A just peaceful world. How can that be achieved? What sorts of relationships might be needed? Could the concept of friendship assist? Assembling the work of twenty scholars, this book creates a resource for those aiming to deal with conflict non-violently and promotes peaceful attitudes and outcomes in a troubled world.
The book posits that making the connections between Friendship, Peace and Social Justice is vital for living in a functioning and sustainable world. Firstly, it makes connections between scholars of peace and conflict studies, friendship studies, ethics, and social justice. Secondly, it explores the connections between the ethical concepts and practices of friendship, peace, and social justice. Thirdly, it links academic researchers who use a variety of methodological approaches. Fourthly, it provides different academic perspectives of scholars from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The topics covered include civic, social and virtue friendship, peace and psycho-social development, the role of social media and friendship, cultures of peace activism, resistance, justice movements, environmental campaigns, community building, art collectives, dialogue, facilitative listening, Ubuntu, reconciliation, healing and relationship building.
This book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars in Politics, Sociology, Social Justice and Peace and Conflict Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Peace Review.
Introduction: Exploring Friendship, Peace and Social Justice
Heather Devere
PART 1: Social Justice and Political/Social/Civic/Adaptive Friendship
1. Social Justice, Social Friendship, and the Role of Trust as an Other-Oriented Emotion
Ana Romero-Iribas and Andrea Oelsner
2. Civic Friendship as a Remedy for the Cult of Mediocrity
Komlan Agbedahin
3. Friends with Benefits (and Sometimes Costs)
Tom H. Hastings
4. Chinese-Tanzanian Friendship and Friendship Treaties
Amy E. Stambach
PART II: Friendship as a Peace Practice
5. Building Peace through Facebook Friendship Groups
Lisa Gibson
6. Inquiry as Practice: Building Relationships through Listening in Participatory Action Peace Research
Raymond Hyma and Le Sen
7. The Art of Friendship: Solidifying Resettled Communities in Philadelphia
Katie L. Price and Yaroub Al-Obaidi
PART III: Friendship, Ethics and Justice
8. Solidarity without Borders: Friendship, the Arts, and Social Movements
Shelly Clay-Robison
9. Cultivating Virtuous Friendship as a Model for Teaching Peace Positively
Josu Ahedo
10. Toward an Ethic of Friendship in Academic Research: A Reflection on Rwanda and Survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi
Noam Schimmel
PART IV: The Psychology of Friendship for Peace
11. First Friendships: Foundations for Peace
Darcia Narvaez
12. Neurobiology of Social Capacities: The Building Blocks of Friendship
Mary S. Tarsha
PART V: Economic Justice and Friendship
13. The Cost of Political Differences to the Peace of Friendship
Zaldy C. Collado
14. The Market as a Space for Building a Peaceful Society
Christopher J. Coyne, Michael R. Romero and Virgil Henry Storr
Conclusion: Connecting Friendship, Peace and Social Justice
Heather Devere
Biography
Heather Devere is Former Director of Practice of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The politics of friendship has been the thread connecting her work on peace and gender studies, social justice and ethics. She is founding co-editor of AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies.