IIPE Special Issue on Bridging Traditional Wisdom and Modernity: Exploring an Eco-Relational Paradigm for Peace

2024-09-07

In light of the ecological crisis and the social, political, and cultural obstacles to addressing this crisis, the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) Nepal 2024 was convened to consider an ecological and relational paradigm for peace. As many nations and peoples, Nepal is struggling to develop while maintaining its ancient spiritual traditions, village communities, and warmth among its people, even in the face of economic and political pressure from the great powers on its borders and beyond.  Discussion of the Nepali conundrum by IIPE participants from around the world brought this problematic to the fore.  This call for a special issue of In Factis Pax seeks to continue this inquiry by exploring the following basic questions: Given the current ecological crisis, including the climate crisis, in what ways can the conception of “peace” be re-conceived? What contribution can peace education and peace and justice studies contribute to forming an ecological relational framework for peace?  Inquiry into these questions can also reflect on the following sub-questions (among other possible questions and issues):

  • What would constitute an ecological and relational conception of peace?
    • Given that peace has generally been considered a problem of human-to-human conflict and violence, in what ways can the scope of peace be expanded to include the health of all living beings and the earth, water, and air which are essential for human survival?
    • Does it involve decentering the human perspective in relation to all living systems?
    • Are the ideas of interconnectedness, intersubjectivity, and interbeing central to rethinking human and interspecies relations?
    • In what ways can traditional forms of wisdom, knowing, and being inform an ecological and relational conception of peace?
  • If peace is a matter of justice, what conception of justice is operative within an ecological, relational concept of peace?
    • In what ways does an ecological, relational conception of peace speak to the decolonial, post-colonial critique of the Western, modern paradigm?
  • What conception of cognition follows from an ecological paradigm of peace?
    • For example, does Escobar’s Senti-pensar concept of the integration of feeling, sensing and, emotional-cognitive processes help us conceive a conception of cognition necessary for ecological well-being?
  • What implications does an ecological, relational conception of peace have for the theory and practice of peace education?
    • What modified conceptions of peacelearning and pedagogies for peacelearning follow from an ecological paradigm?

Diverse perspectives and methodologies, including work in other regions or contexts, as well as other related questions and issues, are invited. 

Please submit an abstract of 200-300 words to Dale Snauwaert at dale.snauwaert@utoledo.edu by November 30, 2024. For further queries, please contact Janet Gerson at gerson@i-i-p-e.org. We will inform those selected by December 15, 2024, and the deadline for contributions will be April 15, 2025.  Submissions will undergo blind peer review. 

Work submitted should be in English, and not exceed 10,000 words (including references).  Please format your contribution in line with In Factis Pax guidelines at

https://openjournals.utoledo.edu/index.php/infactispax/about/submissions

Founded in 2007 In Factis Pax is an open-source peer reviewed online journal devoted to the theory and practice of peace and justice studies and peace education.