Peace Education for Sustainable Systemic Change
In this blog, Visualising Peace student Lia da Giau reflects on some of the research which she has recently added to our Visualising Peace Library.
Peace Education for Sustainable Systemic Change
Lia da Giau, November 2023
I was part of the first cohort of students joining the Visualising Peace project in 2022, my second year of university. I am now in my final year, and I returned to the team rich of new perspectives from my sustainable development honours studies. Alongside that, I expanded my practical knowledge in the field of peace studies in the past year. In July-August 2023, I took part in a community mobilisation project on the themes of Peace and Social Resilience in Medellín, Colombia. During my six weeks there, I worked with the community of El Faro, a neighbourhood of Medellín built by people fleeing the armed conflict that devastated Colombian rural areas since the late 1950s. Because the construction of the neighbourhood wasn’t part of formal urban planning, El Faro is not officially recognised as part of the city and its population lacks access to basic public services like water and electricity. We collaborated with the locally elected Community Action Group to provide technical and material support for the development of an agroforestry and community garden projects. The people in El Faro already had a community garden that is cared for on a weekly basis by neighbours and volunteers. Twice a month, the garden hosts a Sunday school for the kids in the neighbourhood. Trained local teachers explain to the children the basics of sustainability, climate education, and mitigation & adaptation practices. Young people are also involved in the maintenance of the garden, developing incredible awareness of ecology and food sustainability since an early age. These initiatives contribute to food sovereignty and climate resilience, improving the living conditions of the community through self-sufficiency skills and education. In post-conflict Colombia, community-building initiatives like this play an important role in building sustainable future peace, as the community leaders explained to us on our first visit. They become a powerful tool to overcome the legacy of violence that persists in the form of gang’s territorial control in the outskirts of cities and in the countryside, creating a sense of belonging and purpose. More young people involved in the process of societal reconstruction means fewer of them falling into the path of joining guerrilla groups and drug cartels, building a solid network of civil resistance. The greatest takeaway from my experience in Colombia was, empowering people – especially the youth – to understand and shape the world around them is one of the most powerful tools we have available to promote sustainable and peaceful change on a personal, local and global level. This is the lesson that inspired my current work for the Visualising Peace project, studying how peace education can become a means to support systemic change.
How does systems thinking shape the ways in which we visualise peace (education)?
Committing to promote ‘systemic change’ is a bold statement, not least because the proposition is rather vague: what system(s) need to change, and why? How does change even happen, and how can we make sure the transformation it enacts is a positive one? Reflecting on my experience, I realised that these questions emerge frequently when planning interventions aimed to promote peace and sustainable development. Also, what is defined as ‘systems thinking’ was as a common denominator across the various readings and case studies I engaged with while researching the field of peace education. As I explained in the introduction to one of the resources in our Visualising Peace Library [1.], ‘systems thinking’ is a way to approach scenarios in which stakeholders are particularly interdependent. This causal relationships between various elements in the system means that the impact of any localised/individual action or change is likely to affect the overall equilibrium. To better understand what ‘system’ means, take the human body as an example. It is a system is composed of individual cells that differentiate and gather to form organs and tissues, which then perform specific interconnected functions. We can notice that the various sub-components of our body (digestive system, nervous system, skeleton, etc.) work in synergy in instances when pain in one area often reflects harm elsewhere. Just think about how anxiety (a neuropsychological condition) sometimes shows in the shape of stomach pain, or how an infected ear-piercing can break a fever and provoke a whole-body shock. Now, social systems operate similarly: our global system is the body, and individuals and various communities are the sub-components. The relationships within and across these sub-components determine the state of the overall system, and systemic change occurs when – by means of systems thinking – we coordinate change on various levels of society.
Systems thinking is mentioned explicitly in the sustainable development framework, but its application in the field of peacebuilding is not studied as much. This is exactly the gap that Otilia Meden (a fellow Visualising Peace team member) and I are trying to fill through our collaborative research on peace education. Our work started by drawing interdisciplinary connections between the inner, local and global dimensions of peace – both in theory and in practice. We combined our expertise on inner peace, peace education, international relations and sustainable development to create a set of educational resources for students and educators. Through informational toolkits and public engagement activities, we hope our study will inspire others to think about peace education more systemically. In other words, the vision of peace education that we are proposing is one in which people are encouraged to develop a sense of shared humanity, by understanding how their personal wellbeing is related to that of others and the surrounding environment.
Peace Education and Systems Transformation: Examples from the literature and the field
Our approach to peace education resembles in some respects Daisaku Ikeda’s ‘Soka’ education. The Japanese philosopher – whose ideas are presented in one of our Library resources [1.] – developed a pedagogy of peace education that uses dialogue as main tool to guide students through a path of personal growth, developing a sense of global citizenship and socio-environmental responsibility. This process of ‘becoming’ involves learning how to engage in transformative dialogue with others, and change happens simultaneously on a personal and collective level. From a scientific perspective, there are studies [4.] looking at how individual wellbeing and brain coherence influence collective states of peace and stability at increasing scales (an example of system thinking!). That is, a conflictual society is one in which most individuals share an experience of internal conflict, and a peaceful society is characterised by a collective experience of brain coherence that translates into social unity. Brain coherence refers to how well information is conveyed and processed, and the state of brain coherence influences one’s perception and cognitive/bodily functions. Individuals who experience trauma, hardships, or mental health issues tend to have lower brain coherence; vice-versa, a healthy person with a stable life would present a more coherent state.
From this last example, it is evident how the study of psychophysical processes can help us understand a lot about social dynamics. In a similar interdisciplinary spirit and recalling Ideka’s approach, Otilia and I believe that the study of individual experiences of inner peace can teach us a lot about larger-scale peace & conflict dynamics. Instead of structuring analyses on a national-regional-global grid, we propose an approach to peace education that takes the personal level into account as well. In this framework, we understand inner peace as 1) a relevant critical lens to produce new knowledge around peace, and 2) an individual and collective peacebuilding practice, informing new approaches to peace education. Asking students to bring into the classroom their individual and shared human experience is a powerful way make the learning experience more relatable and applicable to their day-to-day life. Empowering youth through peace education is one of our core objectives: we want students who engage with our toolkits to be able to act on the lessons they receive. Only then, we can claim to be delivering transformative education.
Looking to the future, there are different directions that our work on peace education could take. This academic year marks the end of the Visualising Peace project in the context of the Vertically Integrated Projects, and the team is currently exploring ways to make sure all our research outputs keep having an impact and inspiring others in the long-term. In the upcoming months, Otilia and I will focus our energies on implementing the peace education project that we developed during semester 1. For one, we are planning to prototype some of our own educational resources for educators and students on Inner-Local-Global Peace. We have already contacted potential partner-schools, and are always open to discuss opportunities for collaboration! Through the years, Visualising Peace researchers have produced a diverse set of teaching resources to explore peace through various media and topics. They are free to download and use, and you can find them here.
Peace education is a dynamic framework, and everyone can contribute to it by simply engaging with the ideas and values behind it…just like you did by reading this article! We always appreciate feedback, questions, and opinions on our work; don’t hesitate to reach out via email: [email protected].
Library Resources
Goulah, Jason, and Olivier Urbain. “Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy of Peace, Education Proposals, and Soka Education: Convergences and Divergences in Peace Education.” Journal of Peace Education 10, no. 3 (2013): 303–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2013.848072.
This article fills a gap in Anglophone literature on peace education, which scarcely explored the idea and practice of peace education developed by Japanese Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ideka. Ideka developed its framework of ‘Soka education’ inspired by Buddhist concepts and the work of fellow-countrymen Toda and Makiguchi, making this approach a relevant example of non-Western contributions in the development of knowledge and practices around peace education.
The Soka approach was developed as a practice of value-creating education, where education creates benefits for the individual and society as a whole, rather than serving specific national/business/religious interests. Soka education emerged in the aftermath of WWII at the advent of globalisation. As such, the approach focuses on providing tools that promote intercultural/interpersonal dialogue and collaboration: students are educated to become global citizens practicing wisdom, courage, and compassion. The core goal is to guide students through a process of personal development, using dialogue on a local and global level as main pedagogical tool. In the larger picture, the development of inner peace is seen as the starting point to create world peace. In fact, individuals have the capacity to spark inner transformation in others by means of dialogue and cultural exchange, creating a domino effect on a local and global scale. From an academic point of view, that translates into curricula and schools that integrate peace education (nonviolence), environmental education (ecology and conservation), developmental education (poverty and global justice), and human rights education (social and self-awareness, sense of shared humanity, equality and dignity).
From the article, it emerges how elements of the pedagogy and practice behind the Soka approach resembles a concept that has become a buzzword in Western education: system thinking. The concept originated in the field of ecology, to explain the functioning of ecosystems, but it is increasingly adopted in social sciences – especially in the sustainable development and (business) innovation discourses. ‘System thinking’ can be described as a way of studying and understanding environments that are characterised by strong interdependence between the various actors/elements, meaning that the impact of any localised/individual action is likely to affect the overall equilibrium. Similarly, Buddhist philosophy sees the individual as inseparable from the environment in which they live; one’s wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of others and the environment, and the other way around. It is interesting to reflect on how system thinking is a core belief in the Buddhist philosophy and Soka approach, whilst in Western academic debates it is a methodology that is still in the process of being understood and discussed. This begs a question, which could help you reflect critically as you approach the article: which value-systems and knowledge inform peace education around the world? How can we effectively involve more non-Western voices in this landscape?
Harman, Willis W. “The Global System: Conditions for Peace, Stability, and Social Justice.” IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine 1, no. 8 (1986): 2–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/maes.1986.5005174.
Harman discusses the idea that the achievement of peace, stability and social justice requires systemic change of the modern industrial society. The article was written in 1986, and the world in 2023 is taking part in that transformation. Today, we are facing more and more global challenges – from unprecedented environmental changes, to pandemics, migrations and socio-political (violent) conflicts. These challenges emerge naturally, as a consequence of system changes. System changes tend to be traumatic transformations, and the challenge explored in this paper is to find ways to attenuate their disruptiveness. Harman proposes the use of peaceful inner imagery as a tool to navigate these crises on an individual and collective level.
System changes are implemented smoothly when the new paradigm, or scenario, is accepted by an increasing number of people. The new paradigm presented in the paper is centred on the search for wholeness. On a personal and societal level, people are feeling the need to shift away from individualism and cultural globalisation towards community-building and the celebration of one’s intersectional individual identity (e.g., human rights movements, Equity Diversity and Inclusion initiatives). However, change is slowed down by individual and collective limiting beliefs – which are those beliefs about oneself that negatively affect our perceptions and behaviours. Studies included in the paper highlighted how global problems often have psychological origin, as they are the symptoms of a shared mindset in a certain community or society. This leads to one of Harman’s core arguments: if a shared mindset has the power to shape global events, then we can create a more peaceful world by working on constructive and peaceful inner imagery to make people more resilient and supportive of (system) changes. Today, the global crisis described in the article is more urgent and complex. As such, it is still relevant and important to engage in research like Harman’s, investigating ways to collectively create the conditions for future peace – for example, through peaceful inner imagery as a form of collective scenario-making. Which other tools/methodologies can we use to create conditions for future peace, and motivate people to support the change?
Policy Lab, and Matteo Menapace. “Launching ‘Systemic’ – a Game for Applying Systems Change Thinking to Policy .” Policy Lab, November 15, 2023. https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2023/11/15/launching-systemic-a-game-for-applying-systems-change-thinking-to-policy/.
‘Systemic’ is one of the so-called ‘serious games’ developed by the UK government-affiliated Policy Lab as experimental methods to deliver their innovation strategy. The purpose of this game is to create a simulation space in which policymakers can play-test different approaches and changes to policy without real-life implications. The game is useful to prevent situations in which well-intended policies have unexpected negative consequences in other policy areas or on third parties who don’t benefit directly from the solution proposed. This risk is particularly high nowadays, because the challenges governments are facing are becoming more global and interconnected, with rise in violent conflict and environmental changes happening worldwide. As remarked by the creators of the tool, effectively tackling challenges like climate change, inequalities and aging populations cannot be done without collaboration across different departments and stakeholders. In the current picture, both locally and globally, the lack of coordinated action has the potential to nullify policy effectiveness, where the solution to a problem causes other socio-economic or environmental issues elsewhere.
While their impact might be regional/global, problems and solutions are tackled contextually – for example, aging population is a policy issue in the UK and other Western countries, while other geographies deal with the opposite situation. Yet, the framework of this toolkit is generally relevant enough to be used in diverse settings within and beyond policy-making environments. The ‘system thinking’ approach explained through this game is becoming increasingly important in making sense of the complex global society that we live in and address its challenges, as demonstrated by its large application in fields like sustainable development and innovation. In this context, peace is one of the most complex global challenges that humanity has tried and is trying to address at different levels of governance and civil society. As such, practicing system thinking and educating others to it through this toolkit can be particularly useful for people involved in the field of peace education and peace building.
Montecucco, Nitamo Federico. “Towards a New Ecological and Social Sustainability: The Evolution of Planetary Consciousness in the Light of Brain Coherence Research.” World Futures 55, no. 2 (2000): 129–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2000.9972774.
The study presented in this paper starts from the assumption that the state of the global system – which today is one of transformation, crisis and uncertainty – reflects the collective inner state of consciousness of humans. In simpler words, more and more individuals today are experiencing a mental health crisis, and that is connected to how fast the world is changing and how many more global threats are emerging nowadays. Our societies are transforming from the very foundations: people used to interact on a local scale, but today we are transitioning towards a network of global communities. At the same time, the Earth’s ecosystem is also experiencing a period of transition under the effect of human-provoked environmental change.
In this landscape, the authors explore inner peace and brain coherence as neurophysiological tools that can be used to promote wellbeing on a planetary scale – a dimension of global peace. Peace as wellbeing is an overlooked dimension in peace studies, and this article supports the scientific and academic relevance of researching and practicing inner peace. If the state of the global system reflects people’s collective inner state, then global peace can be seen as a projection of a collective and individual experience of inner peace. As explained in the paper, inner peace can be associated with a specific cognitive state of the brain. When we experience inner peace – in the shape of creativity, self-awareness, states of mindfulness and meditation -nervous impulses reach the brain in a more cohesive way, and information is processed better. When an individual is in this state, they are more inclined to engage in exchange and relationships with others. On an individual/biological scale, brain coherence is expressed through better functioning of mind and body. Self-awareness is reflected on a global scale as a unitary state of consciousness: a society in which everyone understands and embraces the core value of promoting each individual’s wellbeing. In social systems, brain coherence corresponds to moments in which evolutionary or socio-cultural leaps occur – for example, the transition to the Homo Sapiens, or the Enlightenment. The authors categorise the various states of brain coherence and corresponding states of social systems. Referring to that, it seems that our global system is in a state of fragmentation, characterised by different layers of social conflict and a collective state of psychological crisis, low awareness, and fragmented knowledge. This makes sense if we think about the socio-cultural and technological evolutions that are changing the world as we know it.
Before we reach a state of global peace, we need to work on our individual and collective wellbeing by increasing people’s awareness, psychophysical wellbeing and opportunities to network. The theory of collective consciousness explained in this article suggests ways in which we can do so, “creating a scientific basis for feelings of unity, cooperation and relationship between individuals […] [and] groups”.