Pamina Firchow

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