positive peacemaking

POSITIVE PEACEMAKING

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com

January 5, 2013

Proposed Abstract for chapter in Natti Ronel and Dana Segev, Positive Criminology

                The title of this chapter is a play on words in a seminal work by Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung:  “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research (1969), 6 (2), 167-191.  There Galtung distinguishes “negative peace”—stopping personal violence—from “positive peace”—transforming violent social conditions such as economic inequality.  Here I apply the distinction to criminology.  I describe a journey through criminologically-centered  inquiry and practice that has led me to abandon the study and prevention of crime and criminality, in favor of learning how to build trust and security in the face of social threats—a process of learning and action I call “peacemaking.”  “Peacemaking” turns out to be the same process avowedly Buddhist psychotherapists call “relational” or “intersubjective mindfulness.”  This chapter illustrates how the practice applies and works across levels of violence from interpersonal to global levels, with a focus on responding to “the crime problem.”