In this episode of the Conversations4Citizenship podcast, Dr. Tatsushi Arai, a peace and conflict studies professor at Kent State University, discusses his journey and work in conflict resolution, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. He shares insights from his experiences in peacebuilding education and the unique challenges of resolving conflicts in areas with diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. Dr. Arai emphasizes the importance of integrating local cultural practices into peacebuilding efforts and highlights innovative approaches like storytelling and experiential learning. He also addresses the impact of digital technology on global conflict resolution efforts.
In the last episode of season 3, Dr. Tatsushi Arai, an associate professor in peace and conflict studies at Kent State University, joins the Conversations4Citizenship podcast to discuss his extensive work in conflict resolution, focusing on the Asia Pacific region. He recounts his experiences, including a pivotal visit to Hiroshima and his time in Rwanda post-genocide, which shaped his career in peacebuilding. Dr. Arai explores the complexities of resolving conflicts in Asia Pacific due to its religious diversity and modern identity constructs. He advocates for peacebuilding education that fosters equity, harmony, and conflict resolution skills through dialog and experiential learning. Particularly, he presented innovative methodologies like "Walk-Through History," which fosters empathy by exploring diverse historical narratives, as seen in his work on Taiwan-China relations.
Highlighting projects like the Ubuntu Center for Peace in Rwanda, he underscores the role of local cultural practices in healing and reconciliation. Dr. Arai also examines how digital technology, particularly AI, influences global peace efforts by enhancing data analysis and connectivity but also warns of its potential dangers.
Additionally, he emphasized dialogue and experiential learning as core principles of peace education. Dr. Arai's ongoing research includes theories of functional coexistence for sustained negative peace and mediated practices to address conflicts lacking traditional mediation structures.
This episode is hosted by Dr. Stella Cheong. Please subscribe to the podcast through Apple, Google, Spotify, or Amazon Music. You may also follow @c4c_ed on Twitter. We look forward to hearing your feedback. If you would like to explore participating in our podcast and submit your blog post to the C4C, do not hesitate to reach out through the online participation form or email us at conversations4citizenship@gmail.com
Stella Micheong Cheong 00:04
Hello, listeners! and Welcome to today’s episode of the conversations4citizenship podcast. I am your host, Stella Mi-cheong Cheong from Yonsei University. Today, we are honored to have Dr. Tatsushi Arai, an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Kent State University in the United States. Dr. Arai is a seasoned scholar and practitioner in the field of conflict resolution, with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific region. His work integrates rigorous academic research with practical applications, aiming to bridge divides and foster understanding in areas marred by conflict. His innovative approaches in engaging conflict history and memory have provided new insights into the dynamics of peacebuilding. Today, we delve into the crucial topic of peacebuilding education amidst the ongoing global conflicts, such as those in Ukraine and between Israel and Iran. Good morning. how are you doing?
Tatsushi Arai 01:25
Very good. Thank you for having me.
Stella Micheong Cheong 01:27
Yeah. Thank you so much joining us. Alright, so I'm going to open up the floor to you. Arai, let's start to talk about your research trajectory. I'm really interested in your own story, how you got into conflict and peace research? Did you be willing to share some of your personal experience?
Tatsushi Arai 01:54
Sure, I was born and raised in northeastern part of Japan. It's called Guma prefecture, about two hours of north of Tokyo, a very rural place. Growing up in the 1980s in Japan, one of the most important turning points in my life was a visit to Hiroshima as part of school visit met with victims of radiation sickness who shared personal stories about being exposed to a nuclear explosion, but they also said that they don't hate Americans who dropped the bomb or they understood the roots of violence more deeply, and their school trip was as a small part of the ongoing an education I was receiving for six years at a Soka middle school and high school, which is a school established by Mr. Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023), peace builder and educator who was committed to global citizenship. His example as a Peace builder really inspired me as well in terms of humanitarian diplomacy and dialogue. But professional, the starting point of my professional work in peace building was 1997-1998 when I lived in Rwanda, as a lecturer of international relations at the National University of Rwanda, that was three to four years after the genocide, there I saw mass grief, as well as the people who stood up with resilience to all adversities, and there I was appointed leader representative of a Japanese non-governmental organization serving Rwandan people. Since then, I have been quite consistent in both the research and practice as well as in education for peace building. Now, for 26 years.
Stella Micheong Cheong 04:06
Okay. Tatsushi, (yes), finish? (yes). I expected a much longer story (laugh)
Tatsushi Arai 04:21
No, no, no, no,
Stella Micheong Cheong 04:24
So fascinating to me. So alright, I know you've done field work all over the world, doing this conflict resolution work, but within your experience in Asia, Pacific specifically. So what makes resolving conflict there different from other place? Other conflict affected society you've been? Are there any big challenge or approach that are important to consider in the part of the world?
Tatsushi Arai 05:02
It is very hard to single out a particular aspect which are unique to Asia Pacific. However, Asia Pacific is where in world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam interface. And as we know, Hinduism and Buddhism based themselves mostly on Dharma, the commitment to a cosmic law in the universe. And Islam and Christianity, he honor an Abrahamic transition, monotheism through my work, for example, in Myanmar, where I trained the Rohingya people as well as the Buddhist majority, Rakhine and the Burman national majority, where Islam and Christianity, as well as Hinduism, let alone Christianity, come together, embracing a space that has different religious and wellbeing commitments, presents itself as a very distinct challenge that I do not see in so many other places in the world. And secondly, the notion of Asia is modern in construction. It is through the encounters with the modern Westerners that the Asians of different national backgrounds came up with the word Asia. So there is no such thing as Asian identity that is quite ancient, with the exception, of course, of a Chinese civilization, Indian civilization, and all other Asian civilizations that have their own sense of the world views. But unlike in working in Europe, for example, whether Europeans have more or less shared, at least imagination of a social experience to build upon the identity of Asia or Asia Pacific is very, very new. So, when we bring people and societies together, we don't necessarily have a superordinate identity to appeal to, to strive for some sort of a unity and perhaps coherence, and in that respect, we need to be quite innovative in finding a common ground. What is creating common space in which people who don't have a common ground can coexist? That, to me, is a relatively unique phenomenon in Asia Pacific. I would like to also add that the contemporary context of Asia Pacific has either the former empires or the global powers come together and contest. We are talking about the United States, China, India, Russia that dismantled the Japanese Empire, among other forces. And with that also comes a huge disparity of advanced postindustrial societies such as South Korea, Singapore, Japan, on the one hand, and aspects of China, and then many societies which are characterized as least developed. So that disparity that exists in the reality of the 21st century, it makes Asia Pacific quite unique and challenging, because that disparity has consequences for diplomacy, trade and even cultural exchanges. So anything we do for peace building and conflict resolution has to be mindful of those big power relations that continue to have shadows from Korea to the Taiwan Strait and at the same time, a local practice of peacebuilding is always local. So the dual view of that broad vision of the macro history and big power politics and international relations and the local focus on the particularity of cultures and peoples, that duality is something that's very common, but the unique as a challenge to peacebuilding in Asia Pacific, I would argue.
Stella Micheong Cheong 10:07
Okay. Dr Arai, thank you so much for insightful aspect. I do agree that Asian Pacific has very dynamic dimension in terms of conflict resolution and peace building. That's why we need to take a consider about the different angle, different aspect of Asian Pacific and compared to the European and American or the Latin American as well. So and let's move on the education. you know, I'm an educator, sure, so and researcher, and my topic is exactly the focus on the peacebuilding citizenship education.
Tatsushi Arai 10:59
Yes
Stella Micheong Cheong 11:01
Yeah, I'm really interesting about your perspective on peacebuilding education, sure, yeah, so when it comes to education for peacebuilding, what are there? Can you describe the approach to peacebuilding education?
Tatsushi Arai 11:27
First and foremost, the understanding of what constitutes peace is important, because peace education by definition, is education meaning empowerment, skill awareness, capacity building that is dedicated to the promotion of peace. Then what is peace is important to me, a peace is a sustained process of fostering equity, harmony and conflict handling capacity. But this sustainable process takes place upon the underlying premise of humanity's coexistence with the rest of nature. A sustainable development is a concept that comes very close, and without that coexistence, none of equity, none of social harmony, none of conflict handling capacity becomes possible and equity is equal life justice for all. Harmony is ability for people in society to coexist with a commitment, or at least awareness of the sanctity and dignity of life and conflict handling capacity is an ability to overcome contradictions that manifest in You know, one person or one society's pursuit of certain goals, standing in a way of others, goal seeking behavior now as overcoming direct violence, direct physical violence is what I'm referring to. So to me, if you do any of it, being in promotion of social equity, overcoming structural violence, promotion of social harmony and then the culture for the dignity of life, culture of peace, or promotion of conflict handling capacity, typically called conflict resolution, with the focus on overcoming direct violence and the societies is symbiotic relationship with ecological environment, if you do any of it, that is a very respectful contribution to peace education. And I say this because a peace education, according to disinfection of peace, is a very broad set of activities which may not be even seen as peace education. But as far as my practice of peace education is concerned, two particular either principles or methods, are quite central. One is dialogue. Second is expansion learning. So dialogue is a process of wholehearted sharing and wholehearted listening for the purpose of mutual learning. And that distinguishes dialogue from debate, which is about winning an expansion learning is learning from direct experience. You are in touch with a social reality, and you use all the senses to grasp what is in the reality, and in fact, from the interaction with the reality--what exists, but that bscb working as a result of your social action, and put that into some sort of presentable working propositions, and experiment with those propositions back in the reality and going a cycle. It's a dialogue and experiential learning are two things that they tend to emphasize and then definitely open to other people. I mean different principles and methods to be important.
Stella Micheong Cheong 15:29
All right, yeah. Thank you so much for brilliant response. So in terms of experience and learning, I'm also interested in experience and learning this kind of pedagogical approach. So I read one of your works. Instance, a case study about the Ubuntu center for peace in Rwanda uses a mix of transpersonal practices, experiential learning and insights from neuroscience to facilitate community-based psychosocial support and collective healing after the genocide. So, it sounds great, but it seems like they need to do more research to show exactly how well it works for everyone in the community. What were some of the hurdles while doing this research, and how did you overcome them?
Tatsushi Arai 16:33
The Ubuntu center for peace is a nonprofit organization. It is established and led by a former trainee of medical doctor Jean Bosco Niyonzima. Bona brought up in a post genocide society, having seen the aftermath of the genocide, a lot of traumatized people making a determination to create a self-standing organization that takes science and culture of Rwanda very seriously for community-based healing. So, an Ubuntu center for peace has a very unique focus on collective healing. This is not individual clinical support. It is always in the community, the collectivity of people who use their bodywork, yoga, Tai Chi, breathing and all kinds of accessible, experiential activities that people are familiar with. The Ubuntu center also uses a traditional, cultural methods. For example, people for reconciliation, drink from the same container the banana beer they make in Rwanda they dance. Of course, they do storytelling. And those are very challenging but transformative experiences, as you said methodologically, what we can do in the Rwandan context, unlike at Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Caltech in California, is limited. We don't have a brain scanner to measure how the human brain is responding to our healing technique. We don't have that and it's all prohibitively expensive, so we do our best to use a self-reported narratives in response to survey questions. For example, before several weeks of collective healing sessions, how many of them had insomnia, sleeping disorder, eating disorder, suicide tendency, we ask the participants to report on that, and we have the numerical data for that. Then, after the weeks of collective healing sessions, how many of them experience the same symptoms, and we see the pre and post treatment data. The early phase of our inquiry is reported in the 2019 article that Dr. Neon Simon and I published, learning together the heel. It's an open access article. Everybody can take a look. But that's 2019 and 2014 is a really different time period in the in that we have a far more people we engaged. The data is getting robust, and as with any non-profit organizations. We are welcoming the resources to scale up the research that can be accomplished by having more in trained researchers with modern technology and in theory, we can have brain scanners to definitively determine that technology, that the method we are using, has some impact, but that is still to be seen.
Stella Micheong Cheong 20:34
Fascinating. It's really fascinating so well, as you mentioned earlier. So technology is a hugely impact on all level of research, especially for science, so in the Age of AI, so how do you see the lower of digital technology evolving in field of conflict resolution and peace building.
Tatsushi Arai 21:08
Digital technologies, as you know, are more of a umbrella category of things, and within the umbrella category, what really attracts and concerns me is that generative AI in that AI technology has been in existence since 1950s but it is the advent of quantum computing and the self-learning capacity of AI that is making revolutionizing that aspect of technological innovation and then AI generated data is interacting and augmenting the computer, the social media and through the mobile devices, and all of that combination present revolutionizes the global connectivity of the people, the expectations of time that is becoming quite instantaneous in terms of information spreading across the globe, but that advancement of technologies also challenging the human monopoly of consciousness. AI, artificial intelligence is merely an intelligence the ability to do something such as computing. But then it's approximating aspects of human consciousness where human beings have a value judgment. You know, what use of technology is good or bad? But AI, advanced AI is beginning to mimic part of it, if you know, replace it. And with respect to your question, that kind of technological innovation, including and quantum computing, supporting AI, has a huge advantage of peace researchers and peace builders being able to collect a massive amount of data, analyzing that data instantaneously, and that data includes not only documents, but also a massive amount of the audio and visual information, in a way that's unprecedented totally, but at the same time, that instantaneous spread of digitized information, assisted by AI technology, can help us create some sort of a global consciousness for solidarity. A good example is that throughout university campuses in America, we have the protest taking place in support of people in Gaza. And that kind of fast paced development of solidarity movements was not possible a few decades ago. It's due to the cyberspace, mobile devices, and to some extent, assistance from AI. But on the other hand, as everybody knows, there's a lot of danger created by AI technology, a certain use of internet and social media. Examples of danger include a weaponization of the cyberspace and the AI technology, intentional campaigns for misinformation and disinformation. One that undermined democracy and civic life, as well as AI's impact on employment by way of replacing blue collar workers jobs, blue collar workers with a more affordable AI technology doing their job. And so in the age of artificial intelligence and advanced digital technology, the peace builders and policy makers need to really learn about the challenges and opportunities both and be wise and conscientious enough to maximize a positive impact and minimize the negative one.
Stella Micheong Cheong 25:57
Yes, I do agree your opinion, and then, as you mentioned on Asian identity, when you describe the differences of Asian Pacific conflict. So I think identity is one of the root causes of intractable conflict. So, I'd like to talk about the intractable conflict so we, yeah, we human beings, have historically experienced intractable conflict that have been difficult to resolve due to unique cultural and socio-political characteristic of individual countries and society, for instance, economic conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, identity conflict in Northern Ireland and division of Korean peninsula. So how do you incorporate local cultural practices and unique social political issues into conflict transformation or peace building processes?
Tatsushi Arai 27:18
Identity, to me, is a sense of who we are and who you are. A culture is a shared pattern of meaning making sense of reality, as if to wear glasses and look at the reality surrounding us. And identity. The culture can shape a sense of who we are. So for example, religious or traditional values can shape share pattern of meaning making and if you belong to the culture environment. It helps shape the members understanding of who they are. So those things come together. The economic dimension of conflict you mentioned is a little different in that it is structure. Structure is a set of organized relationships. And culture is inside of us, like identities inside of us, but the structure is what we are inside of, like we inside the house, inside the state, and then this interaction between culture that is inside of us and the structure what we are inside of, and they always come together now, because I think it's a lot to unpack, I'm going to just in pick the culture dimension of it, and your question of how to approach those interactive conflicts is shaped in part by culture and perhaps identity as well the structural issues such as economics in the background, and I actually tend to think of in how to appeal to the existing cultural assumptions and cultural patterns of thinking. And additionally, I will explore how to rechannel those cultural patterns and assumptions toward peace and away from violence. In other words, as with so many other opinion leaders, I do not believe in some kind of imposition of external cultures to be useful, nor do I believe in wholesale acceptance of anything cultural. Genital mutilations should be overcome. Gender based violence should be overcome. So we are clear on that. But as we seek that kind of change, it should be a change from within, and that change has to be built upon and appealing to some kind of a cultural DNA that exists in that particular context. So, I'm going to use an example. Since 2013, I have been actively and continuously engaged in peacebuilding in Myanmar, the society that began to liberalize and eventually democratize to some extent. Around 2010-2011 and few years back, we had another military coup d'etat. So the current condition is very dire, but for a decade I spent in Myanmar, a part of what I did is religious approach to peacebuilding, and to that end, I both focused particularly on the Buddhist Sangha, Buddhist community. I learned from the Buddhist leaders about how they view suffering Dukkha in the Pali language or Sanskrit, as well as overcoming of dukkha. Why? Because the notion of conflict in the local language Patipa is so intertwined with suffering and Dukkha. And my goal was for the Burmese Buddhist communities, who are largely unfortunately pitted against the Muslims such as Rohingyas, to come up with their own way of peace building and conflict resolution, not so much of a Western way. So, the starting point was Theravada Buddhism, and we actually developed, together with the Burmese colleagues, who know about the Burmese Buddhism, we developed a Buddhist approach to conflict analysis and conflict transformation, and we started implementing trainings, because it is not about Western approaches, about local Buddhist approach. Even the most senior monks who will never come to any training, any educational session, they are willing to come. They came one after another, knowing that it is about Buddhism. But we also say this is also about peace building, and in those sessions, we will start with how the monks, senior monks, treat the novices, because traditionally in Burmese, Sangha, the punishment of novices has been quite common, and that is a little contradictory to a Buddhist sense of compassion. But if we preach from outside, nobody listens. But first, we actually appeal to read the Buddhist scriptures and articulate the principles of Buddhism, such as how to overcome Dukkha human suffering, and connect that to conflict analysis and conflict transformation. All the Buddhist leaders listen very carefully, and they even support this training by citing their own preferred scriptures from Buddhism. And that have started happening in 2014 grew in 2015 and we began to be invited to the extent that we can no longer handle all those invitations. Interesting things happen when we do that. We don't bring in Rohingyas, we don't talk about Buddhism-Muslim relations, but typically, maybe day two, or even I, by the end of day one of those training sessions, it is those Buddhist leaders who are seen as most conservative and hardcore. They bring up the question of Rohingya and ask me and ask others. So this approach to Buddhist conflict transformation, is it applicable, by off chance, to Buddhist, Muslim relations? When the question is asked that becomes a legitimate topic to talk about, when not asked, that is not the topic to be brought in. But I think our approach has always been to create a space that owners the existing culture and worldview, but using that the depth and authentic understanding of the religious understanding as a basis for potential change. And I suppose I perhaps gave at least one example of how to go deep into the cultural DNA, and from inside the existing cultural DNA, trying to find a new image of the future that didn't exist in the past.
Stella Micheong Cheong 35:24
Yeah, wow. 100% with you. You know, as an Asian, as a researcher with Asian heritage, and also working in the Eurocentric place. I've been struggling with handling, integrating Asian perspective and also the western perspective. How to bridge these Global South and Global North perspectives. But normally, as you pointed out, in Myanmar's case. So we, researchers, try to integrate the western approach into the specific place. And so it's really important to how to highlight the cultural uniqueness each conflict society. Well, Dr Arai, I really enjoyed your recent research on the cross-strait conflict between Taiwan and mainland China.
Tatsushi Arai 36:57
Sure, sure, sure,
Stella Micheong Cheong 37:00
especially the part where you connect memory and historical narratives, yes, resolving the conflict. I would love to hear more about that. For instance, what made you decide to explore that angle and what were you hoping to achieve, initially?
Tatsushi Arai 37:19
Sure. So, this memory and history work you refer to is part of the larger set of activities called ‘Strait Talk.’ Strait Talk is a non-partisan civil society dialogue movement that brings together a civil society delegate, we call them delegate participants from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan and mainland China, as well as from the United States, for closed door 40-hour dialogue for conflict resolution, and that dialogue process started in 2005 when the Beijing government passed the anti-sensation law, which in effect a warned Taipei from seeking any form of independence and all kinds of official communication got terminated. And it was against this backdrop that 19 year old undergraduate student Johnny Lin at Brown University in Rhode Island USA, whose parents come from two sides of the Taiwan Strait, decided to demonstrate that if the governing authorities cannot do a dialogue in this crucial time, I would like to show that younger people can have a dialogue, not only about Chinese food, but also about the fundamental roots of this political deadlock and the audacious idea coming from a 19 year old undergraduate student, but long story short, Johny mobilized volunteers resources, and he and I met, and I was appointed the founding facilitator of Strait Talk. Since the humble beginning in 2005 strait talk grew internationally into six regional chapters, with two chapters in Asia running dialogues in Chinese Mandarin, both chapters in North America are doing dialogues in English. With some of them we close, for example, the one in Hong Kong for a security reason. But the movement itself, which is run led by a nonprofit registered in California, is definitely growing with my role focused now on mentoring Taiwanese and Chinese emerging professionals to become facilitators who can replace me that being the background, one of the exercises we do, and is something called ‘Walk-Through History’ and mention a 40-hour dialogue. But during a covid, we are forced to do a 20-hour version of it, virtually dialogue. And then post-Covid. We retained the shortened 20-hour version, so within the new 20-hour model of the dialogue, about 12 hours into the dialogue process, which will first start with the joint analysis of the recourses of conflict, we want to do something called global challenges, sorry, 12 hours of the conflict analysis process. As part of it, we will introduce a walk-through history exercise. The walk-through history exercise is inspired by an expansion learning method and developed initially by American scholar practitioner named Joseph V. Montville, who has a psychological background and background in diplomacy, emphasizing importance of deep self-reflection in identity-based conflict. Strait talks, adaptation of walk-through history basically consists of asking Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and US delegates, five persons each to get together separately, spend one hour within each group and five people would build consensus on eight historical events which shaped today's cross regulations most decisively. And they can pick any event they wish, and then they attach the years in which those events took place. So, for example, I mentioned 2005 Beijing passed the anti-secession law. Some of the delegates can choose 2005 and then under secession law. Now we I actually introduced this exercise back in 2015 then after I did that exercise, I realized, huh, and then I should perhaps mention that as we collect those three sets of events, each event on a big sheet of paper with year of its occurrence on the sheet of paper. We clear the floor with from we clear the floor, make it really open and empty, and have those three historical timelines arranged. And then all the participants from three sides, from a single line behind me, we actually do a silent walk, as if it were a ceremony inventing a time machine, looking at the left for Taiwanese history, looking at the right for Chinese history, further right on the US history. Walk in that space between the timelines and everybody's silent. They try to empathize. Taiwanese experience, mainland Chinese experience, US experience without judgment. Then after we walk through the space between the three histories. So to speak, we make a cycle, big cycle, surrounding the three histories. We open the flow of a dialogue. So this is the exercise we do, and it typically has a powerful impact. On the participants who could never imagine that there will be an alternative history, because there are textbooks, there are museums, the historical documentaries, the grandpa’s and grandma's bedtime stories, all point to one kind of history, and that history always honors your identity, not an alternative narrative. But there in front of you, you have the artifacts created by people from other society. So it's powerful. Now, what if you did this walkthrough history for 20 years? So the open access journal I article I published last year engaging conflict history memory across the Taiwan Strait does the comparative analysis of close to 20 sets of timelines. It briefly back in 2005 the mainland Chinese delegates started their series of events with 221 BC. That unification of China. In 2018, there are timelines that the mainland Chinese timeline started with 1970s or 1980s there you go. So those two histories are really different histories. They are both from China, and each one of those national teams believes this easy, authentic history. In other words, as a facilitator doing those exercises for nearly two decades, I can see the historical memories of conflict shift massively and to the extent that the brain structure is common across individuals. I don't see, you know, young Diplomats or young civil society delegates or lawyers or businesspeople who come to strait talk, their brain structure is different than senior policy makers, including Mr. Xi Jinping, yeah, and that, in a sense, affirms that our memory is very subjective and socially constructed. And then listeners are most welcome to take a look at my article and see scrutinize the data and the conclusions.
Stella Micheong Cheong 47:09
This is really powerful presentation. Thank you so much. Tatsushi, then as you talk about walk through history because walk through history I've never heard actually, but as you, as you mentioned, it's really powerful to the young social, civil society delegator, the participant. But, you know, just, I just put their feet on the on other shoes, is it is really possible to understand. I mean, emphasize the other side their enemy. Maybe they learned they've heard a Taiwanese, I mean Mainland Chinese, they heard from their ancestor or parents, Taiwanese is enemy. And on the other hand, Taiwanese, they also heard the Chinese are our enemy, something like that. But how could they break out their bias or prejudice? Can you elaborate this method?
Tatsushi Arai 48:30
Yeah, I choose not to use words like prejudices and biases. So as the human expressions are authentic, I would, however, distinguish between authentic expressions and fake expressions, intentionally fake versus being authentic, but factually mistaken. That's possible, but the factually mistaken, yet authentic expression is a great starting point for if we start characterizing somebody's ideas as biased or prejudiced, there is no there is no even starting point in conflict analysis and in our work, it's given people have perceptions and they believe in it, they shed tears for those narratives and beliefs. I said, we hear you. It's a great starting point, and we need to know that, but set that aside for a moment to respond to the core of your question. One methodology of dialogue and engagement that is very accessible and near universal is storytelling. It's very simple, but we don't do it that often Walk Through History is one technique, but complementing world through history in Strait Talk is personal storytelling. They are in a cycle of participants from three sides, people who really cry out for Taiwanese independence can share their family stories, ancestor stories, their pictures, their dreams, in front of participants from China's People's Liberation Army and a PLA person can share his own personal stories about having how they are raised by their parents, being touched with the people their sense of pride, and they have the capacity to be touched by those stories, they may not change their political views. Some of them may even harden their existing positions, either for one, China or Taiwan is independence. But one thing is for sure, from my point of view, having done this for 20 years, the ability to justify violence, to annihilate the other side will go down dramatically. They seem more of a dilemma. You know, how could they come to believe in such an unjustifiable position? But hearing the personal stories, I never accept that position, but seems like it's more complex than I thought. I thought the other side is all the same, the same picture, the same color. But look at those Chinese people who are actually disputing among them. They are contradicting among them. Look at those Chinese, Taiwanese people, by the way, Americans, they are not necessarily the Empire, they all dispute among themselves about the definition of liberty and American exceptionalism. So, this sense of complexifying the individual experiences, opening up curiosity and the spirit of inquiry is what storytelling upward with expansion exercises such as walk through history can help achieve and that is not enough, though, for conflict resolution, we need to come up with very concrete ways to overcome the conflict that builds on empathy and awareness of complexity. But I think you know, conversation is a constructive, a concrete process that still builds on that awareness building,
Stella Micheong Cheong 53:12
Wow. I'm a person who firmly believe the power of a storytelling so I can understand how it works, the story, telling the story to other people, even the enemy, the people who perceived as an enemy. So it's really powerful medium or powerful channel, tool to convince other people. Okay, Dr. Arai, thank you so much. So in conclusion, would you like to share anything with our audience about your work that has not yet come up, or any other reflections to share with our audience.
Tatsushi Arai 54:07
Okay, maybe two things. One is the work I'm doing, and it's evolving in my in my work, so to speak. And the second is, perhaps about the message, terms of how to make sense of this interview I'm research wise. I'm working on two important things. One is something called functional coexistence. Functional coexistence is a sustained negative peace. Negative peace is a state of non-fighting, where the parties the conflict have a relationship of mutual recognition or denial. Taiwan Strait is one example. Aspects of Northern Ireland, aspects of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, among other places come to mind. And I'm definitely having Gaza- Israel on the one hand, and Ukraine Russia on the other hand in mind because it is unlikely that those big conflicts will go through an idealistic sense of embrace of each other toward the reconciliation they will, like on the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait, will undergo a long period of very pragmatic, purely transactional relationship, where the challenge of confidence building is going to be near permanent for a long time, transgenerational. So to contribute to those societies where a conventional notion of peacebuilding and reconciliation is so out of sight, I am developing a theory of functional coexistence. Open access journal article published 2022 and a co-edited book coming next year from Routledge. So that's one. The second thing I'm working on is mediated practice. Mediated practice is a group-based process of mobilizing, mediating social functions in conflict, affected society where there's no authoritative, neutral mediator available. So we are talking about mobilizing traditional social practices where there's no like a Western sense of mediator presence to bring parties together, or humanitarian development work that is not mediation, but that in effect, brings together people from different sides, for example, covid vaccination that has to be supported by different sides with a conflict or conflict resolution practices, which fall short of mediation, which include, for example, training, negotiation, prevention work, dialogue facilitation, which in effect exhibit functions of mediation, lowering a threshold of mediation like work. So, all of these activities actually are inspired by my own peacebuilding work. And this will be a book project, starting with a journal article. I'll be working on a book, and then practice-wise in East Asia, the Taiwan Strait work is ongoing, Stella, I think you are in Sri Lanka. There is a provisional invitation coming from Sri Lanka to scale up the work to support social reconciliation. So, I'm following up on that one, an invitation from different African contexts, either for reconciliation of peacebuilding and so on so forth. But my parting message to the listeners is that if we work as researchers, our primary goal is to produce knowledge and to hopefully educate people, I would like us to challenge ourselves to really venture into the world of practice and policy. Watching the situation in Gaza and Ukraine and Russia, as well as in Sudan, we are reminded that knowledge creation depends on people who take the knowledge seriously and act on it without those people knowledge entrepreneurs who translate knowledge into action. The knowledge stays in academia. Knowledge is knowledge. Action is different. Action requires courage, risk taking and a lot of ambiguity, an irrationality of human behavior that challenges those who take action. And in analyzing that the circumstances, I think, doesn't necessarily lead to social change, somebody has to take their knowledge very seriously and champions the implementation of the knowledge as somebody who belongs to a university community, I do struggle like anybody else in terms of bridging the knowledge to reality, but to me that the students and the emerging professionals who want to see social change. Always look up to their professors and the researchers for examples, not only for knowledge production, but also their practical application. So, my appeal to the listeners is, let's raise this struggle together in terms of taking knowledge into concrete practice, and I hope the university communities, research institutions become more hospitable to those people who may be seen as a black sheep currently, scholar practitioners. That's it!
Stella Micheong Cheong 1:00:44
Amazing, fantastic. I love your all arguments, but you know, I really wanted to be research activist, and also, I always emphasize my students, you should be a research activist. So, I do agree about the action is different, and then, yeah, it's a pleasure to hearing about your timely research. Unfortunately, as we are witnessing in the world, is raising conflict all around the world. So, I hope this conversation would be great help for people to understand conflict resolution and peacebuilding, the education for peacebuilding. And I love the whole idea of your conflict resolution approach, and such as mediated practice, and also the practical pedagogical approach as well. And I will apply the walk-through history, that approach. I will apply to this apply this methodology, this approach to my future research. So, thank you so much, Dr Arai, and I'm closing the episode. I'm Stella Cheong. Thanks for listening to conversations4citizenship. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to conversations4citizenship and look for us on X @c4c_ed, a transcript of today's conversation with Dr. Tatsushi Arai can be found www.conversations4citizenship.com, this episode of conversations4citizenship was produced by me, Stella Cheong, Adam Lang and Kamille Beye, recorded and sound mixed by Stella Cheong, many thanks. Take good care. Bye, Bye.