Cosmology, context, and peace education
a view from war zones
pp. 89-99
in: Bryan Wright (ed), Critical peace education, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
In this chapter, "Cosmology, Context, and Peace Education: A View from War Zones," Michael Wessells emphatically calls for a pedagogy of peace and peace education that unreservedly acknowledges and honors difference. Wessells suggests contextually appropriate peace education programs are much needed yet are relatively rare in many war zones. In rural Angola, for example, people have a spiritualistic, animistic cosmology that views events in the visible world as caused by the invisible events in the ancestors' world. Here, peace has as much to do with harmony between the living and the ancestors as it does with relations between groups and people who are living. Unfortunately, power dynamics in the humanitarian system frequently lead international NGOs to impose their predominantly Western ideas of peace. This imposition makes peace education a neocolonial enterprise, and it undermines the equity, respect for diversity, and spirit of mutual learning that are central to peace education. Imposition can be avoided by taking a grounded approach that builds on local beliefs and practices, empowers local people, and works in a bottom-up rather than a top-down modality.