Curricular Courses for Peace and Nonviolence Through the Speeches of Nobel Peace Laureates, 1901–2020

• In Event: Theorizing Nonviolence and Peace in Curriculum Studies: International Conversations on Interdependence in a Worldwide Pandemic

Abstract

Purpose and Significance:
Seeking to contribute to advancing curriculum conversations that are international in scope concerning questions of equity and justice, this author examines the speeches of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates—recognized (if even contested in some cases) world leaders and teachers of peace and nonviolence (also from across the globe)—from 1901 to 2020. This work is undertaken in an effort to glean greater insight into how we might more faithfully theorize and conceptualize peace and nonviolence in curriculum studies, and the implications of such for teaching, reaching for, practicing, promoting, nonviolence and peace educationally, in recognition too of our radical interdependence.

Theoretical and Methodological Approach:
Drawing here upon the work of de Certeau (2011) in theorizing from the site of everyday practice, this study engages narrative inquiry, textual analysis with open coding, broadly (Reissman, 2008; Kim, 2016), in efforts to discern that which emerges from the addresses of the laureates in terms of what nonviolence and/or peace means and how to pursue such, as articulated through their own lived stories, historical moments and cultural contexts via (examination of) the speeches given. Entertaining both phenomenological-hermeneutical and “post”-critical discourses in thinking with theory (Jackson & Mazzai, 2012) too herein, in relation to curriculum studies, she forefronts an abiding question concerning what knowledge is of most worth (Spencer, 1884/2015)—and those inquiries following such including: whose knowledge? For whom? How? To what end? etc. Such are questions regarding challenges related to ideological and epistemic—in addition to cultural, structural, and physical—domination and violence as well as redress and restoration (e.g., Apple, 2004; Au, 2012; Paraskeva, 2016, 2017). Results are presented via thematic portraits illuminating findings of shared conceptions of and practices for nonviolence and peace. Points of difference are also explored.

Tentative Findings and Future Directions:
Examination of Nobel Peace Laureate speeches suggest that shared understandings of and commitments to nonviolence among cultures, nations and peoples across the world, and abidingly so, do exist, in concert with the affirmation of values like peace, hope, security, justice, responsibility, liberty, tolerance and altruism we might call universal. Educationally of note thus far uncovered in these speeches was: the emphasis particularly not only on raising awareness about but also bearing witness to human suffering, oppression and violence, hunger and poverty, and the devastation of war and ecological degradation; disrupting the sources of such and eradicating policies that perpetuate these ills; and engaging and advocating for the voice of the people—especially those most subjected to harm herein—in creatively negotiating, dialoguing and collaborating across difference toward finding and fulfilling new ways of living together and resolving conflict that foster harmonious and sustainable human and community flourishing, growth and potential.

Author

• Molly Quinn, Louisiana State University