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The everyday peace project: an innovative approach to peace pedagogy

Article  in  Journal of Peace Education · March 2016

DOI: 10.1080/17400201.2016.1151773

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The Everyday Peace Project: An Innovative Approach to Peace Pedagogy

Urmitapa Dutta*a,

Andrea Kashimana Andzengeb and Kayla Walklingc

a
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, USA; bGlobal Studies,
University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, USA; cJustice Resource Institute, Needham, USA

Urmitapa Dutta is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She is a

faculty affiliate of the Peace and Conflict Studies program and an associate at the Center for Women and
Work at UMass Lowell. Her program of research focuses on understanding and addressing marginality
where it is intimately connected to violence. Urmitapa has been engaged in community-based research on
ethnic violence in Northeast India for ten years. As part of this project, Urmitapa has worked with local
youth to develop innovative, community-based approaches to address everyday violence. While
continuing her research work in Northeast India, her current research also focuses on youth participatory
action research to address community violence experienced by youth in the Lowell area.

Andrea Kashimana Angzende is a doctoral student at the Global Studies Program at University of
University of Massachusetts, Lowell. A recent graduate of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at
UMass Lowell, Andrea’s current research interests focuses on understanding the impact of conflicting
political and religious identities on policy activism along with the role of psychological entitlement in
women’s economic outcomes.

Kayla Walkling is a recent graduate from the University of Massachusetts Lowell with a B.A. in
Sociology. She currently works as a peer support worker for transitional-aged youth receiving services in
the mental health system at the Justice Resource Institute in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

*
Corresponding author. Email: Urmitapa_Dutta@uml.edu
The everyday peace project: An innovative approach to peace pedagogy

A critical task for peace pedagogy is to challenge views of peace as primarily responses
to declared war. Crisis-based politics tend to focus on exceptional situations and fail to
capture the entire spectrum of violence. Premised on the idea that peace cannot be
understood in isolation of larger structural problems, this paper proposes the concept of
‘everyday peace’ as a framework for peace education. Drawing from a pedagogical
initiative, we examine how students engage with the concept of everyday peace and
present our findings in three related domains: (1) Definition of everyday peace, (2)
Application of everyday peace principles, and (3) Role of collaboration in everyday
peace approaches. Our analysis underscored two important themes in participants’
definitions of everyday peace: (1) peace as a value-based praxis and (2) individual level
and systemic components of everyday peace. Applying these principles to a violent
event in the local community, participant responses emphasized compassion, cultures
of peace, and the need to draw reflexive, meaningful connections between local and
global contexts. The participants also outlined the synergistic role of collaboration in
everyday peacebuilding. We discuss our findings in relation to extant research and
consider implications of an everyday peace framework for holistic peace education.

Keywords: peace education; everyday peace; social justice; collaboration; structural

violence

Introduction
In the recent century, we have witnessed a transformation in conventional ideas of war. War

is no longer confined to ‘high technologies of destruction;’ rather, there has been a

proliferation of ‘low technologies’ of warfare shaped about by emerging geopolitical

concerns in Africa, Middle East, and in Asia (Das 2001, 108). This in turn has led to a rise in

crisis-based politics that focus on situations perceived as volatile, exceptional, and as a break

from normal (Cuomo 1996; Gumz 2009). Such a focus fails to take into account the complex

systems of domination and oppression that function as givens in people’s everyday lives.

Besides, not all acts of violence occur within the confines of declared war (Das 2005;

Scheper-Hughes 2006). Thus it has become imperative for peace scholars to focus on the
 2

everyday in order to understand and address the scope of violence in people’s lives

(Appadurai 2004). Peace education in turn must reflect these altered contingencies.

Premised on the idea that peace cannot be understood or studied in isolation of other

social processes, this paper proposes the concept of everyday peace as a framework for peace

education. Violence that is ubiquitous and deeply entrenched in everyday practices calls for a

notion of ‘everyday’ peace. We present the findings of a small-scale research study to

investigate how students in a peace and conflict studies program develop the concept of

everyday peace and examine the role of everyday peace as a framework for peace education.

The study was carried out in the context of a graduate seminar entitled ‘Everyday Peace:

Community-based Approaches to Peace and Peace-building,’ which was designed and taught

by the first author. The course introduced students to the everyday peace project as a vehicle

to examine the production of peace at the local level while taking into account the influence

of macro-social and global processes. The term project conveys the provisional and

contextualized quality of the concept of everyday peace. Rather than offering students a

concrete definition of the term everyday peace, it was proposed as a project that students

would collaboratively produce over the duration of the course.

We begin by discussing the conceptual framework for everyday peace followed by a

description of the everyday peace project. We then present the study examining how student

participants engage with the concept of everyday peace, how they apply the concept to their

immediate contexts, and their evaluation of collaborative approaches, which is central to an

everyday peace approach. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of our

findings for critical peace education along with limitations and future directions.

A conceptual framework for everyday peace

Our concept of everyday peace builds upon those of positive peace, human rights, and

conflict transformation. At its inception in the 1950s, peace studies focused primarily on
 3

responses to direct violence and warfare, usually in the form of peace treaties and accords.

Although the incidence of major wars has greatly reduced in recent decades, societies across

the globe continue to experience violent conflict. Responding to these contingencies, peace

scholar Johan Galtung introduced the term positive peace in 1964. Positive peace involves

the active creation of harmonious environments that support cooperation and coexistence

(Galtung 1964, 1996; Galtung and Fischer 2013). Thus understood, peace is not just the

absence of war, but the creation of lasting structures that ensure the reduction of all kinds of

violence in a society (de Rivera 2004). Positive peace moves beyond attempts to end violent

conflicts to also focus on critical rights such as social and political equity, access to quality

health care, access to economic opportunities, freedom to express one’s self without fear, and

to develop one’s abilities without obstruction (Barash 2010; Galtung 1985; Ife 2007; Perry

2000). Positive peace is closely connected to the concept of conflict transformation, which

contends that the structural and cultural violence associated with the overt conflict have to be

addressed in order to promote constructive social change (Dayton and Kriesberg 2009;

Lederach 1997, 2003). Conflict transformation approaches therefore allow us to engage

constructively with conflict across different contexts and across multiple levels to advance

rights and promote positive peace.

The concept of everyday peace also builds upon the existing literature on peace

education. The goal of peace education is to provide insights on how to transform cultures of

violence into peaceful cultures (Harris 2010). Lasting peace depends on educating future

generations on values, attitudes, behaviours, and capabilities that will enable them to build

and enact peace (Johnson & Johnson 2010). The gamut of peace education includes both

formal institutional contexts such as schools and colleges as well as informal community-

based peace education. This paper focuses on peace education in the context of public

universities. We draw upon critical approaches to peace education, which emphasize the
 4

empowerment of learners as agents of social transformation (Bajaj 2008). The ‘critical’

component of peace education according to its proponents is the interrogation of power

dynamics and various social hierarchies. Eschewing rigid normative standards for peace

education, these approaches underscore the value of contextualized forms of peace education

(Bajaj and Brantmeier 2011). The ways in which we conceptualize peace must contend with

the expansive problems of peace located at all points along a micro/macro dimension

(Haavelsruda and Stenbergb, 2012). Responding to these exigencies, peace scholars have

generated different sets of principles to guide peace education. For example, Johnson and

Johnson (2010) emphasize the establishment of cooperative learning environments;,

development of conflict management and conflict resolution skills, and inculcation of the

value of consensual peace. Shapiro (2002) laid out a number of principles to guide peace

pedagogy, some of which include connecting violence to social injustice, understanding real

differences and learning to live with them, and developing the capacity for compassionate

attentiveness. Collectively, these principles underscore a variety of ways for students to

engage the concept of peacebuilding in daily lives along and explore their role as everyday

peace advocates.

The everyday peace framework coalesces around positive peace, human rights,

conflict transformation, and critical peace education. These approaches foreground the need

for both structural and relationship change in order to advance sustainable peace. The

everyday peace project involves a critical engagement with the production of positive peace

at the local level, while taking into account global and transnational forces implicated in

various conflicts around the world. Thus, everyday peace is negotiated between micro and

macro scales. Given specific historical, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contingencies,

communities and groups may have varying conceptions of what local peace means to them.

In order to ensure sustainable peace in diverse, multicultural societies, the vision must be
 5

democratised. Instead of starting with a pre-defined concept of peace, an everyday project

involves collectively investigating the notion of everyday peace in a specific context and

working towards an integrated the vision of what peace means to different stakeholders

within that context. In other words, the vision for everyday peace in a particular context has

to be investigated, negotiated, and deliberated upon by group members.

Our concept of everyday peace includes both process (e.g., democratic engagement and

community building processes) and outcome (e.g., shared vision of peace grounded in local

contexts) components in an iterative relationship. Participatory action research (PAR)

approaches provide a critical framework to engage both these elements of everyday peace.

PAR approaches combine ‘theory, action, and participation committed to further the interests

of exploited groups and classes’ (Fals-Borda 1987, 329). Although PAR approaches have

developed in a diversity of fields, there are some basic tenets that characterize PAR

approaches. These include the grounding of research within disenfranchised communities,

collective investigation of community problems, the desire to take individual and collective

action to address the structural roots of particular problems, and effect positive social change

(Brydon-Miller 1997; Fals-Borda and Rahman 1991; McIntyre 2008). In PAR, traditional

research subjects are repositioned as critical inquirers so that these individuals or groups

actively craft the research agenda from framing research questions to analysis and

dissemination of findings (Brydon-Miller 1997; Cammarota and Fine 2008; McTaggart and

Kemmis 1988). Central to PAR’s notion of knowledge generation, lies the development of

critical consciousness through repeated cycles of action and reflection (Brydon-Miller 1997).

The goal of PAR is to arrive at emancipatory, locally relevant, and collectively produced and

owned knowledge by combining transformative education, inquiry, and action (Brydon-

Miller 1997; Fals-Borda 1987; Torre and Fine 2011). From its roots in critical pedagogy to its

emphasis on democratic inquiry, PAR has crucial parallels with the everyday peace
 6

framework. Specifically, PAR approaches employ a rights-based approach to research that

recognizes the vital role of the capacity to make strategic inquiries and gain strategic

knowledge in order to exercise democratic citizenship (Appadurai 2006; Fine and Torre

2006); something that is consistent with the agenda of an everyday peace project.

Many empirical studies attest to the empowering potential of PAR. Documented

positive impact of PAR include enhanced critical consciousness, health promotion,

challenging social exclusion, prevention of community-level violence, building critical youth

capacities, as well as creating new theoretical possibilities (Cahill and Hart 2007; Foster-

Fishman et al. 2005; Torre and Fine, 2006; Wang 1999; Zimmerman et al., 2011). PAR

approaches have been used extensively by M. Brinton Lykes (1994, 1997, 2013) in her

peacebuilding work in Latin America, especially in collaborative community-based work that

focuses on capacities and rights of individuals and groups who resist structural oppression.

Another example of the effectiveness of PAR in peacebuilding may be found in transforming

mediation practices in Nepal (Lederach and Thapa 2012). Participatory action research

strategies may then be employed to collectively investigate and build a concept of everyday

peace that is context specific and meaningful to the groups involved. When applied to peace

pedagogy, this means restructuring the classroom according to principles of PAR, engaging

students as key stakeholders in a collective process of conceptualizing what everyday peace

means to them. The multiple perspectives that individual students bring in would deepen the

resultant understanding of peace. PAR approaches thus represent a systematic approach for

engaging students in everyday peace praxis, engendering educational experiences that are not

only rigorous but also relevant and meaningful to their lives.

The present study

The Everyday Peace Project was initiated as a small-scale study through a graduate seminar

designed and taught by the first author. The metaphor of project is vital to convey the
 7

ongoing, provisional, and contextual nature of everyday peace. The course entitled ‘Everyday

Peace: Community-based Approaches to Peace and Peace-building’ was designed to engage

students to develop the concept of everyday peace and explore community-based approaches

to peacebuilding. The course was informed by a cooperative learning approach, which is

recognized as an effective pedagogy for peace education (Johnson and Johnson 2005;

Reardon 1994; Synott 2005). The adoption of active cooperative learning strategies (e.g.,

facilitation of discussion, creative and critical thinking, decision-making, and knowledge

construction) helps generate locally relevant curriculum that is likely to be more sustainable

because of students’ active participation in its design (Jenkins and Jenkins 2010).

The Everyday Peace course was offered as an elective in the Peace and Conflict

Studies (PCS) program in a public university. It is an interdisciplinary program that explores

causes of violence, methods to resolve violence, and practices to build peace. The center

offers an undergraduate minor and major, a graduate certificate, and a master’s degree in

peace and conflict studies. Students enrolled in the master’s program are required to take

elective seminars across three professional options: conflict resolution, organizational

leadership, and policy analysis. The Everyday Peace course described here fulfills the

conflict resolution option. The present study was designed with the goal of documenting

student perspectives on everyday peace and examining the role of collaborative approaches in

peacebulding. Specifically, we were guided by three key questions that we wanted to explore.

First, how do student participants define everyday peace? Second, how do they apply or

integrate the emerging principles of everyday peace to issues in their social contexts and

communities? Third, how do students understand the role of collaborative processes in

understanding and promoting everyday peace? We draw upon our findings to discuss the

implications of an everyday peace framework for effective peace education in institutional

contexts.
 8

Method

Peace labs

The novel feature and the mainstay of the everyday peace course were the peace lab sections.

Interspersed across the semester, these were four action sessions during which students drew

upon their readings and class discussions to discuss, debate, and elaborate what everyday

peace means and how to work towards it. Please see Table 1 for a summary of the peace labs.

Students were assigned a cross-disciplinary reading list that covered a range of topics such as

different types of violence, conflict transformation, peacebuilding approaches, social justice,

and action research methods (see Supplemental Table 1). The peace labs were informed by a

cooperative learning approach where students work together to achieve shared learning goals

and complete joint tasks or assignments (Johnson and Johnson 1999). The peace lab activities

were characterized by positive goal interdependence as well as individual accountability;

Johnson and Johnson 1999, 2005).

Insert Table 1 about here

The format of the peace labs were informed by PAR approaches, which combine

research, education, and action for social transformation (Brydon-Miller 1997; Cammarota

and Fine 2008; Fals-Borda 1987; Kemmis & McTaggart 1988). As discussed earlier, PAR

approaches constitute an appropriate platform to engage in the everyday peace project. PAR

approaches are premised on a rights-based perspective of research that challenges

professionalized views of research, reframing it in terms of a more universal and elementary

capacity (Appadurai 2006; Fine and Torre 2006). Along these lines, students were positioned

as both subjects and co-researchers in the peace labs. They gathered data, which also

included their own experiences and perspectives and collaboratively analysed the data that

they all contributed to (Argyris & Schon, 1991; McTaggart 1991). Students were actively

involved in various stages of the peace labs: generating topics for discussion, sharing
 9

perspectives on various topics, developing composite understandings of violence and peace

informed by multiple perspectives, and brainstorming specific methods and pathways to

strive towards the emerging vision of everyday peace. The peace labs were structured to

allow for cycles of action and reflection as a group, which would then inform subsequent

peace labs and the course in general. True to the values of PAR, the focus was on students

actively acquiring and producing experientially grounded knowledge of peace, rather than

mere accumulation of existing theory and empirical facts (Cammarota and Fine 2008).

Consistent with critical peace education, students were offered an opportunity to

theorize the construct of peace and examine pathways to peacebuilding. Rather than a

‘banking’ style of education focusing exclusively on existing theories and research, students

participated in an active, collaborative process grounded in contemporary local and global

issues. The labs thus represent a more democratised academic setting. The different activities

were developed to stimulate student participants to examine the roots of everyday violence

and recognize their own agency as everyday peace advocates. Instead of presenting a firmly

defined concept of peace, we tried to integrate the vision of what peace means to students,

individually and collectively. To that end the concept of everyday peace is premised on a

constructivist understanding of peace; that is, we attend to the ways in which different

discourses and modes of thought that shape our notion of peace (Skelly 2002).

The data presented in this paper primarily comes from the first and last peace labs.

Using a participatory action research framework, the first peace lab was designed to engage

students in collaborative definitional exercises. Each student wrote up what they meant by

‘everyday violence’ and ‘everyday peace.’ Their responses were anonymized and randomly

distributed across two groups. Each group worked with their assigned responses as ‘data’ to

cull out important themes. They then worked those themes to build a new definition that

incorporates key themes along with any new ideas they desired to add. Finally, they
 10

discussed the connections between the collaborative definition and their personal

understanding of everyday peace. The last peace lab was scheduled towards the later part of

the semester and was planned as an application-focused lab where students would interrogate

the concept of everyday peace as it applied to particular issues in the campus community.

However, the lab was modified to accommodate student interest in organizing an open peace

forum following a violent, traumatic event in the larger community. This change was

consistent with core ideas of critical peace education– if students’ voices and experiences are

to matter, then these must be given recognition in the learning process. In practical terms,

this means that students should be allowed spaces to bring their understandings to bear on

critical situations (Barnett 1997). This is also consistent with the principles of PAR where

research findings serve as springboards for ideas and actions (Brydon-Miller 1997;

Cammarota and Fine 2008). The last peace lab consisted of two sessions. In the first session,

students shared and processed their responses to the violence. The second session was the

actual peace forum, which the students organized and facilitated. The goal of the peace

forum was to provide a safe space to process our reactions and to collectively reflect on our

role as peace advocates in society. After the last peace lab, students reflected on how they

experienced the collaborative structure of the peace labs.

Participants

The participants were the nine students enrolled in the course. They were affiliated to the

Peace and Conflict Studies program of a public university in the East Coast region of the

United States. The Principal Investigator (PI) of this study was also the instructor for the

course. Therefore we had to take precautions to avoid any conflicts of interest. In

consultation with our Institutional Review Board, we came up with a number of steps. First,

the research study was not brought up until later in the semester so that students did not

interpret the research component as a required part of the course. Second, the PCS program
 11

coordinator oversaw the consent process after class hours. He also stored the forms in his

office, handing those over to the PI after the official grades for the class had been posted. All

of the nine students enrolled in the class had consented to participate in the study. The

participants included six women and three men. The PCS program has a diverse student

body, which was reflected in the composition of the class. Four of the participants identified

as White American, one as Asian-American, two as African-American, and two as African.

Data collection

A course wiki was created for students to share and access materials for the peace labs. A

wiki is a simple webpage that can be edited by multiple users. The wiki served as a

repository where students uploaded individual and collaboratively developed written

materials for the peace labs. It was a university-supported, secure site so that only students

enrolled in the course could access it. Data were collected at the peace labs at four points

across the semester. For the purpose of this paper, we have included student reflections on

everyday peace, reflections on the links between everyday violence and everyday peace,

evaluations of the collaborative structure of peace labs, and reflections on everyday peace

following a violent incident in the larger community.

Data analysis

We employed an inductive thematic analysis to analyse our data (Hayes, 2000; Strauss and

Corbin 1998; Thomas 2006). This approach is used to generate core meanings from the data,

relevant to research domains or objectives. The primary mode of analysis here is the

development of categories from the raw data into a model or framework. The categories are

labelled, described, grouped, and populated with text or data that illustrate the meanings

associated with the category. Each category may also be linked to other categories to form a

conceptual framework. We conducted thematic analysis to provide a rich thematic

description of the data in relation to our primary question: how do students engage with the
 12

everyday peace framework to develop a complex understanding of peace? Inductive thematic

analysis is typically employed in exploratory studies and tends to be a robust approach when

the analytic purpose is descriptive and exploratory (Braun and Clark 2006; (Frith and

Gleeson 2004; Guest, MacQueen, and Namey 2011). Therefore this approach was suited to

our study.

The research team consisting of the PI and two student assistants carefully read the

data a number of times to identify meaningful units of text relevant to the research topic.

Next, units of text dealing with the same issue were grouped together in analytic categories or

themes and given provisional definitions. The same unit of text could be included in more

than one theme. A theme captures something important about the data and represents some

level of patterned response within the data set. The ‘keyness’ of a theme is not necessarily

dependent on quantifiable measures; rather it based on the extent to which a theme captures

something important in relation to the overall research question (Braun and Clark 2006). The

research team reviewed the data to ensure that a name, description, and exhaustive set of data

to support each theme were identified. The themes were identified at a semantic level, that is,

within the explicit or surface meanings of the data (Boyatzis 1998). We continued to refine

the specifics of each theme by checking thematic descriptions against the relevant data to

examine whether it was inclusive of the data (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). The

analysis was exhaustive in that most of the data were assigned to at least one theme. We

generated clear definitions and names for each theme. Finally, we related the analysis back to

our research questions and extant literature, which allowed us to theorise the significance of

the patterns and their broader meanings and implications (Aronson 1995; Patton 1990).

Through this process, we identified seven key themes that addressed our three research

domains (definition of everyday peace, application of everyday peace principles, and role of

collaboration) in more depth (See Table 2).

 13

Insert Table 2 about here

Findings

Conceptualization of everyday peace

The peace labs prompted students to think about peace as an everyday and sustained process

in their immediate contexts. As part of the initial peace lab, each student described what they

meant by ‘everyday peace.’ As we analysed their responses, two major themes emerged that

characterized their emerging understanding of everyday peace: (1) Value-based praxis and

(2) Individual level and systemic components of everyday peace.

Value-based praxis

The importance of a value orientation in striving towards everyday peace was evident across

participants’ definitions. These values included social justice, equality, acceptance, diversity,

empathy, compassion, and respect. There was tacit agreement that a peaceful society, while

difficult to envision, would at the very least begin with a personal commitment to values of

compassion and social justice. For example, Jane1, one of the participants explained:

I do firmly believe that in sharing our lives with others we are better able to understand and

appreciate our own. Thus my vision for an ideal world would be one that is much more

grounded in local and global compassion.

Ron, another participant articulated a similar idea of peace – ‘to treat an individual or groups

with equality and justice.’ Notably, participants asserted that values of equality and justice

are not limited to individuals but also apply to communities, national, and global entities.

Eric’s definition illustrates this idea:

Everyday peace would mean gender equity, decreasing gaps between rich and poor, building

understanding and tolerance between nations and individuals of different faiths, ethnicities,

etc. The concept of empathy would permeate throughout the world.

1
Pseudonyms have been used for all participants.
 14

Eric’s quote demonstrates an ecological sensibility that situates the individual as part of the

larger social; a common thread that emerged across a number of participants’ definitions.

Adebo, another participant elaborated:

In an ideal world, everyone can find something in everyone else to relate to and appreciate. If

for some reason they cannot, they still respect them on the basis of a common bond of

humanity. For this mutual acceptance and understanding to translate into society, governing

bodies have to reflect the same mutual understanding and enforce it through legislation and

policy.

Participants’ reflections thus demonstrate an appreciation of the importance of individual

values as well as the ways in which these values might potentially inform social structural

arrangements (Fountain 1999). Explication of necessary values such as equality, acceptance,

diversity, and equitable distribution of resources suggest that participants’ conception of

everyday peace contained an essence of just peace (Galtung 1996; Lederach 2005). Peace

education entails a specific value-oriented education aimed at bringing about a more

desirable world, something that is reflected in participants’ conceptualizations of everyday

peace (Hirao 2001).

Individual and systemic components of everyday peace

In defining everyday peace, student participants not only described what it entailed, but also

discussed approaches or methods through which everyday peace might be achieved. They

developed a multi-layered conceptualization of everyday peace that contained both individual

level and systemic components (See Table 3). This is exemplified by Gina’s perspective:

Peace is a process that starts within your heart and soul then it radiates out in action and

cultivates your community, and surroundings.

At the individual level, student participants discussed the role of critical self-awareness in the

development of everyday peace, namely, being aware of and confronting one’s biases and

prejudices. This is illustrated by Sherry’s quote:

 15

We all have biases. It is quite natural—baggage that we cannot simply toss away. However, if

used wisely, our different backgrounds, cultures, can aid us in understanding other people’s

points of view.

Insert Table 3 about here

In addition to individual responsibility, participants discussed other prerequisites such as

individual sense of empowerment and agency. Eliza explained:

It is important for every person to be a master of his or her own destiny. If you allow a person

to be a driver of his own life, he or she feels empowered, but if you always control his or her

actions and judgments is what can cause the person to be upset in most cases.

The individual level actions were expanded to the relational or interpersonal levels. Parveen,

another participant explained that ‘As a community, it is very important for every individual

to have inner peace, because if we are at peace within ourselves then we can be kind to

others.’ Yet other participants emphasized the role of tolerance, understanding between

individuals, and appreciation of multiple perspectives as integral to an everyday peace.

Sherry described everyday peace as something where ‘everyone can find something in

everyone else to relate to and appreciate, and if for some reason they cannot, they still respect

them on the basis of a common bond of humanity.’

Participants expanded upon the individual and relational levels to underscore the

systemic conditions necessary for everyday peace. They discussed the importance of

attending to human rights and the fulfilment of various needs such as education, health,

human services, safety, and environmental justice. The quotes below illustrate how

participants talked about the systemic bases of peace:

Freedom means that no one would have to fear for their safety or fear about speaking out.

War would fade out as a universal tactic in place of peaceful measures that promote economic

and social wellbeing for all. (Eliza)

There needs to be an equal distribution of basic social services, for example: education, health
 16

care, cleans water, healthy environment, and decent shelter. To feel at peace you also have to

have a voice, freedom of speech, you have to be able to be heard and voice your opinion in

society without being silenced. (Eric)

Yet another participant, Adebo explained that ‘decreasing gaps between rich and poor,

gender equity, understanding and tolerance between nations and individuals of different

faiths, ethnicities’ are necessary to promote everyday peace. These reflections point towards

a growing appreciation of how social injustice is connected to violence and conflict. Jane

directly referred to the notion of justice as she talked about everyday peace:

Justice would mean that people would not be discriminated against for gender, race, ethnicity,

national origin, ability/disability, political beliefs, religion, or any other category.

This awareness–that promotion of social justice is inextricably linked to peace–is a critical

element of teaching peace (Shapiro 2002). These findings underscore two important points.

First, the participants adopt process-based definitions of peace (Hicks 1988; Johnson and

Johnson 2005). They recognize that everyday peace is an ongoing process rather than a

discrete event or outcome. Second, the findings indicate that students draw connections

between peace and human rights (Reardon 2002; Ife 2007, 2009). Specifically, by moving

beyond legal definitions of human rights, their reflections demonstrate a growing

appreciation of ‘human rights from below’ (Ife 2009). They view human rights as embedded

in the community and the state (e.g., safety and structural equity) and in individuals’

everyday actions (e.g., how to treat others). This is captured in the following excerpt from

Adebo’s reflections on everyday peace: ‘…sense of belongingness, equality and respect,

mutual understanding of rights and obligations are all necessary conditions of peace.’

Notably, participants’ responses demonstrate a marked departure from peacebuilding as

limited to peace treaties or peace negotiations; rather the focus is on the process by which

everyone might be involved in peacebuilding on an everyday basis.

Application of everyday peace principles

 17

In the course of the semester, a sudden, tragic incident in the larger community compelled

participants to think about peace in their immediate context. The Boston Marathon bombing

took place during the latter part of the semester when the everyday peace course was being

taught. The Boston marathon is held on Patriot’s Day, a public holiday in the Commonwealth

of Massachusetts (USA) to commemorate the American Revolutionary War Battles of

Lexington and Concord. During the 2013 marathon, a pair of homemade bombs detonated a

short distance from the finish line of the marathon. Three people lost their lives while more

than 200 people were injured. The class met as scheduled on the day after the bombings

while everyone was still reeling from the incident. The group was sombre as students tried to

process what had taken place in the larger community. There was shared acknowledgment

that these circumstances had compelled everyone to reflect on the serious implications of

everyday peace. Remarkably, student participants positioned themselves as actors in the

community. They mobilized around their shared concerns by organizing an open peace

forum. This was an effort to create a space for campus and community members to process

their reactions and reflect on collective action. The student participants discussed their

responses to the event and shared those through the discussion board on the course wiki.

Through thematic analysis of the discussions, we identified three core themes that

characterized the way in which they applied the principles of everyday peace: (1) compassion

in the aftermath of a community tragedy, (2) making local-global connections, and (2) culture

of peace as an integral component of everyday peace.

Compassion in the aftermath of tragedy

The student participants’ reflections following the marathon bombing converged on a broad

theme of compassion. This is illustrated by Jane’s urgent appeal:

As we heal, it is also time we ask ourselves how often we treat one another with genuine and

sincere compassion. Do we care about our neighbours? Do we even know who our next-door
 18

neighbour is? Do we care? While we grieve and heal, we have to make room for forgiveness

and not create more potential victimizers.

A common observation that cut across several participants’ responses was the collective

compassion in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Maura described how she noticed ‘a

lot of people banding together, recognizing that pain is universal and indiscriminate.’

Participants also discussed what a compassionate response might entail. The following quote

excerpted from Adebo’s reflections illustrated this line of discussion:

I think it’s important to create space to listen to the stories of those affected on a range of

different levels. This will help create an understanding of where people may be emotionally

and help us be sensitive, of course only if they want to share. This does bring up questions

about how to support and respect those who have been affected and how we might take action

around this.

Eric, another participant added:

You need to be incredibly gentle and patient because you’re dealing with a potentially very

angry and confused population, and saying you have the answers for them may not be well

received or even accurate.

Even as student participants reflect on the necessity for compassion, they underscored the

importance of restraint. They demonstrated some fledgling awareness of the pitfalls of

jumping to solutions, recognizing that the quest for empathic relationships should not be

confused with believing that one knows everything there is to know about another. In

addition, participants also discussed the elements of a compassionate response such as

empathy, sensitivity, and care for the dignity of others. This conceptualization of compassion

is similar to the capacity for compassionate attentiveness proposed by Shapiro (2002) as a

principle of peace pedagogy.

Making local-global connections

 19

While participants talked about the shared grief that wracked the community, they placed the

event in Boston in a larger global context (Toh 2002). They acknowledged the imperative of

being aware of violence in other parts of the world. Gina, a participant described the empathy

she gained from this experience:

I now have a deeper understanding of how affected a person can be when the security they

believed was there is breached; it isn't something I can ignore as much as I might events like

this in other countries, because I could have easily been there.

Participants discussed the importance of employing diverse lenses and perspectives to

understand what happened. This is especially evidenced by Sherry’s reflections:

How we view this event through different lenses might be an interesting conversation. This

could lead to issues of what safety and terrorism mean and how we look at these phenomena

on larger national and global scales. How also do we respond in a bigger community sense

and even think about prevention?

In particular, student participants reflected on the complicity of the United States in violence

in other countries. For instance, Eric pointed out:

We (Americans) are responsible for terrorizing many regions in this world. I am sorry for

what has happened here. But it is only when it happens in our own backyards, our own

neighbourhoods that we see it as something evil, as terrorism. Do we ever think that invading

a country, overthrowing its government, and killing thousands in the process may also be

considered terrorism?

Another participant, Ron, expressed similar sentiments as he interrogated his sociopolitical

role as an American citizen:

While it was painful to have had a family member have a near death experience, events like

this are daily occurrence in some parts of the world. This gives us the opportunity to reflect

on a global scale in feeling the pain of others. Why have we come to accept that it is all right

for others to live like that? How can we seek peace for ourselves and yet deny peace to

others?
 20

Connecting the dots between local and global instances of violence generated critical

questions, which helped students develop a more nuanced understanding of violence and

peacebuilding. For instance, Jane reflected on what she learned about violence and

peacebuilding:

I now understand much better why this isn’t something that can easily be fixed with

diplomacy, therapy, or youth programming alone. The confusion and fear isn’t something that

can be easily defined or strategically resolved.

The excerpts here demonstrate that participants expanded out of the context of their

immediate experiences, using those as a vehicle to comprehend normalized violence around

the world (Das, 2001; Scheper-Hughes 1997, 1998). These reflections underscore an

informed empathy on their part as they critically engage other contexts of conflict. Thus the

multi-layered conceptualizations of everyday peace that students constructed earlier in the

semester informed their deliberations following the Boston marathon bombings.

Culture of peace as an integral component of everyday peace

In addition to discussing the importance of fostering tolerance, compassion, and empathy at

individual levels, participants emphasized the critical role of macro-level change –

ideological, cultural, and institutional – in the promotion of everyday peace. They began by

interrogating the predominance of violence in our world. In particular, participants discussed

the need to address the culture of violence perpetuated by the media in the wake of tragedies

such as the Boston marathon bombings (Allen and Seaton 1999; Trend 2007). This sentiment

was especially pronounced in Parveen’s reaction as she critiqued the ‘xenophobia’ in media

commentaries: ‘I knew the media would once again perpetuate stereotypes and use the

perpetrators’ so-called Islamic backgrounds to put up the label of Islamic terrorism.’ Sherry

problematized the culture of aggression and violence normalized by the media:

 21

Aggression is continually demonstrated in all forms of media- in books, television, cinema,

video, computer games and so on. These media serve as agents of socialization. Often, they

are the avenues through which forms of violence are learnt and normalized.

The act of violence in the larger community urged the participants to examine importance of

peace in our day-to-day lives. Cognizant of the spectrum of normalized violence across the

world, they began to reflect on what it might mean to institutionalize peace rather than

violence in the contemporary world. There was general consensus on the critical need for a

radical shift in cultures of violence, that is, configurations of assumptions, values, practices,

and ways of knowing that contribute to violence in society. Participants emphasized the shift

from a culture that normalizes and sensationalizes violence to one that resists such

normalization. For instance, Gina talked about cultures of peace where ‘the concept of

empathy would be permeated throughout the world, and small misunderstandings would be

resolved without escalating and resorting to violence.’ Along similar lines, Ron was emphatic

that ‘in sharing our lives with others we are more able to understand and appreciate our own,’

leading him to envision ‘an ideal world would be one much more grounded in local and

global compassion.’ Maura revised her definition of everyday peace as she tried to

incorporate the importance a cultural transformation:

For me, everyday peace means a world without violence, of any kind. It would be a world that

would not require me to stand in front of a camera to be buzzed into my son’s school. It

would be a world that would never normalize acts of terrorism or violence of any kind,

anywhere and to anybody, ever. It would mean the entire world, not just the United States and

all citizens, healthy or disabled, young or old, being able to live peacefully and having their

human rights being honoured.

Maura clearly makes a connection between everyday peace and human rights, something that

that is found interspersed throughout the data. The participants interrogate values,

behaviours, ways of being, and institutional arrangements necessary to build cultures of

 22

peace, which is a critical component of peace education (Danesh 2006; Staub 2002). They

conceive cultural arrangements that would resolve conflicts with non-violent means (Mac-

Gregor, 1986), imagine the construction of a contemporary culture that would oppose the

culture of violence and war (Adams and True, 1997), and envision a peaceable diversity

(Boulding 2000).

Collaborative approaches to everyday peace

Collaborative and constructivist approaches are integral to the concept of everyday peace. If

fostering collaboration is a valued goal of peace education, the mechanisms through which

students learn about peacebuilding should also be collaborative (Jenkins and Jenkins 2010;

Reardon 1994; Synott 2005). A cooperative learning approach was used to promote

collaboration in the peace labs (Johnson and Johnson 1988). For example, the definitional

exercises required each of the student participants to bring their own understandings of issues

to the group (individual accountability). They then had to work collectively to develop a

working definition of everyday peace (positive goal interdependence). The success of these

activities crucially relies on participants’ ability to attend to the diverse ideologies, concerns,

and aspirations of those involved. At the end of the course, we discussed the implications of

the collaborative approach for an everyday peace project. Thematic analysis of participants’

reflections helped us uncover two key themes with respect to participants’ experience and

evaluation of collaborative engagement.

Synergistic quality of collaboration

This theme emerged as a powerful one among participants’ reflections. We noted a distinct

pattern where participants reported uncertainty at the beginning of collaborative exercises,

which through their continued cooperative interactions resulted in a product/outcome that

exceeded their expectations. In the beginning, participants reported having to contend with

unknowns such as incorporation of diverse perspectives, limited time, and inability to

 23

envisage what the final product might look like. The following excerpts highlight the initial

uncertainty experienced by students:

When we first started out the process, I was a little unsure how the end result was going to

emerge, after all, different terminology was used, different viewpoints. But I was amazed how

it all came together in the end. (Adebo)

At the beginning we had no ideas where to begin with bat with time we came up with good

points…in the end I felt good because with collective efforts we are able to produce a well

thought out definition. (Sherry)

Participants were excited about the products they were able to achieve through collaboration.

This was especially pronounced given their initial uncertainty over the ambiguous tasks. Ron

explained how the project picked gained momentum:

Once the themes start emerging and the relevant information is chosen, the process almost

takes on a life of itself. The momentum picks up quickly. The end result or the end product is

always richer and more inclusive than the solo attempt.

Jane drew attention to the process itself as she explained:

In working through other people’s definitions first, and then trying to piece together how

those not only fit into our own perspectives, but also those of the rest of the group’s, the

definition of everyday violence we came up with became one that meant a lot more than if we

had worked on them by ourselves.

Both of these excerpts point to the synergistic quality of effective collaboration where the

value of the final product exceeds the sum of its parts. In addition to reflecting on the

inherent value of collaborative processes, participants advanced their discussions to consider

the implications of such processes for other contexts, especially how they might apply the

principles in the contexts of their work. This is elucidated by the following quotes excerpted

from two participants’ reflections:

It made me think about how the more people an idea resonates with, the stronger it becomes.

This idea can then translate to how people collect power. If there were more peace labs like
 24

this, or bigger peace labs like this, a group would feel a lot more powerful in sharing

meaning. (Gina)

What was interesting in the process of discussing the definition of everyday violence was that

it often took someone else to word a phrase or idea in a different way before its relevance

could really sink in. This follows the idea that not one perspective fits all. This can translate

to how not one religion fits all, and not one culture fits all. (Eliza)

As participants discussed the value of collaborative approaches in everyday peace, they

emphasized the diverse viewpoints that people often bring to the table and the value in

incorporating them. These insights on diversity are critical elements in peace education

(Boulding 2002; Shapiro 2002).

Importance of critical engagement and process skills

In addition to noting the value of collaborative endeavours for everyday peace, participants

analysed the collaborative process to discuss specific skills and processes that contributed to

effective collaboration. They listed the following: active listening, engaging in dialogue,

considering multiple perspectives, creating space for the expression of diverse ideas, and

confronting taken-for-granted assumptions. Some participants presented these as factors that

contributed to effective collaboration while others characterized those as skills that they had

acquired and honed in the course of peace labs. Notably, much of this understanding was

derived experientially as part of the collaborative exercises. For example, Sherry pointe out:

‘The dialogue opened new ideas to me. It made me aware of things that I do not think of.’

Gina further elaborates:

They (collaborative exercises) challenged me mentally and emotionally. I was able to think

about violence in different contexts. I was able also to hear the viewpoints from my group

members that I was not aware of earlier. This enlightened me and added to what my thoughts

on everyday violence and peace are. The process definitely challenged my way of thinking

and how I define certain words.

 25

In addition to process skills, participants enumerated a number of critical engagement

techniques that they found helpful in collaborative endeavours such as critical thinking,

creative problem solving, brainstorming, and systematically abstracting meaning from

diverse viewpoints and responses. For example, Eric shared:

It (collaborative process) was an important opportunity to shape my thinking and abstract

knowledge from others’ responses from others. It also improved upon my listening skills.

While most participants discussed the challenges and subsequent success of the collaborative

exercises, one participant, Ron also critically reflected on the reasons for the success of the

exercises in the class context.

Even though there was some complexity involved, I did not find this to be an overly

challenging task, because all our group members were mostly in agreement. They understood

the subject matter well and were engaged in the task. Since we were all cooperating, listening,

and sharing our ideas openly, the process was made easier. It also helped that we all care

about the topic.

This excerpt underscores certain baseline conditions or prerequisites for participatory and

collaborative approaches to critical peace education. These conditions include: a shared

interest or perceived stake in the issue, some baseline or foundational knowledge about

everyday violence and peacebuilding, and a space that engenders cooperation, listening, and

sharing (Bajaj and Brantmeier 2011). Overall, the participants’ comments and reflections

suggest that the collaborative exercises encouraged consideration of new perspectives. They

also viewed these methods or skills as something that might be generalized and employed in

contexts beyond the classroom.

Discussion

Successes and lessons learned

Overall, our findings demonstrate the potential of the everyday peace framework as a vehicle

for peace education. Participants’ conceptualisations of everyday peace and their reflections
 26

on it are indicative of an appreciation of many of the core principles of peace education. For

instance, participants recognised the central role of empathy, cultural diversity, human

solidarity, and sociopolitical equality in peacebuilding (Bajaj and Brantmeier 2011; Galtung

1996; Reardon 2002; Shapiro 2002). Their articulation of a value-based praxis is also

consistent with contemporary perspectives on peace education (e.g., Brantmeier 2013;

Danesh 2006; Hirao 1987). They expanded out of the context of their immediate experiences,

using those as a means to comprehend normalized violence around the world (Burdell and

Swadener 1999; Das 2001). These connections, although present in their definitions of

everyday peace, became more pronounced when they were compelled to contend with

violence in the larger community. In consonance with increasing recognition of the systemic

bases of violence, participants began to consider the meaning of peacebuilding outside the

bounds of declared war. Importantly, they tried to decentre North American and Eurocentric

lenses to critically reflect on violence around the globe. Such dialogic processes of raising

consciousness about various forms of violence are integral to critical peace education and

positive peace advocacy (Brantmeier 2011; Galtung 1990). The participatory concept of

everyday peace is thus an innovative way of orienting students to principles of peace

education and peacebuilding. Taking a contextualized approach to peace education, this

approach offers a powerful alternative to more conventional pedagogical approaches.

A principal thread that cut across all our findings was the significance of a culture of

peace as an ideal to strive towards. Building cultures of peace or peace-oriented milieu is

considered an important component of peace education (Danesh 2006; de Rivera 2010; Staub

2002). The UN Resolution A/RES/53/243 (United Nations 1998b) identified eight different

bases for a culture of peace – education, sustainable development, human rights, gender

equality, democratic participation, understanding, tolerance, and solidarity, participatory

communication and the free flow of information, international peace and security. Our
 27

findings suggest that student participants had begun to incorporate several of these principles

(e.g., human rights, democratic participation, solidarity) in their articulation of everyday

peace. UNESCOs Mainstreaming a Culture of Peace document lays out the manifold ways in

which the culture of peace was applied as s strategic concept to build positive peace

(UNESCO 2002, 5). However, it was not until relatively recently that it received systematic

consideration in the social sciences (see de Rivera 2004 for a critique). The everyday peace

approach represents one way in which students might actively engage the concept of culture

of peace whether it is an examination of its conceptual utility or exploration of the theoretical

underpinnings and practical implications of the concept.

Our findings also underscore elements of transformative action. Student participants

reflected on how an everyday peace approach might be deployed to effect social change

along with the roles they might play in that process. Once individuals place themselves–their

actions and experiences–in a larger sociopolitical context, they are able to draw meaningful

connections between their everyday actions and global contexts (Cahill 2004; Harris 1997;

Harris and Morrison 2012). The everyday peace approach therefore also has the potential to

educate about and inspire engaged action – individual action combined with collective action

(e.g., community mobilization, political action, policy change) – to further social justice

(Brantmeier 2013). In addition to deeply engaging with current issues, student participants

reflected on the value of everyday peace approaches in their future professional contexts. For

example, Jane explained: ‘When I am in positions of leadership in the future, I feel this

would be a valuable process or activity to use.’ Yet another participant, Sherry, talked about

democratizing the peace labs: ‘This collaborative process of defining everyday violence is

something that should be shared just so people can have a general knowledge of it.’

The encouraging findings have a number of implications for using an everyday peace

framework to promote peace education in institutional contexts. First, the framework of

 28

everyday peace serves as vehicle for students to actively participate and acquire a stake in

peace education and peace promotion. The notion of everyday peace challenges top-down

perspectives of peace and compels students to conceptualize an ‘everyday’ peace that is

meaningful and relevant to their lives. Such peace education curricula are likely to be more

sustainable given students’ stake and active participation in its design and implementation

(Jenkins and Jenkins 2010).

Second, the everyday peace framework engenders collaboration and cooperation,

which are vital components of peace education (Johnson and Johnson 2005; Reardon 1994;

Synott 2005). Our findings suggest that student participants acquired a critical understanding

of the synergistic qualities of effective collaboration through the peace labs. Public

universities, such as the study setting, are pedagogical settings where students, especially

those preparing to be peace advocates, learn to interact constructively – an important step in

social change and peacebuilding (Christopher and Taylor 2011; Lederach 2005).

Third, the everyday peace framework may be used to help students develop a more

nuanced understanding of conflict. This includes critical awareness of structural and systemic

factors underlying conflict as well as diverse forms of violence across the globe (Bekerman

and Zembylas 2014; Cuomo 1996). As suggested by our study, strengthening the macro-

micro linkages vis-à-vis conflict and peacebuilding can also help students recognize their

individual agency while being cognizant of the role of macro-level social change in

peacebuilding. This is consistent with the widely accepted understanding that peace

education is most successful and lasting when it leads to peaceful behaviour at both

individual and societal levels. (Brantmeier 2011; Danesh 2008; Harris 2004; Salomon 2006).

Fourth, the everyday peace framework may be employed as a vehicle for critical

engagement with the concept of cultures of peace, a core element of peace education (de

Rivera 2004, 2010). The notion of building cultures of peace can be rather abstract so the
 29

contextualized, collaborative, and participatory elements of the everyday peace approach can

serve as a springboard for students to concretize and envision the concept. Thus in line with

critical peace education, the everyday peace framework could also be used to introduce and

diverse perspectives on how to build cultures of peace.

Finally, a critical analysis of one’s social position vis-à-vis systems of relative

privilege and oppression is integral to peace education. This entails acknowledging the

inevitable privileges we experience alongside marginalization and taking responsibility for

our lenses (Boylorn and Orbe 2013). Some nascent insight was present in participants’

responses as they processed their reactions to the Boston marathon bombings. Instead of

assuming a victim identity, they contextualized their experiences vis-à-vis similar events

across the globe. Thus the everyday peace framework may be used to develop reflexive

exercises to help students interrogate culturally specific and ethnocentric interests that

catalyse negative intergroup relations (Bar-Tal 2004).

Limitations and future directions

A major limitation is that the implications of this study are limited to how everyday people

practice everyday peace. The current study does not lend itself to investigations of how

people living in contexts of direct violence such as war, insurgencies, and military action

might engage or practice everyday peace. Several methodological limitations should also be

noted. First, we had a small sample size (n=9) given that our participants were students

enrolled in the Everyday Peace course. This is a seminar course with a maximum class size of

14. The size and representativeness of the sample impede the generalization from sample to

population. However the small size does not preclude analytic generalization, that is, relating

a specific set of results to a broad theory to provide support for the theory (Firestone 1993;

Yin 1989). Second, the participants in the study were limited to students enrolled in the

everyday peace course. This was in part a strategic choice given the fit of the topic with the
 30

program and the relevance of the topic for students who are interested in and/or plan to

engage in peace advocacy. Finally, our analysis focused on thematic analysis at the semantic

level and included only materials that emerged in the context of the peace labs in the

everyday peace course. We had planned on conducting follow-up interviews to augment the

findings from the peace labs. Although all the participants had consented to being contacted

for the interviews, only 5 out of the 9 participants were available for the interviews during the

summer. In order to maintain consistency, we did not include the interview data for the

analysis in this paper.

The implications of the everyday peace framework and the study reported here should

be understood in the context of a peace education curriculum in traditional institutional

contexts. Although the instrumentality of the everyday peace framework is difficult to

ascertain from this study alone, our findings do underscore the value of a contextualized,

collaborative, and participatory approach to peace education (Bjerstedt 2002). Peace

education is a multifaceted enterprise and may include components that vary from training in

conflict resolution to the ability to be compassionate, depending on the specific context

within which peace is conceptualized (Groff 2002; Harris 2003). Notwithstanding the

limitations, our findings illuminate the potential of an everyday peace framework to mobilize

peace consciousness among students and to forge a consensus against various forms of direct,

structural, and cultural violence. While these conditions are not sufficient to establish peace,

they are considered necessary for creating a peaceful world (Harris 2003). Therefore it is

important for future studies to explore how the concept of everyday peace might be used

within larger peace studies curricula. A longer-term study and one that incudes more

participants would help us identify gaps in the framework along with challenges in its

implementation. Such a study would also allow for more extensive evaluations of the

delivery of peace education, which could inform future curricular revisions. The inclusion of
 31

community service learning components in future courses could provide a specific way to

evaluate the extent to which students are able to apply everyday peace principles to local

contexts. Finally, future studies or classroom applications of the everyday peace framework

could include an examination of how students engage with the ramifications of everyday

peace vis-à-vis their own experiences of structural or direct violence.

In addition to revising the everyday peace project in the classroom context, we hope

to expand the project site to the local multiethnic communities. Multiethnic communities

embody both the transformative potential of such cultural diversity and the challenges

wrought by it. In the future, we would like to explore how the collaborative, context-driven

envisioning of everyday peace described in the study might be employed to build a

democratic platform for members from different ethnic communities to locally deliberate on

the notion of everyday peace. This would be a step in the direction of situating peace as part

of a social justice agenda and works towards its actualization in multicultural, multiracial,

and pluralistic democratic societies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our study demonstrated the pedagogical potential of an everyday peace

framework. In examining how students define everyday peace and apply the concept to their

immediate environments, we found that the student participants began to challenge normative

assumptions about violence, nation state, and peace. Remarkably, student participants began

to anticipate ways in which the lessons learned in the classroom might be generalized to their

future professional and community settings. They demonstrated an emerging understanding

of the ways in which macro-level policies translate into micro-level practices and

experiences. Peace then is no longer a lofty end goal to be strived for elsewhere in the world;

rather it is viewed as an ongoing process embedded in everyday practices. Our study thus
 32

points to the potential of an everyday peace framework to inform the ways in which students

come to interpret their world in more informed, critical, and empathic ways.

Although this study is exploratory and involves a small number of participants, it

opens up the space for an ecologically informed notion of peace that focuses on the interplay

between the local and global. The everyday peace framework may be used at various stages

of peace education curricula, whether to introduce and orient students to core principles of

peace education or to apply the principles to proximal and distal contexts. To that end, we

hope that this work will generate greater interest in and support for the study of more

contextualized and collaborative approaches to peace education. In future work, we hope to

expand the everyday peace approach to curricula in related fields such as community

psychology, education, and social work, while also exploring it as a vehicle for community

and civic engagement.

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Table 1. Summary of Peace Labs

Peace Lab 1 Using a participatory action research framework, this lab was designed for
From everyday students to engage in collaborative definitional exercises. Each student wrote
violence to up what they meant by ‘everyday violence’ and ‘everyday peace.’ The
everyday peace responses were anonymized and randomly distributed amongst themselves.
The class was then divided into two groups. Each group worked with their
assigned responses as ‘data’ to cull out important themes. They then worked
with those themes to build a new definition that incorporates key themes along
with any new ideas they desired to add. In the last segment of the lab, they
discussed the connections between the collaborative definition and their
personal understanding of everyday peace.

Peace Lab 2 During this lab, we invited a faculty member from media and communications
Cross-cultural who specializes in cross-cultural communications. We discussed the role of
communications creative communication that transcends language barriers. Using the tools he
in everyday shared, smaller groups formed during the first peace lab worked on a non-
peace verbal, cross-cultural communication project idea to convey their notion of
everyday peace.

Peace Lab 3 This peace lab was an opportunity for students to think about everyday peace
Rethinking in the context of the local community. We had stakeholders from a local
everyday peace neighbourhood collective come in to talk about a pressing issue – routinized
in the context of violence in their neighbourhood. The collective had been struggling to address
local community the problem. The students served as a resource as they applied their growing
violence understanding of everyday violence, everyday peace, and community
participation to this issue. As a group, they raised critical questions and came
up with a number of recommendations for the neighbour collective to consider
in terms of how to address the ongoing conflict.

Peace Lab 4 The content of this peace lab was altered from its original plan to
An Open Peace accommodate student interest in organizing an open peace forum in response
Forum in to a violent event in the larger community. The goal of this forum was to
response to a provide a safe space to process our reactions and to collectively reflect on our
violent event in role as peace advocates in society. Students organized the event, facilitated it,
the local and discussed the implications for future peacebuilding.
community
Table 2. Description of key themes

Research Domains Themes

Conceptualization Value-based praxis
of everyday peace A particular value orientation (e.g., social justice, equality, acceptance, diversity,
empathy, compassion, and respect) is critical to striving towards everyday peace.
These values apply to individuals as well as communities, national, and global
entities.

Individual and systemic components of everyday peace

Everyday peace is an ongoing process, rather than an outcome, which necessitates
a multi-layered conceptualization that includes individual level, relational, and
systemic components. It is inextricably tied to social justice.

Application of Compassion in the aftermath of a tragedy

everyday peace Responding to violence from the vantage point of everyday peace requires
principles compassion. Elements of a compassionate response include empathy, sensitivity,
and care for the dignity of others.

Making local-global connections

Connecting the dots between local and global instances of violence helps us
develop a more nuanced understanding of violence in different parts of the world.
Adopting non-Eurocentric lenses provides an opportunity to acquire a critical,
empathic engagement with violence and peacebuilding.

Culture of peace as an integral component of everyday peace

Macro-level change (ideological, cultural, and institutional) is necessary to
promote everyday peace. There is a need for a radical shift from a culture that
normalizes and sensationalizes violence to one that privileges values, practices,
and ways of knowing that contribute to peace.

Collaborative Synergistic quality of collaboration

approaches to Collaborative endeavors begin with some initial uncertainty over the manner in
everyday peace which the process will unfold. Members bring diverse viewpoints, experiences, and
skills, which have to be incorporated. Once the process gains momentum, the
collaborative task takes a life of its own and the end result is far superior to
individual efforts.

Importance of critical engagement and process skills

Effective collaboration requires some baseline skills such as active listening,
engaging in dialogue, creating space for the expression of diverse ideas, and
confronting taken-for-granted assumptions. Participating in the collaborative
peace labs also helps to hone these critical engagement skills.
 Table 3. Multi-layered conceptualizations of everyday peace
Level Methods/approaches
Individual • Critical awareness and
confrontation of one’s biases
and prejudices
• Individual responsibility
• Cultivation of empathy
• Sense of empowerment
• Sense of agency
Relational • Tolerance and understanding
between individuals
• Appreciation of multiple
perspectives
• Collaboration
Systemic • Addressing structural inequities ethnicity, national origin,
• Enhanced understanding and
cooperation across nations
• Safety and protection for all
constituencies
• Access to human services
• Transparent and accountable
governments
• Satisfaction of basic needs
• Safeguard of human rights
• Environmental protection
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Illustrative quotes
‘Freedom means that no one would have
to fear for their safety or fear about
speaking out. War would fade out as a
universal tactic in place of peaceful
measures that promote economic and
social wellbeing for all.’
‘…decreasing gaps between rich and
poor, gender equity, understanding and
tolerance between nations and individuals
of different faiths, ethnicities.’
‘Justice would mean that people would not
be discriminated against for gender, race,
ability/disability, political beliefs, religion,
or any other category.’
‘…sense of belongingness, equality and
respect, mutual understanding of rights
and obligations are all necessary
conditions of peace.’
‘As a community, it is very important for
every individual to have inner peace,
because if we are at peace within
ourselves then we can be kind to others.’
‘It is important for every person to be a
master of his or her own destiny. If you
allow a person to be a driver of his own
life, he or she feels empowered, but if you
always control his or her actions and
judgments is what can cause the person to
be upset in most cases.’