.....

Conversations
with renowned psychiatrist and author

Dr. Ervin Staub

THURSDAY, 10 March 2011
2:00 — 3:30 P.M.

2:00 – 2:30 Presentation by Dr. Staub

2:30 – 3:30 Open Exchange with participants

CIVICUS Cambodia. Villa 22B Street 302, BKK I.

(same street as UN Office for Human Rights, between Street 63 Trasaek Paem and Monivong Blvd.)

We anticipant an intimate group of 10-15 interested individuals who are social workers, civic leaders
working with victims of abuse, ECCC officials, trauma specialists etc. Conversations conducted only in
English, with possible filming for broader dissemination.

Please R.S.V.P. with Ms. EAM Sivnin at sivnin.eam@gmail.com or 017.993.118.

       

 
I am Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Founding
Director of its Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence. I was born in Hungary,
where as a young child I lived through Nazism, and then communism. I escaped from there when I was
18 years old, lived in Vienna for two years, and then came to the U.S. I finished my undergraduate
education at the University of Minnesota and received my Ph.D. at Stanford. I taught at Harvard and was
visiting professor at Stanford, the University of Hawaii and the London School of Economic and Political
Science.

I have studied the influences that lead to caring, helpful, altruistic behavior in children and adults, and the
development of caring and helping in children. Having studied both “active bystandership,” and passivity
in the face of people in need, I turned to a focus on perpetration. I studied the social conditions, culture,
psychology of individuals and groups, and social processes that lead to mass violence, especially
genocide and mass killing, but also violent conflict, terrorism and torture. I studied the role of passive
bystanders in allowing the unfolding of violence. Increasingly I focused on understanding how violence
between groups can be prevented, as well as how hostile groups can reconcile, especially in post-conflict
settings after violence between them, as well as how positive group relations can be facilitated. I have
been concerned with how active bystandership in the service of prevention and reconciliation can be
promoted.

- Dr. Ervin Staub

Until www.civicus-cam.org is up and running, for more information:

http://www.thearyseng.com/columnist/32-theary-sengs-blog/276-famed-psychiatristauthor-dr-
ervin-staub-in-cambodia-power-to-the-feminine

CIVICUS: Center for Cambodian Civic Education (“CIVICUS Cambodia”) is a nonprofit,

nonpartisan educational, non-governmental organization registered with the Cambodian Ministry of
Interior dedicated to promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic
principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy and reconciliation in Cambodia and the
larger, globalized world. Up to now, Cambodia has had only a society of “survivors”, not of
“representatives” or “citizens”. Cambodians as survivors are either “survivor-authoritarian” if the person
is in a position of power or “survivor-subject” if an average person. The principal goals of CIVICUS
Cambodia are to help Cambodian citizens develop (i) an increased understanding of the institutions of
Cambodian constitutional democracy and the fundamental principles and values upon which they are
founded, (ii) dialogue as a norm of communication, peace-building and reconciliation, (iii) the skills
necessary to participate as effective and responsible citizens, and (iv) the willingness and ease to use
democratic procedures for making decisions and managing conflict. In its engagement of citizens,
CIVICUS Cambodia gives a special emphasis to (i) students—from elementary to university level—and
the generation born after the Khmer Rouge era, (ii) female (both girls and women) participation, and (iii)
elected representatives.

www.civicus-cam.org