Description
Mobilising Shared Strengths for Collective Peacebuilding with Newcomers
Maureen K Porter (Associate Professor of Social and Comparative Analysis of Education (SCAE) at the University of Pittsburgh, USA), Norbert Frieters-Reerman (Professor at the Catholic University of Aachen (KatHO), Germany), Stephanie Langley (Programme Leader of the MSc in Social Work at the University of Winchester, UK), Susan Dawkins (PhD candidate in the Social and Comparative Analysis of Education (SCAE) at the University of Pittsburgh, USA) & Anke Reerman (Diocesan Coordinator of the initiatives of Mission, a Pontificial Mission Society and with World Church issues)
Peace is not simply the absence of violence, oppression, and marginalisation. Building peaceful spaces requires an integrative, culturally affirming response. Such a proactive approach is particularly pressing when designing welcoming and trauma-healing institutional support systems for new immigrants and refugees.
This transdisciplinary, trans-Atlantic approach to the praxis of peace combines an analysis of Galtung’s (1990) personal, structural, and cultural forms of violence, along with Cobb’s narrative violence (2013) with Yosso’s (2005) theory of community cultural wealth.
Highlighting examples from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this critique shows how multi-layered, asset-based theories can counter the pernicious deficit-based frames underlying neoliberal constructs and conventions.
Focusing on institutional, individual, community, and caregiver levels, this paper offers on-the-ground accounts of the work of universities, nongovernmental agencies, and educators who can widen our repertoire of effective strategies for mobilising the shared strengths necessary for collective peacebuilding.
