By Annalena Groppe

One of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been described as a new experience of interpersonal and global interconnectedness: My staying at home has an impact on the physical integrity of my neighbors* and even transcends nation-state borders through global economic relations. In both peace education and global citizenship education, dealing with "glocality" - i.e. the connecting lines between local and global action - is seen as a central learning resource that strengthens skills for the non-violent transformation of conflicts in a globalized world[1]. For example, the educational game "Ene Mene Muh" traces the connection between global causes of migration and flight to local asylum policy and racism in order to open up political and personal options for action in solidarity as a response to transnational violence.

Elicitive peace education focuses on the experiential level of this interconnectedness. It thus supplements purely cognitive approaches with, for example, emotional or spiritual aspects. The experiential knowledge gathered by learners during the coronavirus crisis can therefore be seen as a guideline for elicitive learning processes. Wolfgang Dietrich, who theoretically founded the approach for peace education, describes this experience of interconnectedness as transpersonality . It is a central resource for elicitive peace education. Because when I perceive myself as connected to 'the other', new transformative steps can open up in conflict, for example because interests are perceived less competitively and more cooperatively.

Central to a learning space that enables experiential learning processes is often a group learning setting with a focus on relationships that is intended to open up a safe space for conflictual learning experiences.[2] The physical contact ban in response to the COVID-19 pandemic poses challenges for these classic formats of elicitive peace education: Many meetings and seminars have been canceled or postponed indefinitely. Therefore, in times of COVID-19 and physical distancing, new forms of transpersonal learning are also coming into focus. How can elicitive peace education strengthen transformative potentials through these new transpersonal spaces of experience and at the same time learn about itself theoretically?

Digital learning spaces of connectedness

In the context of elicitive peace education, too, we are currently seeing an expansion in the digitalization of approaches: Joint body-, voice- or breath-based methods are also possible via video conferencing, for example. The spaces are often characterized by uncertainty at the beginning, as familiar routines with physical contact are broken. The facilitator can take up emotions such as irritation, fear or loss, but also curiosity and creativity as learning potential and make them a topic. The fact that they are not tied to a specific location also enables longer-term joint learning processes between people from different parts of the world.

At the same time, however, access to digital learning is also dependent on privileges. Even in Germany, computers and internet access are not part of everyone's basic equipment. This is also linked to the need to teach critical media skills - a topic that peace education is already addressing, for example in dealing with digital hate speech.

Time for the self?! - Limits of learning in acute crisis situations

Another effect of the coronavirus shutdown is often described as an experience of deceleration and time for a new self-relationship. However, many people are experiencing the crisis under challenging economic and social conditions. The contact restrictions are an externally induced coercive situation that undermines the principle of voluntary peace education. The security that is created in physical learning groups through close relationships with the group and learning support (not least through physical proximity) is not immediately tangible. Elicitive peace education can address these learning conditions and thus create spaces in which the crisis can be recognized both as a situation of excessive demands and as an opportunity for development.

Despite the difficult circumstances, it is currently possible to observe more everyday forms of peace learning: due to the numerous broken routines and the resulting learning opportunities, transformation potentials can be discovered and tested. The contact restrictions can, for example, open up space for experiences of connectedness with nature: Non-human entities cannot transmit the virus; the forest becomes a safe relational space that allows a break from everyday crisis learning. And perhaps this connection - completely without intention - allows new, not exclusively human-centered, perspectives on my ecological and political actions in the world.

Experience of global interconnectedness

Experiences of global interconnectedness can also arouse uncertainty and resistance, as existing concepts of identity and autonomy are challenged. For example, one current effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is the increase in a policy of isolationism and nationalistic solo efforts, for example with regard to the European level. The humanitarian crises in the refugee camps in Greece or in war and disaster zones are described by left-wing media as the effects of a policy of securing Western privileges.

Potential for solidarity that could arise from the shared experience of "the whole world in quarantine" seems to be taking effect primarily in the social sphere - such as neighborhood help, sewing masks or broad support for domestic loan commitments and financial rescue packages. Last but not least, due to the restrictions on freedom of movement, community is currently also predominantly noticeable at this level: for example, in the Sunday singing of the "Ode to Joy" practiced in many places as an expression of solidarity - but is a European spirit really noticeable here?

In order to address our interconnectedness in global structures in an experiential and relational way, it is necessary to expand transpersonal experiences and their reflection beyond national borders. The COVID-19 pandemic makes this task even more urgent. The digitalization processes described above offer a perspective for this, as they can open up shared learning spaces regardless of geographical location. For example, in the Chat der Welten project, pupils from Germany engage in direct exchange with their peers in the Global South, make friends and feel a holistic connection.

Conclusion

New forms of transpersonal learning can strengthen transformative potential during the coronavirus pandemic by combining the use of digital learning spaces with the teaching of media skills, addressing emerging emotions, recognizing challenging learning conditions during the crisis and at the same time focusing on learning without intention in everyday life.

The transformation of learning and experience spaces due to contact restrictions is also theoretically relevant, as it becomes clear that access to them - not only digital access - is always dependent on privileges and thus reproduces structures of violence. Becoming aware of and addressing the challenges involved and developing transformative steps are relevant for future research. Elicitive peace education has the paradoxical task of overcoming distance - not only geographical distance - within the framework of contact restrictions. Because the experience of a global 'social proximity' can strengthen solidarity beyond national borders these days.