Meet the speakers at the Conference “Another security is possible and urgent. New scenarios to build peace from the margins: the role of cities and civil society”

Rafael Poch-de-Feliu

He was the international correspondent for La Vanguardia for 35 years, most of those years for the URSS/Russia (1988-2002) and China (2002-2008). He was also a correspondent in Berlin, before and after the fall of the Wall, and in Paris. During the seventies and eighties, he studied contemporary history in Barcelona and Western Berlin. He was the correspondent in Spain for Die Tageszeitung, editor for the German press agency DPA in Hamburg and an itinerant correspondent in Eastern Europe (1983-1987). Author of various books; about the end of the URSS (translated to Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese), about Putin’s Russia, China, and a small collective literary essay about the Germany of the euro crisis (translated to Italian). Currently, he works as a professor of international relations at UNED and is a farmer.

Ana Barrero

President of the Spanish Association of Investigation for Peace (AIPAZ). Director of the Board of Directors and manager of the project for the Culture and Peace Foundation. Member of the Board of the Institute for Human Rights, Democracy, Culture of Peace, and Nonviolence (DEMOSPAZ-UAM). Member, in representation of AIPAZ, of the Board of Sustainable Development and the 2030 Agenda in Spain, attached to the Ministry of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda. Member of the Grupo Motor of the Sustainable Development objectives Observatory of the platform Futuro en Común.

Carles Feixa

Carles Feixa is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). He is a doctor at the University of Barcelona and an honorary professor at the University of Manizales in Colombia. Specialised in the study of youth cultures, he carried out investigations about this topic in Catalonia, Mexico, and Colombia. Among the books he has written, we can highlight: De jovenes, bandas y tribus (1998), Global Youth? (2006), Youth, Space and Time (2016), La imaginación autobiográfica (2018) and El Rey. Diario de un Latin King (2020). He is a member of the Investigation Group Consolidated in Youth, Society, and Communication (JOVIS.com), and scientific director of the chair RE-GENERATION. He is currently the principal investigator of the project TRANSGANG, financed by the European Research Council.

Dagauh Gwennael Gautier Komenan

he is an Ivorian historian specialised in international relations. Currently, he is completing his PhD at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC). He is the coordinator and co-author of two chapters of the collective book La Françafrique vista desde el sur (Casa África and La Catarata, 2020), co-written with Ángeles Jurado (ULPGC, 2016), and El Sahel occidental antes los ODS (Icaria in 2021). He is also author of collective works like La Juventud en Africa. Impulsora del Cambio (La Catarata 2018) or ¿Entre la tradición y la revolución? Alternativas africanas en un mundo global (Ediciones del Serbal and University of Valladolid, 2022). Moreover, he writes for Africaye and Mundo Negro.

Paulo Moraes

Moraes a Lawyer, Executive Secretary for Citizen Security of Recife and Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights. Conflict Mediator certified by INAMA (Nacional Board of Conflict Mediation). Former Executive Secretary of Justice and Human Rights of the State Government (2011-2015) and former Executive Secretary of Human Rights of Recife (2015-2019). Began professional activity and militancy in human rights at the NGO Gajop (Office of Legal Advice to Popular Organizations) who advocates cases of human rights violation in international systems of Human Rights Protection (OAS and UN). Specialist in Human Rights from the Federal University of Paraíba (2004); Master’s degree in Law at the University of São Paulo (credits) and conclusion at Federal University of Pernambuco (2019). Social Urbanist certified by INSPER São Paulo (2022).

Óscar Escobar

Mayor of the city of Palmira, located in the southwest of Colombia in the department of Valle del Cauca, it is the 20th largest municipality in the country with 354,285 inhabitants and has the second highest homicide rate nationwide after Cali, its geographic neighbor. Mayor Escobar is an economist from Universidad Icesi and has a master’s degree in Public Policy from Universidad de los Andes. With 61,486 votes, he became the youngest mayor of his hometown, championing modernity, infrastructure, and violence prevention through socioeconomic opportunities for youth. In fact, Palmira is the winning city of the UCLG Peace Prize in its 2022 version, thanks to its violence prevention and reduction strategy PAZOS, Paz y Oportunidades.

Laia Soldevila

Soldevila is a journalist, cooperative, and one of the editors of CRÍTIC. She cooperates as an analyst at ‘Els Matins’ on TV3. She is an associate lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia and a member of the Journalists Group Ramon Barnils.