Austin Robertson
Peace and Conflict Pathway
Peace in the Presence of Hate
Austin, a government and anthropology double major, joined the Peace and Conflict Pathway to better understand how both can exist at the same time in particular societies. “This has been especially pertinent for me as a Jewish student who went to high school in a rural area of Vermont,” he says. “The school never understood the constant conflict I experienced at the hands of anti-Semitic kids, and administrators always claimed how peaceful Rutland was. In the pathway, I have used my past self as a personal ethnographic study.” In 2021, Austin conducted research with History Professor Catherine Stock about the intersection of Jewish identity and whiteness in American politics. This past summer, he assisted International Relations Professor Andrew Levin on a research project focused on prejudice-motivated crimes and conflict escalation. Those experiences, along with his major study and Spanish language, Jewish studies and statistics coursework, helped him formulate the animating question of his Symposium presentation: Can peace truly exist in a society experiencing hate crimes? Austin plans to pursue a career in criminal litigation and credits his Connections experience for his newfound self-confidence. “I chose to write my law school personal statement about the pride I have in my Jewish identity after years of struggling to accept myself. My experiences in this Pathway played a large role in my ability to learn about my own identity and academic interests.”