Virginia Tilley
Encyclopedia
Virginia Tilley is an American political scientist specialising in the comparative study of ethnic and racial conflict.
(1985), an MA from the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown (1988) and an MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1997), where she studied under Professor M. Crawford Young
.
After finishing her MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown, she served as Assistant Director of the International Organisation for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) in Washington DC, where she developed a second field in the politics of indigenous peoples. This interest led her researching and writing her doctoral thesis on the politics of 'being Indian' or indigeneity in Latin America, published in 2005 as Seeing Indians: A Study of Race, Nation and Power in El Salvador (Uuniversity of New Mexico Press).
In 1997, Tilley joined the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she taught the core courses on Latin American politics, the politics of development, and Middle East politics, as well as introductory courses on international relations and comparative politics and senior seminars on comparative racial and ethnic conflict. With Professor Kevin Dunne, she developed the International Relations Major and served as Co-coordinator, and for several years led the Development Studies minor.
She was appointed as Associate Professor in 2003 but in 2005 took leave to conduct research in South Africa, initially at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg. She resigned from HWS in 2006 after moving to a senior post at the Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa)
.
In South Africa, she conducted studies of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy, especially regarding economic development. While serving at the HSRC, her reports and research focussed principally on strategies for poverty alleviation. In 2011, she left South Africa to serve as Director of Governance Studies at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
Tilley has adopted a critical position regarding the Middle East peace process and has authored several articles and opinion pieces criticizing Israel's occupation policies. Her 2005 book, The One-State Solution (University of Michigan Press), argued that Israel's settlements in the West Bank have made a two-state solution obsolete.
Background
Tilley holds a BA in Political Science from Antioch CollegeAntioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...
(1985), an MA from the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown (1988) and an MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1997), where she studied under Professor M. Crawford Young
M. Crawford Young
M. Crawford Young is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Education:He received his B.A...
.
After finishing her MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown, she served as Assistant Director of the International Organisation for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) in Washington DC, where she developed a second field in the politics of indigenous peoples. This interest led her researching and writing her doctoral thesis on the politics of 'being Indian' or indigeneity in Latin America, published in 2005 as Seeing Indians: A Study of Race, Nation and Power in El Salvador (Uuniversity of New Mexico Press).
In 1997, Tilley joined the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she taught the core courses on Latin American politics, the politics of development, and Middle East politics, as well as introductory courses on international relations and comparative politics and senior seminars on comparative racial and ethnic conflict. With Professor Kevin Dunne, she developed the International Relations Major and served as Co-coordinator, and for several years led the Development Studies minor.
She was appointed as Associate Professor in 2003 but in 2005 took leave to conduct research in South Africa, initially at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg. She resigned from HWS in 2006 after moving to a senior post at the Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa)
Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa)
The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa primarily conducts large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non governmental organisations and international development agencies in support of development nationally, in the Southern African Development...
.
In South Africa, she conducted studies of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy, especially regarding economic development. While serving at the HSRC, her reports and research focussed principally on strategies for poverty alleviation. In 2011, she left South Africa to serve as Director of Governance Studies at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
Tilley has adopted a critical position regarding the Middle East peace process and has authored several articles and opinion pieces criticizing Israel's occupation policies. Her 2005 book, The One-State Solution (University of Michigan Press), argued that Israel's settlements in the West Bank have made a two-state solution obsolete.
Awards
- Seeing Indians chosen as book of the year by the 2006 Congress of Central American Anthropologists
- 1999 Prize from the Congress on Latin American History, with Prof. Erik Ching.
Selected articles
- “A Palestinian Declaration of Independence: Implications for Peace.” Middle East Policy Vol. XVII, No. 1, March 2010.
- “The Secular Solution: Debating Israel-Palestine.” New Left Review 38, Mar-April 2006.
- “The Politics of Racial Mixture: ‘Being Indian’ in the Mestizo Nation.” In Paul Spickard (ed.) Race and Nation, Identity and Power: Ethnic Systems Around the World (Routledge, 2005).
- “New Help or New Hegemony? The Transnational Indigenous Peoples Movement and ‘Being Indian’ in El Salvador.” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, no. 3.
- “The Generation of Ethnic Conflict by the International System.” In Cris Toffolo, ed., Emancipating Cultural Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2002.
- “The International Construction of Domestic Ethnic Conflict: The Modern State and Indigenous Peoples.” In Dan Green, ed., Studies in Constructivist Comparative Politics, M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
- “Indians, the Military and the 1932 Rebellion in El Salvador,” Journal of Latin American Studies Vol. 30 (January 1998) (with Erik Ching), 121-156.
- “Terms of the Debate: Untangling Language on Ethnicity and Ethnic Movements,” Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 20 No. 3 (July 1997), 497–522.
- “Post-Confucianism: The Culturalist Approach to Understanding the East Asian NICs,” Asian Thought and Society: An International Review, Vol. 21 No. 61 (1996), 67–80.