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Article
Alternative Perspectives on Conflict History: On the Methodology of Peace Education and Dialogue
Waseda Journal of Law (2012)
  • Tatsushi Arai, SIT Graduate Institute
Abstract

This essay, written in Japanese, is an attempt to construct an integrated framework for analyzing and engaging multi-faceted meanings of history that correspond to different communal experiences of social conflict. The concept of conflict history is introduced to describe a worldview of a conflict party in search of a coherent explanation of the conflict’s origin, evolution, and significance. Four interconnected approaches to conflict history – orthodox, different, mediative, and alternative – are explored to link the factual to the counterfactual, the manifest to the potential in an attempt to expand the scope of historical inquiry. This exercise of theory-building draws on the author’s applied practice in conflict resolution dialogues on US-Pakistan relations, as well as on the Taiwan Strait. It examines working hypotheses emerging from his field experience from sociological, psychoanalytic, and other social scientific perspectives. (An English version forthcoming.)

Keywords
  • conflict,
  • peace,
  • history,
  • identity,
  • experiential learning,
  • Taiwan,
  • China,
  • Pakistan
Publication Date
2012
Citation Information
Tatsushi Arai. "Alternative Perspectives on Conflict History: On the Methodology of Peace Education and Dialogue" Waseda Journal of Law Vol. 87 Iss. no. 3. (2012)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/tatsushi_arai/4/