Masters of Peace – serie

Sophie Friedel explores the action of skateboarding in her book as a way to escape cycles of despair, not only in war torn environments and regions affected by poverty. The author critically reflects on her involvements of teaching skateboarding in Afghanistan within the context of youth empowerment and peace work. By way of personal experiences, Friedel illustrates how skateboarding can be understood as an elicitive approach to peace work and conflict transformation that unfolds the extraordinary human potential inherent to all of us.

Adham Hamed explores how a metaphoric understanding of the Middle East as an open space full of resonating sound bodies can be applied to the Middle East Conflict. Through inquiring into the experienced truths of large-scale political violence, the author suggests that music carries a potential for speaking ‘unspeakable’ truths. He explores hidden layers by applying the transrational approach to peace studies and proposes a non-territorial understanding of conflict. Hamed argues that security and justice discourses make up the dominant primary themes in this context. The Jerusalem Youth Chorus and the Egyptian band Eskenderella are examined as case studies. This book uncovers where their truths meet within and beyond the restrictions of formalized language. The author concludes that in moments of experienced resonance there is potential for change in the dynamics of rigid conflicts.

Morten Frederiksen explores Carl Gustav Jung’s elusive notion of synchronicity from a transrational perspective and relates synchronicity to the transpersonality of the "All-One". This is done by expanding the content and meaning of Wolfgang Dietrich´s layers of Elicitive Conflict Mapping (ECM) through re-relating them to Ken Wilber´s model of the structures of consciousness; with synchronicity as the literal connecting principle. The result, then, is an expanded notion of the transrational peace philosophy which includes Wilber´s model of stages shorn of its evolutionary slant and fathoms synchronicity in its theoretical outlook and practical application.

Heela Najibullah analyzes the Afghan reconciliation processes through the lenses of transrational peace philosophy and Elicitive Conflict Transformation. The research highlights two Afghan governments reconciliation processes in 1986 and 2010 and underlines the political events that shaped the 1986 National Reconciliation Policy, drawing lessons for future processes. The author points out the historical and geopolitical patterns indicating regional and global stakeholders involvement in Afghan politics. Social healing through a middle-out approach is the missing and yet crucial component to achieve sustainable reconciliation in Afghanistan

Jennie Helene Sandstad brings together theoretical concepts and personal stories in an exploration of trauma, and studies how breathing meditation can be a tool for peace work. Through the lenses of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology as well as Elicitive Conflict Transformation, this work provides useful insights into transrational methods and explores why practicing self-awareness is fundamental to Elicitive Conflict Transformation. As the author engages with her own traumas and emotional wounds, the reader will undoubtedly be part of, and co-explore a journey towards healing.

Marcella Rowek explores the paradigm of Deep Democracy and its potential to transform polarized conflicts in the context of the current refugee situation in Europe. Her approach to peace work and research is embedded in the Innsbruck School of Peace Studies’ philosophy of Transrational Peaces and Lederach’s Elicitive Conflict Transformation. At the heart of a deeply democratic attitude is the idea that all perspectives, experiences, feelings, body sensations and awareness levels of the conflicting parties have to be acknowledged and consciously worked with. Only then conflict transformation processes can unfold. This is linked to a systemic and transpersonal perspective, which assumes that not a single person, event or group triggers a conflict, but that it is systemically co-created.

This book posits that the ‘refugee crisis’ may actually be a crisis of identity in a rapidly changing world. It argues that Western conceptions of the individual ‘Self’ shape metaphors of political homes, and thus the geopolitics of belonging and exclusion. Metzger-Traber creatively re-conceives political belonging by perceiving the interconnection of each ‘Self’ through its most immediate home – the breathing body. On an experimental literary journey through her own past and that of Germany, she puts political philosophy in conversation with somatic and spiritual insight to expand notions of ‘Self’ and 'Home'. Then she asks: What ethical imperatives arise? What kinds of homes and homelands would we create if we no longer thought we ended at our skin?