Room to Grow and the Right to Say No: Theorizing the Liberatory Power of Peace in the Global South
In: Geopolitics, p. 1-33
ISSN: 1557-3028
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In: Geopolitics, p. 1-33
ISSN: 1557-3028
In: Ecology and society: E&S ; a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability, Volume 29, Issue 3
ISSN: 1708-3087
In: International studies perspectives: ISP
ISSN: 1528-3585
Abstract
Existing studies demonstrate that although peace and conflict studies (PCS) emerged from a deep connection between political activism and research, the field has increasingly moved toward promoting liberal ideals of peace that sustain the status quo. Amidst this trend, many scholars have pushed research and education programs to explore beyond a hegemonic liberal peace, for example by diversifying reading lists and drawing on decolonial frameworks. This paper adds to such efforts: through the case study of a higher education PCS classroom, we use narratives from two course conveners and a student to explore challenges and opportunities of realizing a critical pedagogy approach to peace education. This approach recenters the classroom not necessarily in terms of what students ought to think, but how; critical theory provides a basis for fostering curiosity, using query as a tool of learning, and focusing class structure on students' needs. Our findings suggest that using critical pedagogy in PCS addresses calls for a greater understanding of peace beyond the absence of violence, fosters active envisioning of peace, and works toward decolonizing and demystifying peace work. Ultimately, we call for PCS classrooms to foster critical thinking and radical imagination for a pedagogy of peace praxis.
When bringing armed conflicts to a peaceful end, the inclusion of civil society in peacemaking is a vital task. However, whereas previous research on civil society inclusion has made significant advancements, surprisingly little attention has been paid to analyzing how civil resistance and mass action may interact with more elite-driven approaches during peace processes. This study addresses this research gap by examining the interplay between elite and mass-based civil society approaches in three different peace processes in civil wars in Africa in the post-Cold War period: Liberia, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Burundi. We advance the literature by developing a framework that focuses on coordination of these different efforts and we explore this interplay empirically. With this study, we aim to broaden the research agenda, allowing for future synergies at the research frontier of mass action and the inclusion of civil society in peace processes.
BASE
In: De Gruyter Handbooks in Business, Economics and Finance
Degrowth has emerged as one of the most exciting, and contested, fields of research into the drivers of global heating, ecological collapse, and economic injustice. The perspective is both a critique of existing growth-based models of development, which it argues have put humanity on a collision course with non-negotiable ecological limits, and a vision for a brighter future in which humans and non-humans alike can flourish. By putting an end to growth-seeking economic development and boundless energetic and material throughputs, degrowth's proponents suggest we can build an economy that meets the material needs of people and planet for generations to come. This handbook's contributions signal the importance of degrowth across multiple disciplines and practices. Along the way, they grapple with some of the most critical questions, ideological assumptions, policies, and social struggles of our time. The handbook approaches degrowth as a loosely knit and developing set of interdisciplinary propositions about what it might take to achieve a world of human and non-human flourishing. Contributors explore, challenge, and critique degrowth's propositions and its prospects of shaping scholarly agendas, policy frameworks, and social movements. Essays consider degrowth from a variety of empirical and theoretical vantages, including urban design, architecture, political economy, political ecology, critical geography, and political theory. This integrative approach, at once critical and constructive, aims to preserve for readers the sense of possibility that has drawn people to degrowth scholarship thus far