Final Study Guide for PEAC 104: Key Concepts and Theories

Emily Balch Green

2nd American woman to win a Nobel, dismissed in 1918 from Wellesley because of this speech but world-renowned economist.Emily Green Balch was an economics professor at Wellesley who was a leader in WILPF Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and she was fired for her anti-war activism. Advocates for disinterested good will

Disinterested Goodwill for All

Benevolence for all regardless of label/identity (this will lead to a better economic order).

"All of us, of all of us"

In the 1916 'what it means to be an American' speech given by Emily Greene Balch. We must all be engaged, we are all implicated and must all take part.

half free and half unfree

Some Americans get to enjoy the American dream, but this is very identity dependent 'unfulfilled promise of justice'. In the 1916 'what it means to be an American' speech given by Emily Greene Balch.

Violence

Present when human beings are being influenced (somatically and/or mentally) such that they don't reach their full potential. Can be physical (somatic) or psychological (mental), manifest or latent, personal or structural, with or without objects.

Personal Violence

On the individual level. Violence inflicted on a person by another person or a group of people. Object and subject relation is present.

Structural Violence

To do with 'proximity to resources' having to do with systems of power, limits options of victims. Violence without a clear subject-object relation is considered to be structural.

Manifest violence

Obvious, visible violence. We can see it.

Latent violence

Not obvious/observable 'might easily come about' unstable equilibrium.

Physical violence

The type of violence when people are influenced physically/somatically such that they don't reach their full potential. A subcategory of both personal and structural violence.

Psychological violence

The type of violence when people are influenced mentally such that they don't reach their full potential. A subcategory of both personal and structural violence.

Static society

A static society registers personal violence but doesn't recognize the structural component or broader systems.

Dynamic society

Registers personal and structural violence. Oftentimes actor B has done a lot of work to move the society there and put pressure onto Actor A to change.

SPDC

Southern Prisoners Defense Committee. This is where Stevenson worked as an intern in Georgia before making his own non-profit law firm.

"Keep close"

Encouragement by Bryan's grandmother in Just Mercy to stay close to your values as your guiding star and not to turn away or put on blinders to the terrible things going on around you.

Power pathologies

The socioeconomic and political inequality that influences your ability to get care. For example, there is a pathogenic role of economic inequality on health, making poor people more likely to get sick because of the lack of proper resources.

Bearing witness

Instead of turning away from the suffering of the poor, you report on it and bear witness and sit with them in the suffering.

Acephie

A young Haitian woman, an 'agricultural refugee,' who contracted AIDS from a higher-ranking soldier in an attempt to escape poverty and passed away from HIV while caring for her infant daughter.

Chou Chou

A young man in Haiti who was beaten and tortured by military forces after making a political comment, illustrating the dangers of dissent in a repressive regime.

Preferential option for the poor

The principle that the poor deserve prioritized care and access to resources because they need it more, rather than just equal treatment.

Observe, judge, act

Observe, judge, act is the framework for action suggested by Dr. Paul Farmer.  It is the process of bearing witness, recognizing one's own implication in oppression, and acting with a preferential option for the poor.

Peace, Inc.

A conventional way to end wars that relies on top-down solutions and foreign diplomats, often lacking community input.

Peaceland

The world of aid workers characterized by conventional peacebuilding methods that often exclude grassroots practices.

Bottom up peace building

An approach that values local knowledge and emphasizes listening to community needs, contrasting with top-down peacebuilding.

Kivu Province and Idjwi

Idjwi island in Lake Kivu, known for its culture of peace, strong taboo against bloodshed, and effective grassroots organizations.

Life and Peace Institute (LPI)

An organization that employs a bottom-up flexible approach, providing support based on community needs and practicing participatory action research.

Participatory Action Research Approach

A method that involves listening to community members to transform conflicts in non-violent ways through a bottom-up approach.

Peace cultures

Communities that use non-violent tools and strategies for cooperation and conflict resolution, establishing peace as the norm.

Utopia

An inherent critique of the status quo, of society rooted in violence, structural and personal violence in our society, in critiquing the present and providing an alternative, presenting a possible future rooted in different values.

Small Place (SP)

An alternative world governed by community circles, community leaders, shared property, no prisons, and other great utopian things.

Adila

The main character of the small place/earth visitor story, means justice in Arabic, killed by Earth Visitor, but her death leads to a demonstration of an alternative criminal justice system.

EV (Earth Visitor)

Comes to SP and is surprised by the lack of violence, prisons, private property, etc. Kills Adila, but then is brought into the community healing justice system.

Positive peace (Social Justice)

Absence of structural violence. A change in the distribution of resources and power, connected with conflict theory and development theory.

Negative peace

Absence of personal violence. Control and reduction of the overt use of violence, e.g., lower homicide rates, but maybe fuller jails.

Dynamic Peace

Peace that is open to movement and change, addressing both personal and structural violence, and is very flexible.

Social Justice

Positive peace, defined as the absence of structural violence and a change in the distribution of resources and power.

Ontario Park Standoff

Indigenous community in Canada vs. the local police, with the Quaker community supporting the indigenous community by placing themselves physically in between the community and the police.

League of Nations vs. WILPF actions after WW1

League of Nations focused on negative peace and punishing Germany, while WILPF gathered women from both sides to discuss suffering and prevent future wars.

GPI

An effort at measuring the level of peace using measurable indicators, presenting data-driven analysis on trends in peace and its economic value.

PPI

Assesses positive peace, such as levels of corruption and interactions/tension with neighbors, indicating where power is unequally distributed.

Structural violence

Forms of violence that are embedded in social structures, leading to inequality and injustice. Structural Violence is a type of indirect somatic or mental harm that prevents people from reaching their full potential. It is different from personal violence, which involves direct harm by an actor. With structural violence, there is no identifiable actor specifically responsible; it is usually systems that are implicated.

Community healing justice system

A system that focuses on healing and justice within the community rather than punitive measures.

Conflict theory

A theory that views social conflict as the basis of society and social change, emphasizing the role of power and inequality.

Development theory

A framework for understanding the processes of economic and social development, often focusing on issues of inequality and justice.

Instability in social justice

Can include protests for social justice, indicating awareness of unequal systems and efforts to redistribute power and resources.

Homicide rates

A measurable indicator of personal violence, often used to assess the level of safety and security in a society.

Corruption

The abuse of power for personal gain, often leading to unequal access to resources and opportunities.

Trump's appointments

Examples of political appointments based on personal connections rather than qualifications, highlighting issues of power and corruption.

Feminism

The struggle to end sexist oppression, to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture.

Gender as a social construct

Masculinity and femininity is taught explicitly or implicitly, socially constructed. Rewards people who perform their "assigned" masculinity/femininity and reinforces the dichotomy.

Feminist Peace Research

People like Catia who refuse to uphold the false binary and challenge the patriarchal system. Say that in order to undo the violence rooted in patriarchy, we have to dismantle the patriarchy.

Masculinity-femininity dichotomy

A focus on binary and false dichotomy, an either/or stance that focuses on contradicting duality, ignores the grey area, upholds a power structure where one thing is seen as superior to another.

Patriarchy

Pits binary against one another and says masculinity is more powerful and grants masculinity more access to resources.

Marsha Colby

Had a stillbirth, but was accused by a neighbor that she killed the baby, charged for murder, and prosecuted in Alabama under a law that states that fetuses are seen as children.

2006 Alabama Law

In 2006, there was a law that was passed in Alabama that made it a felony to expose a child to a 'dangerous environment' in which the child could encounter drugs.

Tutwiler Prison

The prison that Marsha Colbey is sent to, notorious for the terrible conditions women are placed in, denied access to basic resources.

1996 Welfare Reform

Says that if a person is convicted of a felony, then they can't have access to federal welfare resources, impacting their families and children too.

Walter MacMillan

The main story in Just Mercy, a good man convicted of murder due to racial bias and corruption in the court system.

Structural violence

The violence in the prison is experienced in a very gendered way.

Unsafe environment

Makes being poor with low access to food and safety an 'unsafe environment' for a child, leading to vulnerability to prosecution.

Felony conviction impact

If a person is convicted of a felony, they can't have access to federal welfare resources.

Interracial relationship consequences

Walter MacMillan's relationship with a young white woman is seen as evil and wrong in Alabama, making him an easy target for prosecution.

Corruption of the court system

Walter MacMillan's case highlights the corruption and structural violence embedded within the justice system.

Access to resources

Being black means less access to resources in the criminal justice system.

Galtung's model

It is necessary to understand the gendered component of the model to undo violence rooted in patriarchy.

False binary

A concept that upholds a power structure where one category is seen as superior to another.

Dichotomy

A division into two mutually exclusive or contradictory groups.

Socially constructed roles

Roles of masculinity and femininity that are taught and reinforced by society.

Prosecution vulnerability

Poor people are vulnerable to prosecution due to laws that define unsafe environments.

Menstrual product access

Women in Tutwiler Prison are denied access to basic resources like menstrual products.

Child exposure law

The law that interprets the term environment to include the womb and the term child to include a fetus.

Kemp

In Just Mercy, about composition of jury when making a capital punishment, this case proved in the 1980s that there are racial disparities in the state of Georgia.

Unpeaceful relationships

An unpeaceful relationship is one in which one/both parties are damaged, possibly through physical violence, but also in economic or psychological ways.

Awareness

Concerns not only whether the parties are aware of the problem (i.e. not a latent conflict), but also the degree to which the parties are aware of its sources and the possibilities for addressing the situation.

Balance/Parity

The degree of power that parties have relative to each other. Unbalanced parity makes it difficult to have peaceful relationships.

Fully developed relationship

A fully developed relationship is typified by high levels of awareness on the parts of all parties, as well as a modicum of balance between them, such that neither can force her/his will on the other.

Curle's 6 components for peacemaking

Research, Conciliation, Bargaining, Development, Education, Confrontation.

Research

Through which the would-be peacemaker acquires enough knowledge of the situation to work effectively.

Conciliation

Through which he lays the psychological foundation - the changed perceptions, the heightened awareness, the reduced tension - necessary for rational discussion and negotiation.

Bargaining

In which the two parties to a quarrel try to reach agreement without making excessive concessions.

Development

In which a formerly unpeaceful relationship is restructured along peaceful lines.

Education

Through which the weaker party in a low-awareness/unbalanced relationship gains awareness of its situation and so attempts to change it.

Confrontation

Through which the weaker party to an unbalanced relationship asserts itself in the hope of gaining a position of parity, and hence the possibility of reaching a settlement that will lead to a restructuring of the relationship.

Stone thrower

Someone who is judgemental, throws stones and says that those being punished by the systems deserve it.

Stone catcher

Those trying to renegotiate the terms for those being punished by our systems. Catches the stones for others.

Satyagraha

Truth seeking and soul force; the activist can learn from the opponent and vice versa. This nonviolent direct action is clinging to the truth and states that truth cannot be achieved nor disseminated by force.

Nonviolence

An active resistance using nonviolent (peaceful) means against injustice to bring about political or social change.

Examples of nonviolent tactics

Protests, sit-ins, boycotts, teach-ins, civil disobedience, arts/music, shared common symbols (like Ghandi's white cloths).

Pacifism

An adherence to choosing non-violence largely rooted in moral values (closely tied to religion).

Conscientious objectors

Individuals who refuse to fight in war due to moral or ethical beliefs.

Gandhi

A lawyer who led a nonviolent struggle against racial oppression in India for 8 years and was assassinated in 1948.

Salt march

A 240-mile march from Ashram to the sea to protest unfair salt laws, mobilizing people to make their own salt.

Moral jiu jitsu

A strategy where the opponent may question their own behavior when faced with nonviolence.

British idea of 'fair play'

The British perception of themselves as upstanding citizens, which is challenged by non-violent protests.

Fanon's role of violence

The idea that violence can be a means for peace, particularly in the context of Algerian colonization.

Intractable conflict

A conflict that is perceived as unsolvable, often leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Decolonization

The liberation of a nation and the restoration of that nation to the people - a psychological and cultural process of dismantling colonial mindsets, requiring both political and psychological revolution.

Quintessence of evil

The physical violence that dehumanizes the colonized, making them seen as less than human.

Compartmentalized world

A societal structure maintained through violence, creating barriers that enforce racial and social differences.

Fanon

A medical doctor and psychiatrist who analyzed the effects of violence on the colonized and advocated for their dignity.