IIPE 2007 - Thematic Background
Identity, Interdependence & Nonviolent
Transformations
Practical Priorities of Education in Transitions to Peace
 Espanol / Basque /
English
**THE APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR IIPE 2007 HAS PASSED. We
encourage you to join us in New York in August to celebrate the 25th Anniversary
of the IIPE with a special event taking place at the United Nations. Click
here for more information.
The International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE)
2007 will be hosted by Baketik, the Peace Centre in Arantzazu in the in the
Basque Country (Spanish Estate) from July 14-22, 2007. The event is being
co-organized by Baketik and the Peace Education Center at Teachers College,
Columbia University. IIPE 2007 will explore the theme of “Identity,
Interdependence and Nonviolent Transformations - Practical Priorities of
Education in Transitions to Peace,” an appropriate theme for a
region that has suffered forty years of continuous violent conflict.
In March 2006, the armed group ETA issued a declaration of a permanent ceasefire.
In light of this historic event, IIPE 2007 will focus on the challenges and
possibilities for this and other nonviolent transformations to take place,
especially as they relate to identity and interdependence. The IIPE program
will inquire into what attitudes, values, processes and practices; what types
of resistances and constructive activities; and what educational practices
facilitate and sustain nonviolent transformations. The ETA declaration of
a permanent ceasefire provides a very hopeful and special moment for the
learning to be conducted at this year’s IIPE that is especially amenable
to participants from the host region and readily adaptable to other’s
contexts from around the world. Those accepted to attend will participate
in a residential learning experience where reflection and exchange will take
place on these and other issues on the peace culture agenda in Europe, the
Mediterranean region, and in many other parts of the world.
In our rapidly changing and interdependent world, what and how can peace
education contribute to nonviolent transformations? In exploring this question
special attention will be given to the concepts of identity and interdependence
from historical, present and future perspectives. Understanding these concepts
and illuminating their interrelatedness will be central to the IIPE inquiry.
The sharing of experiences and offering of practical models will be fostered
so that each participant may find new strategies and perspectives to bring
back to their working communities.
Identity
In the Basque Country of Northern Spain questions of identity and
multiple identities are at the heart of the ongoing conflict. These questions
include: How do we preserve different cultural identities in this world of
macro structures? How do we prevent national narratives that create exclusion?
How do we overcome idealizations of fighting? How do we combine cultural
identities with multicultural societies with transnational dynamics? How
do we understand all of these questions within a perspective of global citizenship
and human security? The construction of national narratives that bring factions
together in constructive partnerships is also important.
Interdependence
Europe has a long history of conflicts that have evoked multiple
responses, reflections, and initiatives. The perspectives emerging from these
responses to conflict have lead to multiple questions about and for educating
for a culture of peace. How will this history be transmitted? How can educators
address the suffering of victims, prisoners, and families in armed conflicts?
How can memory contribute to reconciliation? How can these concerns be brought
into the construction and reframing of national narratives? How can peace
be nurtured at the individual, local, national, regional, and global levels?
How can cross-regional collaborations be fostered?
Education for Nonviolent Transformations
IIPE provides an interactive, experiential space to explore innovative
ways of educating for peace that is rooted in learning from and with each
other in community. In this forum we will have the unique opportunity to
explore and model ways in which peace education can work in multicultural
settings and we will also exchange pedagogical approaches, successful examples
and existing traditions from our various contexts, cultures and practices.
Education for Nonviolent Transformations refers to the challenge of educating
for transforming and resisting injustice, poverty, oppression, environmental
destruction, manipulation, moral degradation, corruption, and abusive uses
of power amongst others. There is a need to consider multiple possibilities
for both transformation and appropriate forms of resistance. The IIPE will
also explore the notion of "transformative resistance" in which
we will examine how forms of resistance can be simultaneously preventive
and consciousness raising as well as transformative learning processes. In
exploring this sub-theme we ask: What links can be provided for reciprocal
learning in formal and informal educational settings with nonviolent transformative
action learning and with education for reconciliation? What new pedagogies
need to be created to address these urgent concerns? What are the roles of
the media, social movements, public administrators, civic organizations,
artists, scientists, intellectuals, and economic agents? Where does one locate
oneself as an educator within these multiple roles and identities?
Practical Priorities of Education in Transitions
to Peace
This special sub-theme of the IIPE inquires into how we can
actualize, adapt and design peace education to particular moments of
transition towards peace that are being experienced in the world, with
special consideration given to the Basque Country (Spanish Estate) and
participants’ local communities. As a comprehensive, holistic and
integrative field, Peace Education has broad transformational goals.
Goals such as the transformation of the “war system” are
integral considerations to most peace education practice and content,
yet such goals overwhelm many practitioners with so much data that it
can be challenging to translate these goals to present and local contexts
where peace education initiatives are taking place. In exploring this
sub-theme the IIPE community will consider how we can translate these
goals to the moment and context in which peace education is being practiced.
How do we start or develop a practical project on peace education in
our own communities? How do we determine and assess the needs of our
communities in determining the goals of our initiatives? How do we keep
the broader goals in mind while designing educational initiatives that
meet local needs?
Download the background paper in pdf form:
IIPE
2007 Theme
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