Nonviolence as teacher education: a qualitative study in challenges and possibilities

This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of teaching nonviolence in teacher education. Using qualitative teacher research, this paper discusses teacher education students’ responses to the notion of nonviolence and how to create beneficial pedagogical conditions for students to learn nonviolence and its meanings for education. The data were collected from three graduate classes that, to different degrees, addressed the role of nonviolence in education. Three shifts in students’ understanding of nonviolence as a result of their learning are identified: the shift from a narrow to a broad understanding, the shift from a passive view to a proactive view, and the shift from looking outside to looking inside and engaging in emotional work. The pedagogical conditions that facilitated these shifts are also discussed, including strategies for engaging students’ inner work, creating experiential relationships with the other, and transforming classroom relational dynamics. This study also suggests the need not to approach violence and nonviolence as binary but to approach nonviolence as a daily practice to continuously unlearn violence and promote nonviolent relationships. Implications of this study for teacher education are discussed last.     

War and pieces

There is increasing recognition among human geographers that conceptualising the spatiality of peace is a vital component of our collective disciplinary praxis. Within this emergent literature, this paper seeks to position anarchism as an ethical philosophy of nonviolence and the absolute rejection of war. Such an interpretation does not attempt to align nonviolence to any particular organised religious teaching, as has recently been advocated by some geographers. Instead, the paper argues that the current practices of religion undermine the geographies of peace by fragmenting our affinities into discrete pieces. Advancing a view of anarchism as nonviolence, the paper goes beyond religion to conceptualise peace as both the unqualified refusal of the manifold-cum-interlocking processes of domination, and a precognitive, pre-normative and presupposed category rooted in our inextricable entanglement with each other and all that exists. Yet far from proposing an essentialist view of humanity or engaging a naturalised argument that reconvenes the “noble savage”, the paper contextualises the arguments within the processual frameworks of radical democracy and agonism in seeking to redress the ageographical and ahistorical notions of politics that comprise the contemporary post-political zeitgeist.     

Identity in Flux, Destination Uncertain: Montenegro During and After the Yugoslav Wars

Montenegro's political evolution since the mid-1990s undermines the stereotypical view that disputes over nationality and territory in the Balkans are bound to end in violence. Montenegro's case also shows that ethnic identity is fluid rather than fixed in large parts of the region. Its bid for independence appears to be heavily dependent on the way that disputes between the Atlantic democracies and Serbia are resolved. Montenegro has formidable handicaps to overcome if it is to sever its constitutional links with Serbia and embrace full statehood. It is hard to see how this can be accomplished without international economic backing.     

Fighting terrorism with nonviolence: an ideological perspective

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of using nonviolence as a counter-ideology against terrorism. I analyse the current scholarship on nonviolence and terrorism, highlighting that terrorist ideology is crucial but is not directly addressed by nonviolent scholars. I outline a different approach to nonviolence, one which interprets the latter as an ideology of praxis centred on the interrelatedness of life, freedom and plurality. This ideology shares with terrorist ideologies the emphasis on action and conflict to overcome a grievance, but it offers a completely different path centred on diverse citizenship, building alternative social mechanisms (going beyond the focus on institutions), and omnicracy.     

A Bloodless Guerrilla Warfare: Why U.S. White Leftists Renounced Violence Against People During the 1970s

Between 1968 and the late 1970s, a significant number of U.S. white leftist groups escalated their protest to armed struggle. After experimenting briefly with violence, they opted for low-intensity armed propaganda that targeted property and avoided hurting people. By contrast, European leftist groups and anti-colonial organizations in the U.S. made extensive use of antipersonnel violence. Why did U.S. leftists eschew attacks against civilians? Scholarship does not explain this case, as it focuses either on the internal dynamics of a single group or on structural variables. Conversely, this article addresses this question through a historical reconstruction and a multilevel analysis. The research identifies the critique and ensuing de-solidarization by the radical milieu as the main factor accounting for the restraint of violence. This article demonstrates that the radical milieu censored and isolated armed groups as soon as they escalated and began to endanger human lives. Therefore, in order to safeguard the solidarity pact with their constituencies, violent fringes moderated their repertoires of action. This article employs primary sources and original interviews with militants to support this claim and to assess the relevance of three concurrent factors: the trauma generated by the “townhouse incident,” the deterrence by law enforcement, and the militants’ socio-economic background.     

Oligarchy,Anarchy, and Social Justice

This article attempts to identify the problems associated with democratic organizations, and institutions. The issue of democratic, self-governing organizations, and institutions being transformed into oligarchies is addressed. Thus, the question of democratic rule being undermined by elites and their attempts to co-opt democratic organizations, specifically government, is assessed. In order to mitigate elite interests within organizations, anarchist social justice is considered (paradoxically) as a means to revitalize and transform democratic government.     

Religion, Dialogue, and Non-Violent Actions in Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

This article examines the potential constructive role that religious peace builders can play in contributing to Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation and peace. An interfaith setting is a space in which believers from various faith groups come together to explore not only their similarities and differences, but also how they can promote peace in the harsh reality of violence. In such encounters, there is a wide range of interfaith dialogue activities and possibilities that can be deployed. Based on applied training and interfaith dialogue workshops and experiences, this article proposes a framework for conducting interfaith dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Palestine and Israel.