Thesiss

Libya is in a state of transition following the Arab Spring revolution of 2011. Because Muammar Al-Gaddafi’s dictatorship imposed structural violence, direct violence, and cultural violence, causing many injustices and human rights violations, as well as the violent nature of th…

This dissertation seeks to understand the role of women as political actors in the rise of Islamo-nationalist movement in Palestine. Using a historical and ethnographic approach, it examines the changing opportunity structures available to Palestinian women in the nationalist st…

This research answers three questions: What is peacemaking in contemporary times; what role do women play in this peacemaking; how can the occurrence of peacemaking be fully recognized and sustained in today's society? An extensive literature review of women peacemakers expands …

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between adult participants' ratings of their mother's and father's parenting styles and participants' levels of nonviolence in adulthood. Utilizing Baumrind's (1971) typology of authoritarian, authoritative and permissive…

This thesis starts from the premise that Geopolitics is performative, an iterative discourse “of visualising global space…reproduced in the governing principles of geographic thought and through the practices of statecraft” (Agnew 1998:11). During the last decade, two dominant d…

By examining Gandhi as a political organiser it may be possible to bridge the gap between two interpretations of his importance -- one which focuses on his propagation of nonviolence "as a way of life", the other- which treats him as a pioneer in the use of nonviolence "as a con…

This thesis examines the Women in Peacebuilding Program (WIPNET) of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) and the Raging Grannies, two current women’s movements at the frontlines of organizing for peace in their respective contexts. Based on fieldwork in West Africa …

This study examines the phenomenon of nonviolent resistance in the West Bank during and after the second intifada. The primary research question asks, to what extent does a space exist for the (re)emergence of a popular nonviolent movement in the post-Oslo context? Specifically,…

This dissertation explores whether and how the bounding practices of Israeli and Palestinian groups working nonviolently towards a "just and lasting peace" (even in times of armed conflict) shape 'group' and 'individual' identities that differ from 'official' zero-sum Self-Other…

The eruption of highly contagious conflicts in post-Soviet Eurasia necessitates urgency in monitoring events in terms of regional and international security as well as for conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy. Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, home to the Russian Black Sea Fl…

This dissertation focuses on compassion as a moral orientation and philosophical worldview. It argues that the compassionate worldview can be a moral compass for the modern age, in contrast with authoritarian conservatism and postmodern relativism. The dissertation includes an e…

This dissertation is an ethnographic investigation of political culture and contemporary activism in Palestine. I illustrate the entangled processes that enabled the discourse of nonviolence to flourish in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) in the last ten years. I part…

In der deutschen Sprache sind die Begriffe „Opfer“ und „Suendenbock“ doppeldeutig, was in anthropologischen Theorien ueber Ursachen von Gewalt und Krieg dazu gefuehrt hat, dass Loesungen im paedagogischen und politischen Kontext unauffindbar waren, um Gewalt und Krieg zu beenden…

This practice-led research focuses on the relationship between power and the exercise of speech. It considers connections between silence and the body that form a space where vulnerability and social injustice become manifest. It examines these through ideas of muteness.

Just war or pacifism? The just war tradition has enjoyed a near monopoly within the Christian moral tradition. However, in recent decades pacifism has emerged as a serious contender within the Christian moral tradition. Both of these traditions cannot be right, but how do we cho…

When we think of nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century, we tend to reflect on Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. We honor these figures because they were exceptional: radical theologians who changed the world through their faith-based insistence on absolute nonv…

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion. It is known to have an abundant and very rich amount of knowledge found in the Qur'an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, and as such, this religion has tremendously contributed not only to Muslim societies but also to the West. …

In this thesis, I probe into the ways in which the much-debated word Jihad lends itself to multifarious meanings within the Mourid Sufi Order and examine the foundations of the principles of peace and non-violence that informed the relationships between Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, the…

Religiously based nonviolence varies in motive, intent and interpretation. John Howard Yoder outlines a variety of religious nonviolence in his book Nevertheless. Muslim nonviolence is not addressed in the book. Identifying a distinctly Muslim understanding of nonviolence requir…

This dissertation argues that Gandhian nonviolence (satyagraha ) only took root in the American pacifist community after a process of adaptation and modification. Reflecting their background in Social Gospel Christianity and progressivism, pacifists were initially reluctant to a…