Introduction

Through an integrative review of literature (Torraco 2016), this paper argues for a decolonial praxis in critical peace education. The integrative review method involves categorising information on a specific area of study to create new knowledge emerging from the existing literature. It is conducted here in an attempt to explore two main critical questions. The first one is posed by Andreotti (2011). Andreotti asks how we can re-orient depoliticised projects of peace education that focus on individual conflict resolution skills toward a decolonial understanding of the political interests of Euro-centric paradigms that are excessively prevalent in peace education knowledge and learning.Footnote 1 The second question revolves around the extent to which the field of peace education focuses on enlightening the privileged on their role and relative power in working for global peace. Rather than providing definite answers to these questions, we aim to critically unpack the relevant literature, draw connections and open new avenues of inquiry. By doing so, we hope to augment understanding of the relevant theoretical debates in the field.

We share the following two anecdotes to illustrate some of our concerns at the outset. First, we were reading about some peace education practices when we came across research conducted and published by an international peace-building organisation that operates programs around the world to address conflict. Although we admire the work of this organisation in general, we struggle not to feel vexed when we read titles such as, “Why young Syrians choose to fight—Vulnerability and resilience to recruitment by violent extremist groups in Syria.” In the study, the authors list four drivers of recruitment, all restricted to internal factors while obscuring and turning a blind eye to the macro geo-political context and the involvement of regional and global powers in the conflict. What makes us feel uncomfortable is that this organisation seems to be unaware of the effects of the narrow focus of their research and the language they are using on re-articulating stereotypes of the Global South as a hub of violence (Ferguson 2006; Kurian and Kester 2019; Mahadeo and McKinney 2007).

Furthermore, on 22 November 2018 the two verified Facebook pages of DFID and the UK Government published a post about “The UK supplying vital aid to people in need in Yemen.” While we question why this is labelled as ‘aid’ when the UK is the second-largest exporter of arms to Saudi Arabia that is leading the war against Yemen and guilty of serious breaches of international humanitarian law, we find the comments of the English public more disturbing. Almost half of the comments were along the following lines: “Charity starts at home”; “How many homeless people on the streets of the UK”; and “Get your priorities right UK.” Interesting here is to find that the term ‘sanctioned ignorance’ (Spivak 2003) accurately captures this situation where some of the English public appear to believe that they are being charitable when sending ‘aid’ to Yemen while being ignorant of the complicity of their own government in the production of chaos there and their political and causal responsibility to rectify it (Dobson 2006; Andreotti 2014).

Then, to achieve the purpose of this paper, we first present a brief synthesis of literature on peace and peace education. Next, we explore the distinct literature on critical peace education (CPE), a concept and practice that has emerged in response to several earlier critiques of the broader field of peace education (Bajaj 2008; Trifonas and Wright 2013). Following this, we unpack some of the arguments that examine the connections between CPE and cosmopolitanism. After discussing some suggestions in the field to avoid ‘naïve cosmopolitanism’, we explore the contributions of postcolonial and decolonial thought and how each could help toward decolonising approaches in peace education (Kester et al. 2019a, b; Williams 2017; Zembylas 2018). Before concluding, we engage in a conversation with the related literature on global citizenship education and explore some calls for a distinct pedagogy for the privileged. We turn now to introducing peace and peace education.

Peace and Peace Education

The definition of peace is contested. This is due in part to how the philosophical concept varies according to different contexts and cultures (Dietrich 2012). Although moral concepts of peace are primarily related to issues of war, conflict, and justice, some paradigms instead focus on the psychological distinctions between inner and outer peace. They use embodied and spiritual modalities to experience the links between the psychosocial, socioemotional, and sociopolitical worlds (Toh 2004). A recognition of the complex nature of various forms of ontological and epistemological peaces seems to be amongst the most notable contributions to the field today (Cremin 2016). This onto-epistemological diversity has been articulated by Bevington et al. (2018), Denzin and Lincoln (2000), and Zembylas (2018), among others. Bevington et al. (2018), for instance, argue for “a nuanced understanding of the plurality of peace” (5). Hence, it is important to recognise that the work for peace and peace education is necessarily contextually diverse and relevant (Zembylas and Bekerman 2013).

Johan Galtung is widely recognised as a founder of the academic field of peace studies (Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016; Galtung and Fischer 2013). Galtung’s key concepts include positive and negative peace, and direct, structural and cultural violence (Galtung 1969, 1990). His analytical concepts are influential because they assist analysts and policymakers in distinguishing between peace processes and outcomes. For example, while achieving negative peace depends upon abating direct violence, reaching positive peace is much more difficult because it requires mitigating the cultural and structural factors that underscore and contribute to direct violence (Harris 2004). Cultural violence includes biased norms and social practices while structural violence refers to unjust laws and institutional policies. Without addressing the underlying cultures and structures that support direct violence, war and violent conflict will remain at best dormant and likely eventually reemerge.

Also, Brock-Utne (1989) identified another form of violence. She used the term ‘organised violence’ to refer to situations where the government is involved in causing violence or aware of it but neglecting their duties to address it. Additionally, Kester and Cremin (2017) identified a fourth type of violence that occurs at the level of the field. They used the term ‘post-structural violence’ to refer to the situation when “well-intentioned actors in the field find themselves complicit in furthering the very violence that they seek to mitigate” (1418). Key within post-structural violence is the agency and responsibility of the peace actor. In response, Kester and Cremin (2017) call for ‘second order reflexivity’, which is reflecting on the field “as operationalised through empirical and theoretical investigation” to examine ways in which the field “reproduces and perpetuates violence” (1419).

In essence, peace and peace education is concerned with creating structures that facilitate building a just and equitable world through increasing tolerance, reducing prejudice, and changing perceptions of the self and others (Bar-Tal 2002). However, despite its philosophies of love, compassion, and nonviolence, traditional peace education has been criticised for over-emphasizing psychosocial and technocratic peaces, that is, enhancing an individual’s conflict capacities without addressing broader social issues, such as gender equity, human dignity, and political division (Diaz-Soto 2005). It has been argued that a simplistic application of peace education ideas and practices could perpetuate the social ills they are attempting to address (Cremin 2016; Gur-Ze’ev 2001; Kester 2017; Wessells 2012). Therefore, there have been calls to problematise theory and praxis in the field and to set the grounds for CPE that attends to power relations, empowers individuals, enables voices to be heard, and boosts the participation and agency of the marginalised (Bajaj 2008; Brantmeier 2011; Diaz-Soto 2005; Hantzopoulos 2011; Reardon and Snauwaert 2015; Trifonas and Wright 2013). We turn now to examine the literature on CPE, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonial and decolonial thought.

Critical Peace Education (CPE)

Peace scholars have drawn on other fields like critical pedagogy (Giroux 2003; McLaren 2003) to develop a theoretical foundation for CPE (Bajaj 2008; Bajaj and Brantmeier 2011; Trifonas and Wright 2013; Zembylas and Bekerman 2013). Primarily, CPE seeks to disrupt asymmetrical power relationships and unpack their political, economic, social and historical roots (Bajaj 2015). It offers individuals a deeper understanding of the forces that affect their lives and stimulates them to respond at both a micro and macro level (Bajaj 2008). In addition to critical pedagogy, philosophies of social transformation have greatly contributed to the development of CPE. Main contributions here come from Reardon (2009, 2012), Snauwaert (2011), and Reardon and Snauwaert (2015) who argue that peace education should equip people to think critically about their reality and develop their capacities to work toward transforming the global order and changing the reality of a presently unjust and violent world.

Other scholars stress that for CPE to be genuine, it must be cosmopolitan and mindful of the other (Wright 2013). Therefore, there has been a focus on highlighting the interconnectedness of all life and promoting international and intercultural understanding to challenge global inequalities (Brantmeier 2013; Lum 2013). Reardon and Snauwaert (2015) emphasise the importance of working toward developing a sense of responsibility and pluralism that are key concepts if we are seeking to achieve an equitable, peaceful and viable global society. At the same time, CPE opposes the universalisation of Western-centric perspectives (Bajaj 2015; Brantmeier and Bajaj 2013; Kester et al. 2019a, b) and emphasises the importance of local meaning-making, different personal experiences, comparative dialogue, transformative agencies, and participatory citizenship. Amongst the most cited conceptual resources for CPE is Freirean theory (Freire 1970) and critical pedagogy (Giroux 2003; McLaren 2003). Yet, these conceptual resources have also been critiqued from scholars who view them as operating within a Eurocentric modernist framework (Bartlett 2005; Hantzopoulos 2015; Zembylas 2013). For example, Deutscher and Lafont (2017) argue that critical theory has failed to counter its Eurocentric heritage. Some other scholars challenge Freirean assumptions that are grounded in liberal notions of rationality (Ellsworth 1989; Gore 1992). Such assumptions value reason and rational dialogue as a means toward transformation and emancipation while failing to attend to the unequal power relations operating in the background, such as the subjugation of non-rational ways of knowing/being. Hence, at the core of the field is a discourse of secular ethics and international standards. This discourse is primarily based on European notions of cosmopolitanism grounded in the centre of European power and privilege and where Western theory is the benchmark against which other perspectives are considered (Connell 2007; Kester 2017). In this sense, Choules (2007) and McConaghy (2000) highlight how an uncritical application of Freirean pedagogy could create a learning environment that further contributes to injustice by reproducing repressive ideologies and oppressive relations. To explore the connections between peace education, CPE, and cosmopolitanism, the following sections unpack and critique the relevant literature.

Peace Education and Cosmopolitanism

A crucial debate in the discourse of cosmopolitanism within peace education is the role of universalism and whether reaching a singular truth should be the aim of the dialogue between different perspectives (Golding 2017). Reardon questions whether it is necessary to reach a consensus on a philosophy that offers a unified definition of justice and peace (Reardon and Snauwaert 2011). Despite this, secular cosmopolitan ethics have been applied by Reardon and Snauwaert (2011, 2015) and Reardon (2012), and have become central to the existing practice of peace education. Starting from the premise that peace education is about educating for responsible global citizenship, Reardon (2012) suggests that “educating toward political efficacy” should be the main task of peace education. She adds that human rights are integral and essential to peace education and that “the efficacy of education for humane and positive social and political purposes is most likely determined by the internalization of values and world views that should complement the acquisition of knowledge and skills relevant to the realization of human rights” (147). Within this framework, political efficacy is grounded in the framework of cosmopolitanism that according to Reardon best articulates the goals of the field of peace education. It is worth noting that Reardon is keenly aware of the roots of secular cosmopolitan ethics that can be traced back to generations of Western political thought and that resulted in Western institutions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, she argues that recognising the geographic and historical specificity of cosmopolitanism does not negate its global relevance. She maintains that peace education is in need of the secular ethics of Kantian Cosmopolitanism, but it is essential to be vigilant about and critically aware of its colonial history and imperial dimension. A similar argument that goes in line with this relates to the impact of modernist/post-modernist thinking on the field. Echoing Reardon’s logic, Cremin (2018) posits that modernist views of peace are necessary but not sufficient. Although considering rationality and security is valuable for peace education, there is still a need for deconstructing the ‘grand narratives’ of modernity (Cremin and Archer 2018). Therefore, both modernity and post-modernity exist in a creative and dynamic balance in the research and praxis of peace and peace education (Cremin 2018). Within the frame of this co-existence, “space is both shrunk to the local and contextual, and expanded to the global and universal” (Cremin and Archer 2018, 292). In other words, working toward peace necessitates a proper diagnosis of the social, political and cultural position of the targeted context in relation to the global cartography. Mendieta (2009) expresses this as a need to avoid ‘naive cosmopolitanism’ that results in the reproduction of colonial and imperial power.

‘Naïve Cosmopolitanism’, Postcolonialism and Decolonial Thinking

Apel (1997) attempted to overcome the limitations of cosmopolitanism by thinking “with Kant against Kant” (87). In a similar vein, other social theorists have explored forms of critical cosmopolitanism (Bhabha 2004; Delanty 2006; Gidwani 2006; Mignolo 2000). Critical cosmopolitanism aims to develop a post-universalist vision and to open up spaces for dialogue, hence referred to as dialogical cosmopolitanism. Golding (2017) critically engaged in evaluating the theoretical limitations and historical location of cosmopolitanism. Given that the historical and theoretical roots of cosmopolitanism are linked to colonialism and imperialism, Zembylas (2018) argues critically that CPE needs to engage more postcolonial and decolonial thinking to challenge its theoretical assumptions of research and practice and to seek alternative ways of renewing it. The following brings in insights from postcolonial and decolonial thinking.

From a postcolonial and decolonial perspective, education is one component of a global exploitative economic system formed by colonialism and neoliberal globalisation (Hickling-Hudson 2009). A postcolonial and decolonial critique seeks alternatives to supremacist ideologies well-established in Western education and social research, and perceives colonialism as a “persistent political reality and a dominant epistemological frame driven by Eurocentric thinking” (Zembylas 2018, 11). In Southern Theory, Connell (2007) unpacks hidden geopolitical assumptions and relations in Northern social theory and patterns of knowledge production. According to Connell, in order to understand these asymmetries, scholars and practitioners need to understand the world of colonialism and neoliberal globalisation that has brought them into existence (Connell 2014). We will now turn to explore the commonalities and differences between CPE and postcolonial and decolonial thought. Afterwards, we examine cosmopolitanism from the perspective of postcolonial and decolonial thinking before critiquing the concept of structural violence.

CPE, Postcolonialism and Decolonial Thinking

Zembylas (2018) highlights some common goals between CPE and postcolonial and decolonial thinking. Both CPE and postcolonial and decolonial thinking focus on issues of structural inequalities and seek to equip students with a sense of transformative agency to create new epistemic, social, and political structures that advance social justice and peace (Bajaj 2015; Zembylas 2018). However, postcolonial and decolonial thinking, unlike CPE, highlight that modernity and coloniality are greatly responsible for this structural inequality (Zakharia 2017). Therefore, postcolonial and decolonial critiques of CPE focus on the latter’s silence on the consequences of coloniality and on anti-imperialist resistance. Also, a postcolonial and decolonial frame for CPE should problematize unified notions of peace and peace education and allow space for considering particular praxes of peace education that take into account structures of domination and violence. While examining the connections between postcolonial theory and CPE, Shirazi (2011) argues that, “we must be vigilant to avoid ascribing a universal emancipatory promise to educational interventions that ‘disembody the subject from his/her social and political settings’” (280).

Embracing postcolonial and decolonial thinking, thus, assists peace educators to work toward decolonising approaches in peace education (Kester et al. 2019a, b; Williams 2017; Wintersteiner 2019). This would address some of the earlier critiques of Freirean theory (Zembylas 2018). While a Freirean perspective may imply that colonialism is an irrelevant past project or an unimportant unit of analysis, a postcolonial and decolonial CPE is attentive to the epistemic and political nuances of coloniality and would put colonialism at the centre of the intervention (Tuck and Yang 2012). In other words, while Freire’s work suggests that the work of liberation lies in the minds of the oppressed, decolonial projects hold structures of colonisation as the starting point toward liberation. Furthermore, decolonial perspectives require peace education practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers to contextualize knowledge beyond Eurocentric perspectives, and to reflect on the local historical and political legacies that shape peace education praxis (Shirazi 2011; Zakharia 2017). This would assist peace educators to transcend the binaries of the coloniser/colonised, oppressor/oppressed, and individual/social transformation.

Cosmopolitanism, Postcolonialism and Decolonial Thinking

Mignolo (2000, 2009) and Golding (2017) have explored border cosmopolitanism, a form of critical cosmopolitanism that potentially offers CPE a new dialogical framework. Border cosmopolitanism critically reconceptualises cosmopolitanism from the perspective of coloniality. It is post-universalistic in the sense that it replaces universalism as the aim of cosmopolitanism and instead promotes “diversity as a universal project (diversality)” (Golding 2017, 162). Border cosmopolitanism changes the cosmopolitan question, “How can cultural differences be accounted for in global civil society” into the question “How are colonial differences reproduced and incorporated into global society?” (Golding 2017, 162). While the first question assumes that cultural differences and historical processes exist independently, the second question enables a postcolonial and decolonial CPE to track down the emergence of cosmopolitanism to historical contradictions between modernity and coloniality. Also, a postcolonial and decolonial perspective offers insights to applying Reardon’s idea of universal moral inclusion in CPE where all human beings are respected for their human dignity. Within the framework of border cosmopolitanism, inclusion is no longer about technocratic processes to include everyone in multicultural cosmopolitanism but rather more about acknowledging and celebrating how people have “already included themselves in the struggle to survive and resist the coloniality of power” (Mignolo 2000, 724). In border cosmopolitanism instead of perceiving cosmopolitan ideas as universal truths they are approached as ‘connectors’ that expose shared experiences of coloniality (Mignolo 2000). In social movements, for example, human rights discourses are often connectors that communicate their own concerns to other groups around the world who are resisting oppressive global power structures. Doing so results in “a dialogue between the hegemonic values that inform secular cosmopolitan ethics, such as democracy, rights and citizenship, and local ways of knowing that have been historically subordinated to such values” (Golding 2017, 169).

Concretely speaking, within a classroom, this would begin with what students know practically then go outwards to identify broader power structures, and finally engage in a process of re-imagining social alternatives. Golding (2017), for instance, draws a distinction between border cosmopolitanism and Nussbaum’s cosmopolitan education that links the personal and the global. Nussbaum says, “Through cosmopolitan education, we learn more about ourselves” (Nussbaum 1994, as cited in Golding 2017, 170). Golding clarifies how border cosmopolitanism turns this notion on its head to be read as, “through education that is truly about ourselves, we learn more about our connections to the cosmopolitan” (ibid, 170). Golding draws on an example from Nussbaum, where students would learn “that they ought to respect the basic human rights of citizens of India, Bolivia, Nigeria, and Norway” (ibid, 171). Golding argues that such a pedagogy is relevant to students located closer to the centre of imperial power because their actions affect the disenfranchised, but he questions how this could possibly be meaningful for marginalised students in the Global South. He suggests that instead it is more empowering to address local injustices and then explore their connections to greater global structures of oppression (see also Metz’s 2019 ‘priority approach’). In effect, the overall structure proposed by Golding is to begin with local knowledge and work outwards, drawing linkages from the local to the global rather than imposing supposed universalisms on students. This has profound implications for a decolonial CPE.

Critique and New Possibilities

While we agree with Golding’s argument, we also find ourselves considering a localised example from Gaza that makes us pose further queries. Thinking about Palestinians in Gaza, we question the prudence of ‘working outwards’ or using cosmopolitan ideas as ‘connectors’. We imagine teaching students in Gaza about secular cosmopolitan ethics, human rights, and international law and encouraging them to draw connections between the local and the global. In such a complex context where Palestinians’ human rights are violated on a daily basis and their territory is occupied according to international law, and where these violations are faced with a global complicity and complete absence of any measures that hold Israel accountable, the question arises: If our aim is working toward global peace, how meaningful is it to draw connections between the local reality and secular cosmopolitan ethics in any peace education project? What are the chances that such projects could serve as a catalyst for positive change? Or could these interventions become counterproductive resulting in Palestinians (and others) developing more contempt and grudge against a world that is failing them?

In response, we argue that to tackle ‘structural violence’ in such contexts, we need first to critique the concept itself. We need to recognise that the term ‘structural violence’ is “a general abstraction that can obscure the ethical and moral dimension and the individual personal responsibility at play in this category of violence” (Reardon and Snauwaert 2015, 150). When we embrace this individual responsibility, we realise that change is more likely to happen if Palestinians communicate their concerns to individuals located closer to the ‘oppressor’ end of the spectrum, people who are in a better position to make a change if they only relate to the ‘others’ suffering. At the heart of this endeavour is a matter of ‘relatability’ and a matter of ‘solidarity’, not the projection of responsibility onto the oppressed alone—which would itself constitute a form of ‘post-structural violence’ (Kester and Cremin 2017).

A story we heard recently from a colleague in the UK significantly enhances our point. While delivering a talk for post-graduate students, our colleague chose to project some photos to elicit a discussion. The photos covered a range of topics. One of the photos was about self-harm, and one other was a war scene that includes bombing and destruction. After the end of the talk, an English lady from the audience approached our colleague and asked if she could offer advice. The lady from the audience suggested that our colleague should have warned the audience before projecting the self-harm photo. Confused as to how the photo of self-harm could be more disturbing than a photo of a war-stricken setting, our colleague reflected on this with us. Personally, we did not find this confusing. We had already realised that people in the West do not easily relate to those in the East and South. This is often not intentional though. It is rather the result of an abundance of politicised media outlets distorting the portrayal of conflict and those whom suffer, and the dismissal of the role of their countries in exacerbating global conflict, much like the two anecdotes at the beginning of this paper.

Because employing a postcolonial and decolonial perspective to reconsider cosmopolitanism is an unfinished and ongoing project, we suggest that drawing on pedagogies of resistance is vital but not sufficient. Exploring the literature of the field yields evidence that our conclusion is not unidentified. Gaztambide-Fernandez (2012), for example, highlights that decolonising the praxis of CPE implies engendering pedagogies of solidarity that transcends cultural essentialisms, and Williams (2017) writes that Trinidadian teachers’ transgressive practices that challenge the logic of coloniality in Trinidadian classes and beyond offers decolonising potentialities. Also, Zembylas (2018) talks about ‘decolonising pedagogies’ and not ‘pedagogy’ of CPE. He points out that there might be a need for different pedagogies in different socio-political times and spaces. He concludes that decolonising the praxis of CPE refers to all practices that would “force Eurocentric epistemologies to confront their coloniality with the aim of dismantling colonial practices” (ibid, 15). Expanding on Zembylas, to look for insights we also now refer to the closely related field of global citizenship education that shares similar commitments with CPE.

Global Citizenship Education

Bevington et al. (2018) and Kester (2020) have explored the ways in which the two fields of peace education and global citizenship education are interrelated, and Wintersteiner (2019) has argued that global citizenship education is integral to decolonising CPE. Together, they present alignments between the two fields and highlight that both fields are contested, share common philosophies, common goals and common interests in the issue of global justice. Having concluded that the two fields are well-positioned to learn from each other, Bevington, Cremin, Kurian, Kester and Wintersteiner invite global citizenship education to gain insights from the field of peace education, and peace education to gain insights from global citizenship education toward a comprehensive approach to globally just decolonised peace and citizenship education. Shiva et al. (2007) have also integrated citizenship education, democracy, human rights, and sustainable development literature to support school-based education for a culture of peace. Building on this work, the following section will delve further into the field of global citizenship education that we believe yields interesting insights for arguments about cosmopolitanism and de/post-coloniality in CPE.

Banks (2004a) illustrates how global citizenship education should equip students with a deep understanding of the role of their own countries in the world community and the influence of international events on their own lives. This would help students to develop cosmopolitan perspectives that are necessary toward global social justice and equality (Appiah 2006; Nussbaum 2002). Global citizenship education offers students a deep understanding of how “a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (King 1994, 2–3) and how national, regional and global matters are interrelated and constructed in a complex and dynamic web of relations (Banks 2004b; see also Jackson 2019).

Similar to CPE, scholars in the field of global citizenship education started arguing that for reform to succeed, citizenship education must be critical (DeJaeghere 2007). To achieve that, the knowledge that underlies its construction must shift from mainstream to transformative academic knowledge (Banks 2014; Schugurensky 2002). Giroux (2007), for example, asserts that critical citizenship education is a prerequisite for global justice. Empowering individuals to draw connections between their own lives and those of people in other countries should be at the centre of civic literacy. This can be done by encouraging them to critically interrogate policies that shape local and global communities, on the one hand, and the quality of their own lives on the other (Shapiro 2010). Similarly, Andreotti (2014) argues that disclosing the economic and cultural roots of inequalities in power and wealth distribution in a complex global system should be a focal issue in global citizenship education. Failing to do so would result in promoting a new ‘civilising mission’, reproducing violent power relations (Andreotti 2014), and increasing the vulnerability of the recipient (Dobson 2006). For instance, Spivak (1988) reflects on how the discourse of development is a ‘successful’ product of an ideology that holds the poor themselves accountable for their poverty while turning a blind eye to legacies of colonisation and following enforced disempowerment through policies of structural adjustments.

Global citizenship education, in turn, challenges such meritocratic ideologies that naturalises wealth and privilege while dismissing the others as deficient and incapable (Townsend-Cross 2011). Spivak (2003) draws a distinction between two complementary ways in which ‘sanctioned ignorance’ operates in education. On the one hand, it reinforces supremacy and Eurocentrism in the ‘First World’ where people end up believing that they live in the centre of the world and that they have a responsibility to ‘civilise’, ‘help’, and ‘make a difference’. On the other hand, the ‘Third World’ forgets about the imperialist project and wants to catch up with the West. Challenging this dichotomous and problematic reproduction of inequality in the social world within the educational binary is fundamental to postcolonial and decolonial CPE.

Beyond Empathy: More Causal Responsibility

Scholars in the field further question the ideologies behind global citizenship education. They unpack notions of ‘common humanity’ that usually accompany concepts of ‘cosmopolitanism’, ‘interconnectedness’, ‘interdependence’ and ‘a global citizen’. Shiva (1998), for example, argues that while global affairs are dictated by the G7 (the seven most powerful countries, expanded to the G20 in 1999), “the interests that guide them remain narrow, local and parochial” (231). In a similar vein, Dobson (2005) describes globalisation as a process whereby some countries have a globalising power that forces others to be only globalised. While the North picks the fruits of globalisation, the South exists locally. Andreotti (2014) argues that contemplating this asymmetrical process raises crucial questions for global citizenship education. There is a need to understand that the basis of concern for other nations is not a moral one alone. Rather, it should be framed around “political obligation for doing justice” and the source of this obligation must be recognised as “complicity in transnational harm” and “causal responsibility” (Dobson 2006, 177–178). Andreotti (2014) builds on Dobson (2006) to suggest that this recognition of complicity should also translate into campaigning strategies. Slogans, figures, and images should no longer be about being charitable or compassionate. They should be about being politically responsible for the underlying causes of social ills, many of those causes for which the Global North benefits. Sumida Huaman (2019) extends this argument to the field of comparative education, an intersectional field with peace education and global citizenship, to argue strongly for educational strategies that take into account the contributions of Indigenous knowledges to educational research and practice.

Andreotti (2014) calls for a critical citizenship education that differs fundamentally from a soft citizenship education. She compares and contrasts the implications of these two types of citizenship education and argues that critical global citizenship education offers interrogations of the position of the privileged framed around those who “benefit from and [hold] control over unjust and violent systems and structures” (46). This introduces ‘justice’, ‘complicity in harm’, ‘accountability’ and ‘responsibility toward the other’ as an ethical basis of caring. It poses political and ethical concerns aside moral and humanitarian concerns as grounds for action. Contrary to soft global citizenship education that offers “institutions and individuals that are a barrier to development” (47) as targets for change, critical global citizenship education illustrates that what is needed is changes to social structures, belief systems, assumptions, and relationships. While potential problems associated with soft citizenship education could be engendering feelings of supremacy and self-importance, critical global citizenship education could result in internal conflict, a feeling of guilt, paralysis, and helplessness.

Linklater (1998) distinguishes between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ conceptions of cosmopolitan citizenship. While promoting compassion for the vulnerable, thin citizenship education leaves unequal power relations intact. In contrast thick citizenship education digs deeper into the structural conditions that underlie the life of vulnerable groups. In a similar vein, Dobson (2006) calls for “less empathy and more causal responsibility” (172) when approaching cosmopolitanism. He suggests that identifying relationships of causal responsibility is approaching cosmopolitanism from the lens of a common humanity. Those who cause harm are required as a matter of justice to rectify that harm. This philosophical and practical discussion necessitates bringing up another theme that has been recently discussed in the literature on citizenship, peace, and social justice education—the idea that a distinct pedagogy for the privileged is valuable, worthy, and necessary in learning about oppression and victims of injustice. This brings us to a ‘pedagogy for the privileged’ and ‘pedagogy of discomfort’.

Pedagogic Responses: Discomforting Privilege

Curry-Stevens (2007) contends that pedagogy for the privileged is distinct from other critical approaches such as transformative learning (Mezirow 1991), consciousness raising (Freire 1970), and traditional social justice pedagogy (Burke et al. 2002). While pedagogy for the privileged does belong to the same genre, other approaches rarely differentiate the needs of the oppressed from those of the privileged. Allen and Rossatto (2009) point out that “[a]n oppressor student is different from an oppressed student and any pedagogy that fails to account for this difference is unlikely to contribute to meaningful social change” (179). Therefore, different from Freire’s (1970) emancipatory strategies for the oppressed, critical pedagogy for the privileged requires significant modifications (Walter et al. 2011; Young and Zubrzycki 2011). It requires reflexivity “to address the ideological blind spots that are likely to be associated with being a member of the privileged majority” (Townsend-Cross 2011, 103). Rothenberg and Scully (2002) reflect on the prospective of advocacy efforts exerted by the privileged and suggest that, “the privileged, if enlightened, form a cadre of potential allies for social change… particularly by bringing their relative power to bear and by making the surprising move of advocating against their apparent self-interest” (2). One example of this pedagogy has been discussed as a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’.

Initially proposed by Boler (1999), pedagogy of discomfort is about affording students opportunities to explore their worldviews and deconstruct their assumptions and ways they have learnt to perceive others (Boler and Zembylas 2003; Zembylas and Boler 2002). The aim of this pedagogy is to assist students to identify their unconscious privilege and complicity with hegemony (Zembylas 2015). The assumption that underlies this approach is that ‘discomfort’ is necessary to challenge normative practices and dominant beliefs that sustain social inequalities. Felman (1992) was the first to suggest that education that generates experiences of ‘discomfort’ is not only inevitable but also ethical. She did that by reflecting on the role of crisis in listening to stories of trauma. She suggests that learning only truly happens when teaching creates a state of crisis. Davis and Steyn (2012) substantiate Felman’s thoughts and suggest that possibilities of growth are limited if we are expecting comfort and safe space.

Similarly, Rasheed (2018) reflects on teaching about race and privilege in a post-election USA and stresses the importance of critical self-reflection. She suggests that encouraging students to engage in authentic discourses assists them to deconstruct their epistemological stance, question the structures of their beliefs and identify their own positionality and privilege. Interestingly, Rasheed (2018) presents examples of how she attempts to apply such transformative pedagogies in her classroom. She reports what one of her students wrote, “I know it’s not your intention to make me uncomfortable” (239). Ruitenberg (2018) then comments on this particular incident reported in Rasheed’s paper, saying “educational discomfort is, in my view, perfectly appropriate” (259). She elaborated how this discomfort will never obstruct students from finding the place they seek for themselves in the world. It will only offer them an expanded understanding. Sinha and Rasheed (2018) additionally argue for a radical pedagogy of embodiment that examines the racialized bodies of students and lecturers in the classroom in order to deconstruct privilege and raise constructive discomfort. Furthermore, Cremin and Kester (2020) have suggested that a pedagogy of vulnerability, drawing on embodiment and the socio-historical stories of the lecturers, where educators share their discomfort as an entry point into difficult dialogue with and amongst students, could support a deep and thorough engagement with discomfort as a learning mode. This provides CPE novel insights by challenging past onto-epistemological biases in the field (Kester et al. 2019a; Zembylas 2018).

It is worth noting that concerns have been raised about the ethical implications of such pedagogies (Kishimoto and Mwangi 2009; Rak 2003; Ruitenberg 2018; Zembylas and McGlynn 2012). Ruitenberg (2018) questions the relative vulnerabilities of the different bodies, student and faculty, in the educational encounter, and how this may affect the possibilities of understanding, action, and transformation. Zembylas (2015) asks, “Where and how does one draw the line?” (164). In turn, we ask: From the perspective of an approach seeking an equitable and just global world, how ethical and just is it to worry about causing ‘discomfort’ to students on one side of the world when students are bombed and killed in their schools on the other side of the world? Is this concern not comfortably wrapped in coloniality? Hutunnen and Murphy (2012), drawing on Habermas and Honneth, argue that recognition of the other and the relationship between the self and others is central to provide the normative grounds for a radical pedagogy of love, rights and respect. This normative grounding may be extended to CPE. Rasheed (2018) also builds upon a cosmopolitan framework of hospitality in the classroom to promote an open philosophy of criticality, that is, discomforting discussions of power and privilege that assist students and faculty to reorient their ontologies of difference.

Reflecting on the discussions above in light of CPE reveals that delivering CPE interventions necessitates a clear and thorough analysis of the contextualised affairs of the targeted context and an understanding of how the needs of this context are interrelated with and created by regional and global matters and constructed in complex and dynamic ways (De Lissovoy 2010; Metz 2019). For example, refugee students who come from war-stricken contexts and who are found to display violent behaviours in school are not necessarily inherently violent and they are not in need to be ‘civilised’ (Hajir and Cremin 2019). Such assumptions only feed the political interests of Euro-centric paradigms by reproducing cultural prejudices of the Global South as a theatre of violence and reinforcing colonial binaries of the savage ‘other’ (Borowski 2011; Ferguson 2006; Mahadeo and McKinney 2007). Instead, a thorough examination of underlying cultures and structures is needed to understand the causal factors of conflict (not only the psychological determinants). As expressed by de Sousa Santos (2015), it is more informative “to keep consequences under the control and within the sight of the actions that cause them” (256). Addressing the consequences is vital but preventative thinking must never drift off the critical peace educator’s agenda. It is crucial toward re-orienting depoliticised projects of peace education toward a decolonial understanding of imperial interests. Ultimately, from a critical cosmopolitan perspective, CPE should adopt a global postcolonial and decolonial lens to addressing contemporary colonial violences embedded within the field. Employing a dialogical decolonising approach to cosmopolitanism should be exigent to contemporary CPE efforts.

Conclusion

It has been argued that “those who are concerned with the stability of the ‘one world’ will need to pay increased attention to the voices and views of the ‘many worlds’” (Hurrell 2007, 11). In conclusion, we contend that a CPE that is concerned with the stability of the ‘one world’ should have a theoretical grounding that opens up new avenues for distinct pedagogies to be employed in the ‘many worlds’. There is a need in CPE to recognise the myriad transnational connections that exist even within the most localised conflicts, and the subsequent need to focus on the power of the privileged in achieving global peace. In parallel with a Freirean-informed approach that draws on ‘pedagogies of resistance’ and targets interventions to the ‘oppressed’ end of the spectrum, we argue that adopting a decolonial CPE approach also necessitates considering the structures that connects these to the ‘oppressor’ end of the continuum. By embracing the ‘individual personal responsibility’ behind these structures (Reardon and Snauwaert 2015), we recognise that they are more likely to be dismantled when interventions are also targeted to the ‘oppressors’ to propel them to “advocate against their apparent self-interest” (Rothenberg and Scully 2002, 2). Therefore, CPE is in need of distinct approaches to the privileged that involve them with global comprehensive peacebuilding and social justice endeavours. Starting from this juncture, we urge the field of CPE to draw further insights from theoretical discussions of decolonisation, Indigenous methods, cosmopolitanism, global citizenship education, and postcolonial and decolonial thinking. Pedagogies similar to that of a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ and ‘pedagogy for the privileged’ could be valuable additions to the theory and praxis of a decolonial CPE. This conceptual shift is indispensable to the field if it is genuinely interested in changing global and local systems toward cultures of peace—it is essential for decolonising and Indigenising the teaching and research praxis of CPE. A holistic combination of a ‘pedagogy of resistance’, ‘pedagogy of discomfort’, and ‘pedagogy for the privileged’ in CPE would better support multi-level and multi-sectoral citizen action that holds the philosophies and practices of states, societies, and scholars more accountable, and more adequately contributes to comprehensive social peacebuilding through education.