Curriculum

Core Course 4: Choose 2 of the following course:

Dialogue and mediation skills that are particularly designed for work in the field of intercommunal conflict. A practitioner who is skilled in such work at both local and international levels will teach this course. The course addresses the development and current state of the theories that inform the practice of mediation and intercommunal dialogue work. Participants develop their skills to foster dialogue with individuals, groups and institutions on difficult and contentious issues. It also assists the development of mediation skills that can help participants to reach consensus among parties with divergent interests and objectives in group, community and international disputes.

This course is strongly suggested as an elective for students who do not have substantial practical experience in this area, or who have not already undertaken an equivalent theory and skills learning course.

A comparative study of the sources and character of interethnic conflict. This course has a particular emphasis on the processes by which groups become politicized, and also the strategies and techniques for managing conflict in a democratic system.

The methodology used will be mainly comparative and international case study analysis.

Case studies will be drawn from Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe, Canada, the Basque country, the Balkans, India, and Africa.

The purpose of this class is to increase the knowledge and skills of students undertaking development and aid work in situations of conflict. Such work can either increase the tensions within divided societies, or be undertaken in such a way that the work can increase intercommunal equity, understanding and cooperation. Students will learn about the debates that have been taking place between the development, aid, and coexistence institutions about how to develop best practice in developmental and disaster situations in conflicted societies. They will examine how aid can play into a divisive politics of distribution and inequities, can be controlled by and used by particular groups to the exclusion of others, can be seen to assist political or military agendas, and can become part of the economy of war, thus making conflicts more difficult to resolve.

They will explore issues of programming, neutrality, human rights and humanitarian law. They will also increase their skills in the creation of programs that can address both development and aid necessities, while simultaneously contributing to coexistence needs in divided societies.

This course was developed in response to the needs of COEX students to address issues of policymaking in coexistence work. Managing intercommunal conflict and violence is critical to national and international security in today’s world as societies are becoming more diverse, and many more countries are facing ethnic, religious, cultural, and social conflicts. The globalization of such conflicts is also increasing. There is a therefore a crucial need to bring greater understanding and professional expertise to bear upon the challenges posed to policy makers by issues of diversity and coexistence. While existing coexistence programs touch upon the necessary policy implications of coexistence work, their scope is inevitably limited. This course will address this limitation for those who are particularly interested in coexistence policy work, and its intersection both nationally and internationally with gender, class, religious and race work on issues of equality and coexistence. It will also address the importance of intercultural awareness and cross cultural communication and the fast-changing contexts of diversity work, which are simultaneously tending both towards greater salience of identity, and, in some situations, towards greater interconnectedness and integration.