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81. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1/2
Abbey J. Porter Restorative Conferencing in Thailand: A Resounding Success with Juvenile Crime
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Restorative practices is providing Thailand with a culturally relevant and highly effective means of dealing with criminal offenders, especially juveniles. Spearheaded by Wanchai Roujanavong, director general of the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection of Thailand’s Ministry of Justice, the Thais have developed a restorative conferencing model. Called family and communitygroup conferencing (FCGC), the approach is based on the International Institute for Restorative Practices restorative conferencing model, combined with elements of the New Zealand family group conferencing (FGC) model. The resultant approach suits Thailand’s traditional community-inclusive culture. Since 2003, Thailand’s 52 juvenile protection centers have conducted more than 19,000 conferences, usually in place of court prosecution. Recidivism rates among offenders participating in these conferences are markedly lower than those of juvenile offenders prosecuted in court.
82. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1/2
Joyce Zavarich Revisioning Justice: The Justice Context for Understanding and Operationalizing Restorative Justice
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What is Justice? Society depends on justice for its stability and the well-being of its members. Justice is usually carried out in accordance with the established law. Justice can be grounded in societal norms, human and religious values, and/or established civil law. Generally, justice seeks to ensure fair treatment for all of humanity. This article sets forth the justice context for understanding andoperationalzing restorative justice by first explaining a variety of types of justice to lay a foundation for understanding the complexity of the concept of justice. Following the typology, a review of the concept of restorative justice, addressing its beginnings, practitioners, key concepts, principles, values, practices, and description is given. Finally, examples from my teaching experience at a maximum security prison enhance my understanding of restorative justice as restoring the humanity of us all.
83. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Susan R. Grayzel Teaching Women’s Peace Studies: Thinking About Motherhood, War and Peace
84. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Wm. D. Lindsey The English Industrial Revolution and Third-World Development: Critical Reflections on the Paradigm
85. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Jens Langer “Get With It!”: The Ability of Systems and Their Components to Operate and Cooperate
86. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Leonard Swidler Christian-Marxist Dialogue: An Uneven Past - A Reviving Present - A Necessary Future
87. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Hugh Lacey Understanding the Aspirations of the Central American Liberation Movements
88. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 2 > Issue: 2
Miron Wolnicki The Decolonization of Poland
89. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Suzanne Toton The Peacebuilding Potential of Catholic Relief Services Savings and Internal Lending Communities In Rwanda
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Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community, has worked in Rwanda since 1963. The 1994 Rwandan genocide killed five of its staff, countless co-workers, friends and relatives; its offices were looted and operations destroyed. The genocide marked a turning point in the agency’s history. Since then CRS has made justice, peacebuilding, and solidarity agency priorities, and has committed itself to fully integrate them into all of its partnerships and programming. The focus of this study is an innovative microfinance methodology, Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC), which CRS recently introduced in Rwanda. While the purpose of CRS’ SILC programming in Rwanda is to promote greater economic security, particularly for Orphans and other Vulnerable Children (OVCs), and women’s empowerment, this essay explores its peacebuilding potential in the country. It raises the question of whether it is possible to conceive of Rwanda’s SILC groups as social spaces for peace where a culture of peace and peacebuilding skills may already be being generated. It suggests that if identified as such and developed more intentionally, CRS’ SILC programming in Rwanda could play a more significant and integral role in securing the peace Rwandans long for.In July 2008 five Villanova University faculty members and I traveled to Rwanda, spending a total of eight days in country.1 The purpose of the trip was to learn more about the 1994 genocide, the effort to rebuild the country, and in particular, the U.S. Catholic community’s contribution to that effort through Catholic Relief Services (CRS). In addition to visiting memorials to the victims of the genocide and meeting with representatives from the Rwandan Catholic Church, the University of Rwanda, and the Rwandan government, we had the opportunity to observe some of CRS’ programming and meet with CRS’ small U.S. staff and its much larger Rwandan staff working with its Rwandan partner agencies. We visited a field hospital where patients were being treated for HIV/AIDS; agricultural projects aimed at containing cassava blight and improving yield; projects to teach orphans and other vulnerable children (OVCs) and the blind trades to enable them to earn income to support themselves and their families; elementary school classrooms; a retreat center where diocesan justice and peace animators were being trained in grassroots peacebuilding skills; and a Savings and Internal Lending Community (SILC) group. In this article, I would like to focus on CRS’ SILC programming, and in particular, what I believe to be its potential to contribute to peacebuilding in Rwanda.
90. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Rocco Puopolo Propositions of the Second African Bishops Synod: A Selection and Introduction
91. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Todd David Whitmore “My Tribe is Humanity”: An Interview with Archbishop John Baptist Odama
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In August 2006, after twenty years of armed conflict, the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army came to a ceasefire agreement. While the LRA has moved its activity into neighboring countries, there has been peace—or at least the absence of overt conflict—in Uganda. The ecumenical Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) was critical in mediating between the two parties in the months leading up to the talks. Archbishop John Baptist Odama has been Chairperson of ARLPI since 2002. Previous interviews with him have been short and focused on only his external actions—the negotiations with the LRA, the acts of solidarity with displaced people, children in particular. In the present interview, however, Archbishop Odama discusses the spiritual formation, the devotional practices, and the deep theology that inform his actions on behalf of peace and justice.
92. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Joseph Healey How Small Christian Communities Promote Reconciliation, Justice and Peace in Eastern Africa
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Today there are over 90,000 Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in the eight AMECEA countries in Eastern Africa. Kenya alone has over 35,000 SCCs.Increasingly SCCs are promoting reconciliation, justice and peace, the three main themes of 2009 Second African Synod. This essay treats the following headings: “Tracking the Historical Shifts of SCCs,” “SCCs’ Increasing Involvement in Justice and Peace Issues,” “Case Study of SCC Involvement in the Kenya Lenten Campaigns 2009 and 2010,” “Involving Youth in Small Christian Communities,” “SCCs Using the Internet Especially Facebook” and “SCCs as Facilitators of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace in Africa.” One major change is the increasing use of a Pastoral Theological Reflection Process such as the “Pastoral Circle” (the well-known “See, Judge and Act” methodology starting from concrete experience) to help SCCs to go deeper. Now more and more SCCs in Africa are reflecting pastorally and theologically on their experiences, often using the tools of social analysis.
93. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Shamsia W. Ramadhan The Concepts and Practice of Peace, Peacebuilding and Religious Peacebuilding: Lessons from Kenya
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The article highlights the challenges and potential of religious peacebuilding in resolving conflict in multi-ethnic and multi-religious context. This paper seeks to examine the conduct of religious leaders in Kenya as key actors in society and how their involvement in partisan politics undermines their role as peacebuilders. Informed by theoretical underpinnings on the concepts of peace, peacebuilding and religious peacebuilding the author defines the expected character of religious leaders that would qualify them as strategic peace actors.
94. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Joleen Steyn Kotze In Search of Justice: African and Western Approaches to Transitional Justice
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The early 1990s saw an increase in conflict in Africa and increasingly brutal tactics of war ranging from using rape as a weapon of war to the amputation oflimbs of citizens. By 2006 nearly half of all high-intensity conflicts were fought on the African continent. In many cases, fragile peace had been achieved in countries that saw some of the most brutal actions of war and experienced the most horrific human rights abuses. These societies embarked on processes ofpost-conflict reconstruction and the search for sustainable peace through national reconciliation and forgiveness in the hope of creating sustainable peace and democracy. This article seeks to engage the notions that underpin Western or retributive justice and African or restorative notions of justice in achieving democratic durability in a post-conflict society. It is premised on the argument that sustainable peace in Africa can only be achieved with a creative mixture ofboth Western and African approaches to transitional justice.
95. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 20 > Issue: 2
Laura A. Young, Jennifer Prestholdt Refugee Participation in Peacebuilding: The case of Liberian refugee participation in the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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Through examination of a case study of Liberian refugee participation in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, this article highlights concerns about the lack of opportunity for refugee participation in peacebuilding generally. The experience of the authors working with refugees in the Buduburam Settlement near Accra, Ghana, demonstrates the overwhelming desire of refugees to participate in the processes that directly impact their lives, as well as the future of their home and host countries. The article concludes with the suggestion that the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work with refugees can serve as a model of how refugee participation can be enhanced in similar processes in the future.
96. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 21 > Issue: 1
Andrew J. Pierce Formal Democracy, Structural Violence, and the Possibility of “Perpetual Peace”
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In this paper, I revisit and evaluate Kant’s prerequisites for “perpetual peace,” including the claim, central to contemporary political rhetoric, that formal democracy produces peace. I argue that formal democracy alone is insufficient to address the kinds of deep-rooted structural violence that ultimately manifest interrorism and other forms of direct violence. I claim that the attempt to eliminate structural violence, and so achieve real “perpetual peace,” requires a moresubstantive sort of democracy, of which the United States and the West remain poor examples. It requires a political critique that goes deeper than just thecritique of state power and government action. This paper tries to develop that critique through a conception of structural violence, and of participatory parity asan overarching standard of redress for this type of violence in all of its forms.
97. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 21 > Issue: 1
Laurie Brands Gagne The Narrative Approach to Teaching Peace and Justice
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The narrative approach to teaching Peace and Justice attempts to address the division between activists and church-goers that is often found on Catholiccampuses. The former, who advocate for social change, tend to regard religious faith as self-serving, while the latter, who emphasize community service, tend toregard activism as “radical.” By studying the life-stories of individuals whose contributions to the struggle for justice reflect the unfolding of a spiritual journey, students come to see that religious faith can be integral to a life dedicated to social change. Barack Obama’s autobiography exemplifies the youth’s journey to self-acceptance which the theologian John Dunne identifies as the second of the four great tasks of an individual’s life. The stages of this journey involve breaking free of narcissism and what theologian Miroslav Volf calls “embracing” the other.
98. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 21 > Issue: 1
Angela Johnson, Lin Muilenburg, Katy Arnett, Lois Thomas Stover Combating Symbolic Violence in Public Schools
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A decent education is a basic human right. The provision of free, compulsory education in the US attests to a national commitment to this right. However, thecurrent school system is plagued by inequities, including spending less money on schools serving predominantly poor and non-White populations, subjectingstudents of color to harsher punishments, putting non-White students in special education tracks at higher rates, and neglecting students who are not fluent inEnglish. These inequities are taken for granted within the school system, making the inevitable outcome, achievement gaps between White and non-Whitestudents, seem natural and inevitable. Bourdieu calls this process of making arbitrary differences seem natural “symbolic violence.” Two recent federalinterventions, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, have the potential to provide tools for combating this symbolic violence. However, each is designedaround flawed premises which inhibit that potential, which we explore in the context of teacher education.
99. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 21 > Issue: 1
Maureen H. O’Connell Jus Ante Bellum: Faith-Based Diplomacy and Catholic Traditions on War and Peace
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Several aspects of our post-9/11 reality challenge the relevance, practicality, and international viability of the two primary trajectories of the Christian tradition on war and peace (just war theory and pacifism): the rise of strong religion around the world, the privatization of first-world faith, and an American preference for autonomous reason. This article proposes “faith-based diplomacy” as a constructive middle or third way between what have become dichotomous Christian responses to war and violent conflict, and a response that attends to the challenges of our post-9/11 “signs of the times.” After reviewing recent developments in each trajectory, I suggest that faith-based diplomacy cultivates a series of intentional dispositions and actions that foster peace and seek justice even in the absence of armed conflict. It offers a model of “justice before war” or jus ante bellum that complements the growing edges of both the just war theory and peacemaking by offering several as yet unexplored dispositions and commitments necessary for effective responses to violent conflict.
100. Journal for Peace and Justice Studies: Volume > 23 > Issue: 2
Aili Bresnahan Censorship as Catalyst for Artistic Innovation
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One kind of government-supported censorship of the arts targets not the expressive content of any particular artwork but instead seeks to suppress the activity of a group of people based on some feature of the group’s human identity such as race, gender or class. Using examples from the history of the development of black music in the United States that followed from the legal oppression of slavery and from evidence of changes in the Punjabi theatre in Pakistan following state-sanctioned suppressions of women this paper demonstrates that human-identity-related arts censorship not only harms but can actually serve to spur and enhance, rather than suppress, artistic innovation.