Tuesday 21 May 2013

Focus on Peace Education

A number of our interviewees for the Agents of Peace project have made note of a lack of peace education as an obstacle to building and sustaining a peaceful society. Increasingly universities across Canada and the United States are offering programs related to Peace and Conflict Studies, particularly at the graduate level. It is notable that the investment in Peace education has been dubbed a fear response to international crises - particularly relating to terrorist activities witnessed in the past decade. This explains the focus of many of the already existing programs on violent conflict management. Regardless of the impetus for the increasing focus on peace studies, we choose to celebrate it. 

So here is a list of a couple programs across Canada and the United States that focus on Peace studies. (This is certainly not a complete list of all related programs; if there are some missing that you think are notable, please let us know!)


  • Rutgers University - Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies - Newark, NJ, USA
    • This interdisciplinary programs is based in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and is oriented to the social bases of conflict and cooperation, of war and peace. Social dimensions include topics of migration, economic development, environmental degradation, inequality, education, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender.
  • Royal Roads University - BA in Justice Studies, Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management, Conflict Analysis and Management, and Human Security and Peacebuilding -  Victoria, BC, Canada
    • The school offers interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs that respond to the increasing demand for leadership in humanitarian assistance, social reconstruction and conflict management. Their programs are directed towards working professionals or those looking for a career in peacebuilding.
  • University of Waterloo - Masters of Peace and Conflict Studies - Waterloo, ON, Canada
    • Recognizing conflict as an inescapable part of the human experience, and a potential vehicle for positive change at local, national, and international levels, this master’s degree offers a unique approach to peace education in which dynamic, sustainable, and creative solutions to conflict can be imagined, tested, and applied.
  • University of Toronto, Munk School of Global Affairs - BA in Peace, Conflict and Justice Studies - Toronto, ON, Canada
    • The Peace, Conflict and Justice program confronts some of humanity's most complex challenges. It offers an undergraduate B.A. degree that emphasizes the integration of practical and theoretical knowledge, the interdisciplinary nature of peace and conflict studies, and the value of incorporating research into undergraduate education.
  • University of Texas at Austin - Certificate in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies - Austin, TX, USA
    • Bridging Disciplines Programs allow you to earn an interdisciplinary certificate that integrates area requirements, electives, courses for your major, internships, and research experiences. The Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies BDP offers you the opportunity to both study and promote conflict resolution in interpersonal, institutional, societal, and global contexts. Students in this program will explore the causes and consequences of various forms of violence, as well as the conditions of peace. In addition to gaining a more sophisticated understanding of peace and conflict, students will also learn about and practice skills necessary for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
  • University of Manitoba - PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies - Winnipeg, MA, Canada
    • The Ph.D. Program in Peace and Conflict Studies provides a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to prepare students to pursue independent research aimed at analyzing and resolving the complex issues facing the global milieu of peace and conflict using a variety of conflict resolution, social justice, and peace studies tools, processes, and methods.

So there you are! There are plenty of programs across Canada and the US that offer programs in peace and conflict studies. Increasingly, programs are also focusing on the idea of Peace Itself, rather than peace as conflict management. This is an exciting time for peace research and education in North America and we are happy to be a part of it!

For more information about peace studies or to learn about Conflict Resolution training with our partners at CIIAN you can comment, send us a message on Facebook, email nupri.johanna@gmail.com or nupri.lieann@gmail.com or visit us on youtube at Youtube.com/peacefulagents


Peace,

NUPRI

Wednesday 15 May 2013

The geography of hate

(This is a response to USB researchers' Twitter "Hate Map", written by NUPRI's research assistant, Johanna Fraser)

A recent map created using twitter posts as reference points for understanding where and how much hate exists in the United States has recently been brought to light. The map, which can be found here, uses hateful speech--homophobic, anti-disability, and racist twitter posts--to show the so-called "geography of hate" in America. Researchers--led by Dr. Monica Stephens at Humboldt State University--use the map to geo-tag the origins or hateful speech on twitter based on negative references to particular keywords--queer, fag, cripple, and dyke being examples.

The map has, in my opinion, rightly, received a lot of heat for the possibility of presenting a flawed or misleading view of the general views of individuals living in particular regions. The data used to create the map was collected from an aggregation of all Tweets posted between June 2012 and April 2013 that used the "hate" keywords. These tweets were then screened by students to classify them as either positive or negative and only those deemed negative by the screeners were used to create the map.

On a very basic level this project seems to make an interesting point about hate in America, particularly hate on the internet in America. However, besides the obvious problem with relying on subjective student understandings of what constitutes positivity or negativity in relation to hate speech, the map has a deeper and more harmful impact.

That is, while it is important to draw attention to hate it is also, as silly and optimistic as it sounds, it is also important--if not more important--to draw attention to love.

North Americans, I propose, are infatuated with darkness. Numerous papers in the last decade have focused on this aspect of the modern psyche. While it is not necessarily a new phenomenon in the history of humanity--Greek tragedy certainly presents us with a dark image on par with modern art and film--it is becoming more and more acceptable for people, particularly in our neck of the woods, to focus on the darker side of life. In casual conversation about the merits of this or that week's top box-office hit the common thread is that movies are better when they are more realistic; and what makes them more realistic in our eyes? Well, a film can be said to be realistic when it presents us with the darker underside of humanity--that part of us that exists in all of us but which we hide--our darker side. Thinkers have been quick to claim that this explains our generation's obsession with Vampires, Werwolves and Zombies. These mythical creatures present us with a more "realistic", if metaphorical, view of human nature. Inside all of us is a monster. Perhaps that is why we love True Crime television shows, why our favourite characters are the anti-heros, the Dexter Morgans, the Hannibal Lecters, and even more banally, the drug-addicted Jackie Peytons and rude and uncompromising Dr. Houses.

Works like Dr. Stephens' "hate map" do the same thing that modern art and popular culture do to us. It presents us with a distorted understanding of reality. It shows us where hate is strongest, but ignores where, even within those boundaries of, for example, anti-queer speech, love exists. On first glance, for example, it would appear that the entire Mid to Far Eastern U.S. is rife with racism. When one first clicks on the "racist" option the entire right side of the map lights up a glowing bright red--indicating, according to the creators, the "most hate". A swift double click, though, and you find that within the glowing red glob there are in fact only a few counties and regions that contain within them large numbers of hateful Tweets, double click again and you find that in fact there are only a few towns, some of which are quite sparsely populated that still glow red, the rest of the map left either a light or dark blue indicating "some hate" or--more commonly--not lit up at all.

My question, then, is whether we might find out that in those non-lit up places, or in the light blue shaded areas, or even in the middle of the most frighteningly and brightly red towns we might find, if we cared to look, the most powerful sentiments of love. We have, as I noted already, a tendency to look on the dark side. We think it is realistic to presume that the United States is hateful, racist and homophobic. That's what we see on the news and in films and in popular culture and that is the image which is presented to us by researchers like the ones as HSU that created this map of the geography of hate. But it is not the truth. The world is not a dark place. It is a place with both light and dark and sometimes, if you know where to look, or if you even just care to open your eyes to it, you will find that the light has a way of outshining the darkness in the same way that when you are in a dark room the light from the hallway finds it way in through the crack at the bottom of the door.

So, my message of peace for the day is to find the light in even the darkest of places and Tweet, post and talk about that instead. Perhaps, then, researchers can create a map highlighting the Geography of Love.

Peace,

Johanna


Friday 10 May 2013

Shirley Farlinger's 25 easy (and not so easy) ways to promote peace

Shirley Farliner, a fellow Agent of Peace, to whom I had the absolute privilege of speaking to about peace in late 2011 past away this past winter. Shirley was an absolute fire-cracker of a woman. She was for many years a volunteer editor for, and contributor to, Peace Magazine, a member of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Science for Peace and Pugwash. And to the very end she was a board member of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health. She ran federally for the Green Party in its early days and later for the NDP. Shirley was also the first woman president of the Toronto Eglinton Rotary Club and a past president of the University Women’s Club of Toronto.

After our interview in 2011 Shirley sent NUPRI a letter outlining 25 simple ways in which individuals can promote peace in their every-day lives, in their communities, in the nations and in the world. We though that in honour of her we would share these with you. 

Dear NUPRI,

Since talking to you about peace I have though of so many more things that can and are being done for peace by individuals and groups.


  1. Wear a peace t-shirt or button
  2. Sign your letters "peace" instead of "yours"
  3. Visit the UN and take the tour
  4. Urge your mayor to join "Mayors for Peace" 
  5. Go on all suitable peace walks
  6. Protest outside companies producing military goods
  7. Get your town, province, country declared a "Nuclear Free Zone" (Ontario is!)
  8. Get rid of war toys and label play areas "war toy free"
  9. Support campaigns to end nuclear weapons, cluster bombs, etc. 
  10. Help publicize peace events--hand out leaflets
  11. Write letter to the editor
  12. Write a poem, story, or book!
  13. Join or start a "Raging Grannies" group
  14. Visit www.peacewomen.org
  15. LEarn about Security Council Resolution 1325, passed unanimously in October 2000 mandating the inclusion of women in all peacemaking, war prevention meetings
  16. Put on my play, "The 1325 Key to Peace", a comedy (don't know where we can find this now)
  17. Promote peace films
  18. Vote for like-minded politicians
  19. Run for office
  20. Link ecology, climate change and peace (the military causes large CO2 emissions in wars, training and research)
  21. Maintain your own ideals even in the face of criticism
  22. Set up a Peace Garden in your school, university or workplace with a bench for negotiating conflicts
  23. Sign onto the various petitions on the web relating to peace. Number count. 
  24. Contact refugees at your school or elsewhere and hear their stories
  25. Never give up. Remember you are doing the most important work in the world
               Peace,

                     Shirley Farlinger




We hope that this list will inspire you to get out there and live your peace. Shirley did until she could do it no more. Now its your turn.


Peace,

Johanna Fraser
Research Assistant, NUPRI