By Patricia Baquero Torres

For a long time, critical attention has been drawn to the disadvantage of children and young people in the field of education, which is reflected, among other things, in the colonial construction of migrants in (peace) education concepts and structures. The German education system is involved in the reproduction of migration-related educational inequality, according to the fundamental criticism (Crul, Schneider, Lelie 2012). Addressing racism in the theory and practice of peace education is an urgent concern in this country if the aim is to adequately work towards reducing violence and transforming conflict in educational contexts and to counteract it preventively, as these pedagogical approaches are committed to doing. In this article, I will therefore formulate three theses that aim to make a contribution to thinking peace education and racism-critical perspectives together.

Peace education - prevention of violence, reduction of violence and conflict transformation without addressing racist violence?

With the war in Ukraine, the issue of peace in Europe has moved to the center of the international political agenda and public attention. The desire for peace, for an end to the military conflict, accompanies us all as a civil society. The already noticeable complexity and multidimensionality of the effects of the war, not only in Europe but worldwide, show that peace efforts cannot relate exclusively to the end of the military conflict or be based solely on the assumption of the absence of war.

Rather, according to current peace and conflict research, the shaping of peace refers to dynamic transformation processes of social structures of violence, of individual and collective attitudes and modes of action. Peace is therefore not a state, but a process of decreasing violence and increasing social justice. The educational goal of peace education should be the ability to "make an active contribution to changing society in the direction of reducing violence"[1]. In this sense, peace education is to be understood as social criticism that has to deal with violent structures and diverse forms of violence and is pedagogically oriented towards the prevention of violence - according to peace educator Werner Wintersteiner[1].

In recent years, the social relevance of racism has been increasingly recognized in the German-speaking academic debate. A debate on racism and the (re)production of violence in society is also increasingly taking place within peace and conflict research and it is becoming clear that racism is not a marginal phenomenon of so-called right-wing extremist groups, as it has long been interpreted. Rather, racism is an everyday social practice.

Although the need to consider racism as an important topic or field of work in peace education is increasingly emphasized in professional discussions[1], peace and racism, peace education and approaches critical of racism have hardly been considered together to date. Moreover, in 2015, Thattamannil-Klug points not only to the neglect of the thematization of racist othering processes, but also to the connection between this dethematization and the common conception of conflict in peace education, which presupposes the existence of two or more groups or parties without questioning the constructive nature of these ideas[2].

Othering therefore refers to the dominant social practice that assumes a fundamental binary distinction between "us" and the "others" and establishes people as "others" or as deviating from the norm. According to Thattamannil-Klug, by drawing on this categorization of dominance society to describe a conflict, for example, these categories are naturalized and thus accepted and legitimized, especially when this categorization can be part of the conflict[2]. In view of the current state of the debate described so far, the question now arises from a peace education perspective: how can violence-racism-peace be taken further in the 21st century?

Peace education and thinking critical of racism

If peace education is to be understood as social criticism with a view to the prevention of violence and it is recognized that the suppression of racist construction processes is related to the (re-)production of power and dominance relations in peace education and thus a fundamental form of social violence continues to be perpetuated in this country, as Thattamannil-Klug[2]rightly argues, the examination of racism is indispensable for the further development of peace education approaches. In the following, I would therefore like to outline central ideas in the form of three theses, which I understand as an approach to the relationship between violence and racism, peace education and a perspective critical of racism, following on from power-critical perspectives of post- and decolonial thinking and a critique of racism. These theses can of course be developed further.

Thesis 1: Racism as a structured and structuring relationship of dominance and conflict. A basis for peace education as social criticism

Racist relations of violence consist of collective images, narratives and social institutions that produce inequality through racist distinctions and that relate not only to physical characteristics but also to cultural characteristics (such as religious practices and symbols). They influence both the distribution of resources and one's own symbolic position in the ethnically and racially structured space as privileged and deprivileged self-images[3]. In this racist order, on the basis of othering processes, people now have the experience of either being addressed as belonging to the dominant social "we" or being excluded from the dominant social "we". These different spaces of experience have an effect on people's self-images, which can be internalized with feelings of superiority and inferiority, but can also be transformed[2]. Racism therefore acts as a comprehensive, structured and structuring form of social violence.

Assuming that racism is articulated in structures of violence and is therefore to be understood as a social relationship of conflict that can be institutionally, formally and socially recreated, criticized and transformed[4], peace education in theory and practice must focus on this form of structural violence, especially as it aims to strengthen the capacity for peace and develops pedagogical concepts that didactically combine knowledge, skills and competencies[5]. From a racism-critical perspective, my argument is that the capacity for peace means specifically focusing on and problematizing the violent social processes and experiences of othering as learning processes; specifically making hierarchical and normative group membership visible and working towards unlearning this social hierarchical practice of dominance, for example by empowering people who have experienced racism on the basis of the knowledge acquired through these experiences and the associated resources.

Thesis 2: Violence and relations of violence - a necessary conceptual revision for peace education as violence prevention

Violence is one of the central concepts of peace education. This is why some peace educators see the prevention of violence as one of the central tasks of peace education approaches[1]. Nevertheless, peace research is increasingly questioning concepts that are taken for granted and are being subjected to a decolonial revision from a power-critical perspective. This also applies to the understanding of violence, whereby attention is paid to who, where and how violence is discussed.

As Juliana Krohn and Christina Pauls note following Mahdis Azarmandi[6] in their blog post in this series, the suppression of racism as a structural relationship in peace research has to do with a Eurocentric reading that either tends to localize war, conflict and violence elsewhere, i.e. in the Global South, or associates them with 'problematic migrant population groups' in the Global North. They write: "War and violence are also linked to a supposed level of development, i.e. with the assumption that 'underdeveloped' people are more prone to violence. Violence therefore occurs as a racializing attribution, which is primarily attributed to people of colour"[7].

The racial silence, as Azarmandi[6] calls the suppression of racist structures in the production of knowledge in peace research, can also be observed in the production of knowledge in peace education. Thus, following Krohn and Pauls'[7] analysis, racial silence can be read as a form of reproducing the binary logic in which the social construction of the "we" (the "civilized" and "non-violent") and the "others" (the "underdeveloped" and "violent") is recorded. By focusing on the "migrant others", local racist social structures and their practice of exclusion are made invisible. Hierarchical attributions are thus produced from the perspective of the powerful myth of Eurocentric thinking of "linearity, progressiveness, enlightenment, civilizational superiority and the resulting absence of violence"[8] in social contexts of the Global North. In recourse to hierarchical attributions, the production of knowledge in peace research and peace education in this country is involved in maintaining racist power relations.

In this sense, Claudia Brunner argues in her blog post for a revision of the dominant understanding of violence or the idea of non-violence in the knowledge production of peace research and education, which tends towards an idea of direct physical violence and often either only mentions other forms of violence such as structural, cultural, normative and epistemic violence in passing or leaves them out of consideration. This revision, I believe, must allow racist relations of violence to be understood as intersectionally effective. The further development of the concept is thus an imminent task of peace education theory and practice.

Thesis 3: Peace education as an approach critical of racism

From the two previous theses, peace education can then be postulated as a racism-critical approach and racism criticism can then be understood as a theoretical perspective and action practice. In order to further develop peace education as a critical approach to racism, I would like to conclude by addressing some of the central concerns of the current critical debate on racism.

With Claus Melter, I understand critique of racism as "an analytical, theoretical and intervention-related approach and practice that theoretically and practically aims at a justice-oriented change of ideologies, practices and conditions with regard to access, education, movement, communication, recognition, living and working opportunities"[4]. At the heart of this concept is therefore the claim to transformations in all spheres of social life. Institutions, discourses and structures are therefore the focus of the critical gaze. I believe that analyzing the (re-)production of binary logic and its concrete effectiveness in all social dimensions and contexts and making the positions that have emerged from othering processes visible are the prerequisites for the intervention of peace education in transformational processes.

In order to break through and counteract racial silence in peace education knowledge production, various moments of decolonial intervention must take place simultaneously[9]. Knowledge about racism in its various forms, knowledge about the history and present of racism, about racism theory, but also knowledge from experiences of racism must be understood as part of peace education approaches that are critical of racism. Dealing with anti-Semitism in Germany, National Socialism, the Holocaust and German colonialism and its after-effects to this day must become part of peace education.

As an attitude of power and self-reflection, a critique of racism is oriented towards lifestyles and practices that actively contribute to the reduction of violence with alternative self-understandings and ways of acting[9]. In this respect, peace education approaches must create protected spaces for addressing racism and experiences of racism, in which patterns of self-perception and perception of others and subjective concepts of belonging are critically examined and illuminated, always in the context of social conditions[3]. This involves empowering people who have experienced racism as well as questioning the privileged positions of people who have not experienced racism with the aim of destabilizing the matrix of diverse social inequalities.

Footnotes

[1] Wintersteiner, W. (2009). Holistic, global, socially transformative. Twelve theses on peace education. In B. Gruber, W. Wintersteiner, G. Duller (eds.). Peace education as violence prevention. Regional and international experiences. Klagenfurt contributions to peace research. Volume 2, (pp. 14-31). Klagenfurt/Celovec: Drava Verlag.

[2] Thattamannil-Klug, A. (2015). Othering - made into "others". A phenomenon neglected in peace education. In Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung 4th vol. 1, pp. 147-162.

[3] Linnemann, T., Mecheril, P., Nikolenko, A. (2013). Critique of racism. Conceptual foundations and perspectives for action in political education. In ZEP - Journal for International Educational Research and Development Education. 36th year, issue 2, (pp. 10-14).

[4] Melter, C. (2021). Discrimination- and racism-political social work and education in post-colonial and post-nationalist Germany? In: C. Melter (ed.). Discrimination- and racism-critical social work and education (pp. 9-18). Weinheim Basel: Beltz Juventa.

[5] Groppe, A. & Hussak, M. (2019). Peace education in transformation. Potentials of a diverse field. In Science & Peace.https://www.wissenschaft-und-frieden.de/seite.php?artikelID=2525

[6] Azarmandi, M. (2018). The Racial Silence within Peace Studies. Peace Review, 30 (1), 69-77.

[7] Krohn, J. & Pauls, C. (2023). Modern/Colonial Peace - a decolonial perspective on peace research and education. rptu. de/friedensakademie/blog/alle-beitraege/modern/koloniale-frieden-eine-dekoloniale-perspektive-auf-friedensforschung-und-bildung-1

[8] Brunner, C. (2022). Rethinking nonviolence in colonial modernity: challenges and resources for peace education. Peace Academy Blog. https://rptu.de/friedensakademie/blog/alle-beitraege/gewaltfreiheit-weiter-denken-in-der-kolonialen-moderne-herausforderungen-und-ressourcen-der-friedensbildung

[9] Baquero Torres, P. (2022). "Responsibility as social practice - post- and decolonial reflections". In S. Umbach, C. Pinkert (eds.). Practicing peace - bridges and ruptures in thought and action (pp. 67-82). Frankfurt/M.: Wochenschau Verlag.