Texts for Peace Studies? A Review of the Following: Transformative Change. An Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies

摘要

These two texts on Peace Studies provide an occasion to reflect on what is being taught to students in peace courses. Transformative Change is for postsecondary peace and conflict studies, and its goal is to integrate knowledge from the humanities and social sciences. Methods of transformative and empowering inquiry are presented for peacebuilding practice and conflict transformation. It has a dozen chapters on topics like models and frameworks, negotiation, engaging with communities, mediation, storytelling as peacebuilding, and restorative processes. The text is full of typologies (e.g. Byrne's social cubism model, ARIA conflict engagement), classifications (Timmons Strahl Conflict Style Circle), and conceptual schemes, which are not applied to actual conflict and peace processes. There is no account of the Geneva conventions, International Criminal Court, War Crimes Tribunals, UN Peacekeeping operations, actual peace processes, and negotiations (e.g. ending the Troubles with the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement). The text is mostly about methodology and lacks examples; for instance on "communities for change," there is a section on avoiding deficit based thinking. One would expect some discussion of police minority relations and community policing in US. cities or some equivalent deficit based thinking that has been well researched, but none is provided. About narratives and constructive storytelling for peacebuilding, the authors remain silent on destructive narratives, e.g., the incompatible narratives of Palestinians and Israelis.