Conviviality,ego, team and theme behavior in transrational peace education

ABSTRACT

The Innsbruck School of Peace Studies is known for its innovative academic teaching methods under the title Transrational Peace Philosophy. This essay introduces the epistemological fundament of this approach to peace education. It presents the didactic principles for its Strategic Capacity and Relationship Building, combined with Strategic Leadership Training. They are based on the conviviality of students and a curriculum that follows the stages of groups’ task behavior and individual learning by `peeling the onion´ of the Ego. It describes how the didactics are designed for the international, intercultural, interreligious and interdisciplinary groups of students. It demonstrates the five stages of Ego, Team and Theme Behavior during a semester and how the curriculum places courses for best learning results. It discusses the main presumptions on convivial learning processes for academics. The focus is on students who want to work later in a broader field of conflict transformation.     

Transpersonal consciousness in elicitive teaching

ABSTRACT

In this article I explore the role of transpersonal consciousness in Peace Education. Following the framework of transrational peace philosophy, I discuss the dynamics between the spiritual and policitary layers and their relevance in preparing for elicitive teaching, curriculum design, and developing pedagogical approaches. I use my personal experiences in elicitive peace education to elucidate opportunities for the practical application of transpersonal consciousness in the classroom. This article concludes that in Peace Education, engaging with the transpersonal layer supports deeper transformations within and beyond the classroom that includes shifting of personal awareness and deepening of perspectives, as well as the capacity for the group to become a resource for learning.     

Education for territorial peace in Colombia: what role for transrational peace?

ABSTRACT

In this article, we present the idea of a territorial peace and explore it in the context of Colombia. We locate our investigation in peace education, particularly in Colombia’s Catedra de Paz, and explore the adaptations and application of the iPEACES programme (originally the iPEACE programme, developed by one of the authors with Bevington in 2017) as a possible way of contributing to sustaining the plurality of many peaces in this and other contexts. We outline the Innsbruck school’s many peaces approach and Elicitive Conflict Mapping (ECM) framework in order to show how they contributed to developing the iPEACES programme – which is responsive to territorial peace in the Colombian context. We end by presenting limited findings from four surveys with teachers in Colombia who attended a taster day for the iPEACES programme in 2018. We discuss their contributions and perspectives, and the ways in which we feel the iPEACES programme might be taken up more widely in schools in Colombia and elsewhere.     

Diffraction,transrational perspectives,and peace education: new possibilities

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on the theoretical lens of diffraction to conceptualize a new approach to transrational peace education theory and praxis in the post-2016 posttruth political era and Industry 4.0 economic period. The paper reviews foundational concepts and approaches from key founders of the field – Paulo Freire and Betty Reardon – before turning to two contemporary peace education scholars – Wolfgang Dietrich and Hilary Cremin – to investigate the contributions of recent scholarship toward diverse diffractive possibilities for transrational peace education. In this sense, diffraction offers pluralistic views and transformative possibilities for transrational peace education in varied contexts. Transrational peace education builds upon peace education to integrate affective and aesthetic perspectives into peace education theory and praxis. Before concluding, we offer some theoretical implications and pedagogic responses for scholars seeking to work at diffractive transrational intersections. The contribution of the paper is toward theorizing new perspectives for transrational peace education theory and praxis in the 21^st century.     

Towards agonistic peacebuilding? Exploring the antagonism–agonism nexus in the Middle East Peace process

Many contemporary conflicts are framed as antagonistic and difficult to resolve because of their zero-sum framing among the disputants. This article addresses the antagonism–agonism nexus and the political and contested nature of building peace. It has a three-fold aim: (1) to critically assess the interplay between constructive and destructive dynamics; (2) to analyse the circumstances under which conflict may move from antagonism to agonism; and (3) to advance the novel notion of agonistic peacebuilding. The Middle East Peace process is used as a critical case of intractable conflict to elucidate the enabling and restraining conditions for agonistic peacebuilding.     

An education for peace model that centres on belief systems: the theory behind the model

The education for peace model (EFPM) presented in this paper was developed within a theoretical framework of complexity science and critical theory and was derived from a review of an empirical research project conducted in a conflict affected environment. The model positions belief systems at the centre and is socioecologically systemic in design to capture the holistic dynamic of education within community. There is increasing interest, in both academic and development communities, in closing the gaps that exist between theory and practice in educational development in conflict affected settings and providing practioners with practical models. This paper makes a contribution in this through the presentation of the EFPM and the theory that informed its development. There are five key components to the EFPM: belief systems, learning experiences, students, teachers and schools. Belief systems are core as knowledge is generated from culture. Learning experiences are viewed as opportunities for growth, and schools are viewed as environments that provide opportunities and engender cultures for learning and conflict resolution. Teachers, drawn from the local community, are co-creators of these cultures, environments and opportunities and agents of effective change.     

Education for nonkilling creativity: a reconstructive–empowering approach

ABSTRACT

Paige (2002) affirmed that a ‘nonkilling society implies a disciplinary shift to nonkilling creativity’. Creativity is indispensable in the search for peaceful alternatives for the positive transformation of conflicts, inherent in human relationships. Creativity can help individuals to think and act peacefully, to find different alternatives to obstacles and problems, to face daily life challenges, and to be happier people. This article presents the Reconstructive–Empowering (REM) approach of peace education as a concrete proposal for implementing a nonkilling paradigm shift in education that facilitates the formation of a critical, active, creative, and peaceful nonkilling citizenship, capable of promoting social transformations toward a killing-free world.     

Peace Building in Violent Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Post-Oslo People-to-People Activities

This article deals with peace-building activities in the context of the intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Scores of people-to-people projects were conducted after the September 1993 signing of the Oslo peace accords, but these projects did not seem to prevent the collapse of the peace process and the re-emergence of severe violence between the sides in late September 2000. However, evidence from the field indicates that peace-building activities are still continuing. This article will describe peace-building activities both before and after September 2000, discuss their effectiveness, and define their relevance in the ongoing violent conflict between the sides.     

Discussing conflict in contemporary China

The research suggests there is a gap in the peace studies and conflict resolution literature, with little representation or understanding of Chinese perspectives. In a project to address this gap, the researchers conducted interviews individually with 30 participants identified as ‘ emerging leaders’, who came from diverse universities and parts of the Peoples’ Republic of China. This paper reports on the language used by young emerging leaders to talk about conflict, the main concepts that were discussed and what meanings may be communicated in the context of contemporary China. The research method was developed in collaboration with Chinese academics, was elicitive and dialogic, used context-grounded vignettes of conflict scenarios and aimed to build a foundation for deepening dialogue and engagement. The findings are important theoretically for a more inclusive peace and conflict studies literature and have practical implications for the way in which relationships with China may best be approached.     

Peace values in language textbooks: the case of English for Ethiopia Student Textbook

Textbooks are not only meant to deliver subject knowledge; they are also a medium to convey universal and community-specific values. Aiming to explore the social and emotional development goals of English for Ethiopia Student Textbook Grade 9, this study reviews the content and activities of the textbook by searching for embedded peace values and prejudices. Textual, contextual and sociological discourse analyses were conducted to characterise, understand and explain the nature of the textbook’s discourse. A positive self-concept; good health and compassion (inner peace); tolerance, solidarity and social responsibility (social peace); and respect for life in all its forms and care for the environment (peace with nature) were found to be recurring peace values. However, some content reflected gendered stereotyping, which goes against the peace value of equality.     

Humanitarian interventions and the media: broadcasting against ethnic hate

Humanitarian interventions routinely come with media components, because of the media’s assumed ability to counter hate and support reconciliation. Radio programmes for peace should enable audiences to withstand manipulation and react non-violently in conflict situations. Based in the ideological tradition of modernisation theory, these programmes assume that violent conflict can be overcome by educating individuals. Based on original data from South Sudan, this paper argues that social structure and duty to leaders play a bigger role and that present media interventions are ill suited to the problem. Interventions need to be tailored to the situation instead of relying on generalised responses.     

Problematizing war: reviving the historical focus of peace education

In the last forty years, peace education has broadened its focus from primarily international peace and the prevention of war to an approach that encompasses social justice, environmental education, critical theory, and multicultural education. While this is a positive evolution in many respects, there is a danger in de-emphasizing the actual critique of war and militarism. This article looks at the reasons why peace education should revive its strong historical focus on problematizing war. There is a strong emphasis on how educators can implement this in the classroom by fostering an environment where students can critique both past and contemporary conflicts. This renewed focus is of special importance in our modern globalized world, especially in militarily powerful nations such as the United States.     

Shared History Project: A PRIME Example of Peace-Building Under Fire

Minimal peace building during a violent conflict is suggested as a strategy for future post-conflict peace processes. This paper describes a process of five workshops in which Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli teachers developed a joint school textbook of two narratives (an Israeli and a Palestinian) in regard to three dates in their mutual conflict: the Balfour Declaration, the 1948 war and the 1987 Intifada. The teachers developed these two narratives to be taught in their classrooms. All these activities took place under severe conditions of asymmetry of power relations of occupation (of the Palestinians) and of suicide bombers (against Israelis) throughout the project. The Two-State solution requires in our view textbooks of two narratives, so students learn to respect the narrative of the Other.     

The real deal? The post-conflict constitution as a peace agreement

Abstract

When intra-state armed conflicts end through a negotiated settlement, the conflict parties frequently agree to amend or replace the country’s constitution. Their aim is to entrench the settlement, address the conflict incompatibility, reform institutions and take other measures to prevent a recurrence of violence. This article argues that post-conflict constitutions (PCCs) should be understood as peace agreements. It motivates this argument on conceptual, functional and legal grounds. It demonstrates that PCCs comply with conventional definitions of a peace agreement, are an intrinsic component of the conflict resolution process and have a range of peace maintenance functions. As supreme law, they become the definitive peace agreement. Research on peace durability following negotiated settlements should therefore focus not only on comprehensive peace agreements (CPAs) but also on PCCs. PCCs should be conceived not as mere components of CPA implementation but as substantive political and legal agreements in their own right and as independent causes of peace.     

Understanding conflict resolution philosophically in a school setting: three different kinds of violence and dialogue

According to Galtung, violence can be divided into two kinds: (i) direct violence, which is always physical in a wider sense (e.g. bodily harm or verbal abuse) or (ii) indirect violence that is either structural (i.e. the institution is structurally violent because it is organised so to privilege a group over others; e.g. a strict pyramidal organisational structure) or cultural (i.e. the institution is culturally violent because it encourages or fails to deal with cultural aspects that either privileges or is demeaning towards certain groups; e.g. institutionalised racism or misogyny). Galtung’s theory provides us with three levels of violence, leading us to three different potential forms of conflict. In response to this, I propose a philosophical discussion centred on three distinct kinds of dialogue, each of which explaining forms of conflict resolution dealing with these three kinds of violence identified by Galtung. That is, Buber’s, Levinas’ and Arendt’s conceptions of dialogue, dealing, respectively, with physical, cultural and structural violence. Given that violence has become a growing problem within the education context and that various strategies of conflict resolution have been tried and are being pursued, my discussion will enable those involved in these ventures to gain a better understanding of the problem and of its possible solutions.     

The neoliberal discourse on corruption as a means of consent building: reflections from post-crisis Turkey

This article draws attention to the ideological role that the neoliberal discourse on corruption has fulfilled in the promotion of the second generation reforms in Southern countries since the 1997 East Asian financial crisis. This discourse is ahistoric insofar as it fails to recognise corruption as a problem of modernity; biased insofar as it associates corruption with Southern countries' historical and cultural specificities only; contradictory in terms of its counter-productive anti-corruption strategies; and politicised as it has redefined ‘corruption’ as ‘rent-seeking’. In the absence of alternative radical conceptualisations, this essentially competition-induced neoliberal orthodoxy on corruption has been easily articulated within morality-based popular concerns in domestic politics and hence acquired a hegemonic capability. The article substantiates these arguments by examining the trajectory of the neoliberal anti-corruption agenda in Turkey with a particular focus on the developments of the post-2001 financial crisis period.     

Peace education in Israel: an educational goal in the test of reality

Peace education is considered a necessary element in establishing the social conditions required for promoting peace-making between rival parties. As such, it constitutes one of Israel’s state education goals, and would therefore be expected to have a significant place in Israel’s educational policy in general and in response to peace moves that have occurred during the Arab–Israeli conflict since the 1970s in particular. This article reviews the educational policy actually applied by Israel’s state education over the years as reflected in formal educational programs and school textbooks, and suggests that although some significant changes have taken place over time, there has been and still is a significant gap between the stated goal and the practice of peace education in Israel. Reasons for this disparity and its implications are discussed and possible directions are proposed for coping with this educational challenge.     

Southern voices in peace education: interrogating race,marginalisation and cultural violence in the field

Three gaps seem to be present within the literature of peace education: relatively little self-critique of the internal workings of the field; a dearth of studies featuring the personal narratives of peace educators; and an underrepresentation of peace educators from the Global South. To address these three gaps, this qualitative investigation explores the personal narratives of Latin American, Asian and African peace educators and critiques certain assumptions and norms underlying the field. We primarily draw on Galtung’s concept of cultural violence, Bajaj’s critical peace education and Connell’s Southern Theory to make our critiques. We examine 13 semi-structured interviews using grounded theory analysis. Three themes relating to cultural and structural violence emerge from these interviews: discriminatory hurdles for Southern peace educators, intercultural tensions in the classroom and linguistic inequality in opportunities for professional mobility. These may or may not reflect the experiences of other peace educators from the Global South or minority practitioners working within the Global North. But by discussing these forms of violence, we hope to show the value of foregrounding the perspectives and lived experiences of underrepresented groups – not only in peace education but also in academia more broadly.     

Emerging powers,soft power,and future of regional cooperation in South Asia

This article looks into the future of regional cooperation in South Asia in the light of two emerging powers: China and India focussing on how their rise would change the relationship in the region. The paper argues that China and India both are trying to enhance their spheres of influence forcing the states in the region to align with either of them in a binary framework of unstable equilibrium and uneasy coexistence rather than reinforcing the regional solidarity of SAARC. Such a competition between China and India and the putative interventionary efforts of Western powers and their agencies in the region are bound to bring implications of profound value for not just regional cooperation but for the individual destinies of the various states involved in the days ahead.     

Museums for peace: agents and instruments of peace education

Although museums for peace claim peace education to be a primary mission, their definitions of ‘peace’ and their aims and practices for peace education vary widely. In this article, we draw from the field of critical museology and the knowledge construction perspective to understand the role of museums for peace in the service of peace education. From the constructivist viewpoint, the museums’ narratives are not objective or historical truths. Rather they are the museum designers’ constructed interpretations of the events, people, and places that are memorialized. The museums’ exhibits, narratives, and programs reflect a wide range of definitions of peace including some which conflict and contradict each other. The variations in defining peace contribute to differences in how the museums view and exercise their role in educating for peace. From this analysis, we observe how contemporary museums for peace can play a significant role in peace education by raising awareness about multiple definitions of peace and by enabling audiences to reflect on, discuss and participate in deliberated paths toward personal peace and cultures of peace.