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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Global South
• Narratives
• Critique
• Critical Peace Education
• Southern Theory
• Decolonising Curriculum and Pedagogy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful critiques of earlier drafts of this paper. The paper has benefited much from the peer-review process. Any mistakes that remain are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While such scholars may be conceptualised as minorities living within the Global North, we do not refer to the educators as minorities at this juncture (although we do so later in the paper after the scholars self-identify themselves as minorities in interviews). We do this in order to distinguish between scholars from the Global South and minority scholars from the Global North. We focus on scholars from the Global South specifically and emphasise the language of the Global South while also acknowledging the complex intersectionality of multiple forms of identity.

2. We acknowledge that the ethnic categories used, such as ‘Asian’ or ‘Latin American’, are broad and obscure geographical and sociopolitical nuances within these identities. Moreover, we recognise that ethnic labels are not unproblematic and are often partially produced by hegemonic geopolitical processes. For example, Mignolo (2005) points out how the demarcation of ‘Latin’ America is related to nineteenth-century European ideas of nation-building. However, we use these categories in deference to our participants’ own self-definitions and self-described identities regarding their region of origin. We have indicated the region and ethnicity as closely as possible for scientific interpretation without revealing the specific nationality or identity of the participants in order to maintain participant anonymity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nomisha Kurian

Nomisha Kurian is currently the 2018-19 Charles and Julia Henry Fellow at Yale University and a graduate of Cambridge University. Her research interests lie in the sociology of education and peace education; human rights; international development; student wellbeing; and the psychology of education. Her most recent publication is a book chapter co-authored with Terence Bevington and Hilary Cremin, titled "Peace Education as Citizenship Education" published in the Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship Education. 

Kevin Kester

Kevin Kester is Assistant Professor of International Education and Global Affairs at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea. His research and teaching interests lie in the sociology and politics of education; international affairs; peace and conflict studies; and social theory (de/postcolonial and postmodern thought, and critical pedagogy). His most recent publications are in the journals Teaching in Higher Education, Education as Change, and Peace Review.