Meghan Laws will begin a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of St Andrews in Scotland in the Fall of 2018 under the supervision of Professor Alison Watson in the School of International Relations. Meghan has been working with Professor Watson and Senior Researcher Bennett Collins since August of 2016 to launch the ‘Third Generation Project’ (TGP), an innovative think tank that was created in response to the increasing need to emphasize the rights of communities and peoples on the front lines of climate change. As Research Coordinator, Meghan is responsible for overseeing and disseminating research that outlines structural and systematic inequalities that expose communities and peoples to the effects of climate change.
With its outstanding faculty, global partnerships, and expertise in African studies and human rights, the University of St Andrews will provide Meghan with an ideal setting to continue her work with AIMPO, a grassroots organization based in Kigali that aims to improve the socio-economic status of Historically Marginalized Peoples in Rwanda, and the TGP. She intends to undertake novel research in Rwanda to chronicle Batwa experiences of transition, dislocation, violence, and regime change in the post-genocide period using a life history approach. TGP will provide an ideal forum to disseminate policy-driven, community-centered and interdisciplinary research on the Batwa that engages a variety of stakeholders from academic, policy, non-governmental, and community-based organizations. One venue for advocacy is through collaboration with the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs, which has shown interest in publishing her proposed research as a sequel to Jerome Lewis and Judy Knight’s oft-cited book, The Twa of Rwanda, published in 1995.