241
Phone: 781-736-2873
Brandeis Directory

Expertise

Peacebuilding, Transitional Justice, Participatory Statistics, Methodology

Courses

  • HS 210a - Coexistence and Conflict: Theory and Analysis
  • HS 236f - Strategies for Coexistence Interventions
  • HS 311f - Everyday Peace Indicators

Degrees

  • The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
    Ph.D.
  • Universidad del Salvador
    M.A.
  • The London School of Economics
    M.Sc.
  • Carleton College
    B.A.

Pamina Firchow

Associate Professor

Profile

Pamina Firchow is Associate Professor of Coexistence and Conflict. Her research interests include peacebuilding, transitional justice (especially victim reparations) and reconciliation. In particular, Dr. Firchow is interested in the study of the international accompaniment of local communities affected by mass violence. Her specific focus is on the role of concept formation in the measurement and evaluation of external interventions and how local people can be included in these processes. Therefore, her work supports efforts that promote participatory numbers and mixed method research, such as the Everyday Peace Indicators, a project and 501c3 nonprofit she leads with Professor Roger Mac Ginty from the Durham University. The use of participatory statistics is used to make claims about the effectiveness of local level interventions after war in Firchow’s award winning monograph, Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation after War (2018, Cambridge University Press). Firchow has published widely, including in top peer reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Transitional Justice, Sociological Methods and Research, International Studies Review, Human Rights Review, and the Journal of Peacebuilding & Development. She is also the co-editor of the book Practical Approaches to Peacebuilding: Putting Theory to Work.

Dr. Firchow has received support for her research from multiple sources, including the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Inter-American Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Humanity United, the Rotary Foundation, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Geneva. She was a Senior Jennings Randolph Fellow at the US Institute of Peace in 2016 and serves as a consultant to various international peacebuilding organizations. Prior to coming to Brandeis, Dr. Firchow was a faculty member at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.

Firchow earned her PhD from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. She has been working in the peacebuilding sector as a scholar-practitioner for non-governmental organizations and universities since 1999. For more information, see https://paminafirchow.org

Awards and Honors

  • Carnegie Corporation Grant (2020)
  • Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Award - Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation After War (2020)
  • Fulbright Scholar - Colombia (2020)
  • Humanity United (2020)
  • Inter-American Foundation (2020)
  • Jean Monnet Fellowship (2019)
  • United States Institute for Peace (2019)
  • National Science Foundation (2018)
  • USAID – Sri Lanka (2018)
  • Carnegie Corporation Grant (2017)
  • Senior Jennings Randolph Fellow, United States Institute of Peace (2016)
  • Rotary Foundation Special Initiatives Gr (2014)
  • Carnegie Corporation Grant (2012)

Scholarship

  • Firchow, Pamina. Recuperando la Paz Cotidiana. Bogotá, Colombia:: Editorial Universidad de Rosario, 2020. (forthcoming)
  • Firchow, Pamina and E. Urwin.. "Not Just at Home or in the Grave: Misunderstanding Women’s Rights in Afghanistan.." Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding (2021).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Firchow, P. (Forthcoming in 2020). “Peace Methods and Methodologies.” In Oliver Richmond and Gezim Visoka, The Oxford Handbook of Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and Peace Formation. Oxford University Press..", 2020
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Measuring Peace: Principles, Practices and Politics." International Peacekeeping vol. DOI 10.1080/13533312.2020.1726743. 2020
  • Firchow, Pamina. "“World Peace is Local Peace"." Ethics & International Affairs Volume 34. Issue 1 (2020): pp. 57-65.
  • Cole, E. and Firchow, Pamina. "Reconciliation Barometers: Tools for Post-Conflict Policy Design.." International Journal of Transitional Justice, Volume 13, Issue 3, November 2019, Pages 546–569. (2019).
  • Firchow, P. & Z. Tilton. "“Everyday Peace Indicators: Renegotiating Rigor for Peacebuilding Evidence.” In Tamra d’Estree, Peacebuilding Evaluation. Rowman & Littlefield Press..", 2019
  • Firchow, P. and R. Mac Ginty.. "“Indivisibility as a Way of Life: Transformation in Micro-processes of Peace in Northern Uganda.” In Paul Gready and Simon Robins, From Transitional to Transformative Justice. Cambridge University Press..", 2019
  • Firchow, Pamina and Eliza Urwin. "What Afghan Women (and Men) Really Want.." Foreign Policy Magazine
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Colombia’s long-term peace may depend on support for the Truth Commission.." Washington Post
  • Firchow, Pamina. Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in the Politics of Measurement and Evaluation after War.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press., 2018.
  • Firchow, Pamina and C. Martin-Shields. "PeaceTech Symposium: The Liminal Spaces for Technology in Peacebuilding.." International Studies Perspectives. Vol. 18, Issue 1: 4-42. (2017).
  • Firchow, Pamina and R. Mac Ginty. "Measuring Peace: Comparability, Commensurability and Complementarity using Bottom-Up Indicators.." International Studies Review. Vol. 19, Issue 1: 6-27. (2017).
  • Firchow, Pamina and R. Mac Ginty. "The practicalities and ethics of mobile phone surveys in conflict-affected contexts.." International Studies Perspectives. Vol. 18, Issue 1: 4-42. (2017).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Do Reparations Repair Relationships? Setting the Stage for Reconciliation in Colombia.." International Journal of Transitional Justice. Vol. 11, Issue 2: 315-338. (2017).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Including hard to access populations using mobile phone surveys and participatory indicators.." Sociological Methods and Research, DOI: 0049124117729702 (2017).
  • Firchow, Pamina and H. Anastasiou, ed. Practical Approaches to Peacebuilding: Putting Theory to Work.. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner., 2016.
  • Mac Ginty, R. and Firchow, Pamina. "Top-down and bottom-up narratives of peace and conflict.." Politics. Vol. 36(3): 308-323. (2016).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "The Role of Power, Resistance and Protest in Shaping Contemporary Argentine Domestic Policies.." Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 42, No. 1: 74-83. (2015).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "The Implementation of the Institutional Program of Collective Reparations in Colombia.." Journal of Human Rights Practice, Vol. 6, Issue 2: 327-355. (2014).
  • Firchow, P. and R. Mac Ginty, eds.. "Special Section entitled “Reparations and Peacebuilding.”." Human Rights Review, Vol. 14, Issue 3: 231-289. (2013).
  • Firchow, P. and R. Mac Ginty. "Reparations and Peacebuilding: Issues and Controversies.." Human Rights Review, Vol. 14, Issue 3: 231-239. (2013).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "A Cuban Spring? The use of the Internet as a tool of democracy promotion by USAID in Cuba.." Information Technology for Development. Vol. 19, Issue 4: 347-357. (2013).
  • Firchow, Pamina. "Must our Communities Bleed to Receive Social Services? Development Projects and Collective Reparations Schemes in Colombia.." Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 8:3, 50-63. (2013).