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Making Peace in Peace Studies: a Foucauldian Revisioning of a Contested Field

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Making Peace in Peace Studies: a Foucauldian Revisioning of a Contested Field MAKING PEACE IN PEACE STUDIES: A FOUCAULDIAN REVISIONING OF A CONTESTED FIELD DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Julie Lynn Clemens, M.A., M.Ed. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. Patti Lather, Adviser ____________________________ Adviser Dr. Peter Demerath, Adviser College of Education and Human Ecology Graduate Program Dr. Dan Christie Dr. Tatiana Suspitsyna _____________________________ Adviser Dr. Alexander Wendt College of Education and Human Ecology Graduate Program Copyright by Julie Lynn Clemens 2008 ABSTRACT Peace studies has produced an abundance of research and created numerous programs and courses. Despite these successes, the field is far from establishing itself as a valued part of the academic community. This project rests on the assertion that peace studies struggles for scholarly legitimacy and visibility within U.S. higher education. Based on this premise, it seeks to investigate the different kinds of beliefs about peace studies that have been produced, maintained, and reproduced. The aim is to understand the contemporary condition of peace studies and explore the possibilities and limitations of theorizing, researching, and teaching about peace in the U.S. academy. A Foucauldian-informed poststructural analysis examines qualitative survey and interview data collected from 55 prominent U.S. scholars in the fields of international relations, peace studies, and peace science. First, a descriptive analysis of peace studies scholars’ perceptions identifies three precepts of the field along with a strategy, to “make the world a better, more humane, place.” Second, a comparative analysis of peace studies from scholars working within international relations and peace science shows that peace studies faces the predicament of being nearly invisible within international relations and on the other side of an epistemological and methodological divide from peace science. ii Finally, a discourse analysis describes the discursive structures and rules of knowledge production that govern the way that scholars think, speak, and put into practice items associated with peace studies. The study concludes that peace studies suffers from a problem of coherence that strikes at its core objects of knowledge, subject positions, and knowledge production. Furthermore, the field desires to transform, transgress, and transcend the traditional policies of the U.S. academy. Thus, it battles historical and contemporary perceptions of (1) what qualifies as legitimate “scholarship” in terms of traditional disciplinary specialty, substantive content, agenda, and method, (2) what it means to be a “scholar” in U.S. higher education, and (3) what the study of “peace” should include in its parameters. Recognizing these challenges, peace studies scholars are urged to reconsider their relationship to the broader academic community through an examination (and possible reframing) of their multiple subject positions. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisers, Drs. Patti Lather and Peter Demerath, for the intellectual encouragement and support that they provided during my time at The Ohio State University. Under their supervision, I have learned how to conduct a qualitative research project from start to finish and I am indebted to them for this. In addition, I am grateful for their counsel during the research design and data analysis stages of the project and their invaluable guidance (and patience) on the numerous drafts of the dissertation. In all, I thank them for educating me about the day-to-day workings of higher education and the complex meaning of membership in the academic community. I extend gratitude also to my committee members, Drs. Alexander Wendt, Dan Christie, and Tatiana Suspitsyna, for their support of this project. I thank Professor Wendt for providing inspiration in the research design, a letter of support during data collection, and motivation for future research possibilities, Professor Christie for introducing me to professional opportunities within peace studies, and Professor Suspitsyna for offering her expertise in the field of higher education. Moreover, I am grateful to Dr. Antoinette Errante for serving on my general examination committee and contributing to the formation of this project and Drs. Tammy Birk and Annette Hemmings for advising me to join the educational policy and leadership program at The Ohio State University. iv My friends and colleagues have been invaluable to me during completion of the graduate program and dissertation. I wish to thank Jessica Kohlschmidt, Tracey Keele, Cathy Chappell, Marie-José Tayah, Kate Carey, Lydia Brauer, Mike Hicks, Beth Miglin, Deb Zabloudil, Stephanie Daza, Nan Kurz, Robin Giampapa, Roland Coloma, Kristin Adams, Laurie Carney, and Ulrica Carlén for their inspiration, optimistic points of view, and loyal friendship during the years. Finally, I thank my family. I am grateful to my parents, Frank Clemens and Carolyn Davidson, for giving me opportunities, in particular the chance to be an exchange student in Sweden. I thank my sister, Christine Holley, for believing in my choice to attend graduate school; I also thank my sister, Teresa Curfman, step-mother, Cindy Clemens, and grandmothers, Patricia Taylor and Josephine Clemens, for their cheerful words of support during this long process. I wish to thank David and Barbara Schweller for welcoming me into their family. Finally, I extend my love and admiration to my partner, Randall Schweller. His ideas and positive intellectual motivation have enhanced this project and his unconditional emotional support has inspired me to complete it. For these items, including all of the sacrifices during the process, I am forever grateful. v VITA July 13, 1970..…………………………Born – Columbus, Ohio 1997……………………………………A.S. Business Management, Franklin University 2000……………………………………B.S. International Business; Marketing, Franklin University 2002……………………………………M.Ed. Educational Foundations, University of Cincinnati 2005……………………………………M.A. Social and Cultural Foundations, The Ohio State University 1990-2001.…………………………….Corporate Trainer; Series 7 Licensed Broker, Financial Services Industry, Columbus, Ohio, and Princeton, New Jersey 2001-2002.…………………………….Graduate Research Associate, University of Cincinnati 2002-2008.…………………………….Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Lather, P. & Clemens, J. (2008). Postmodern Studies in Educational Foundations. In S. Tozer, B. Gallegos, & A. Henry (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Social Foundations of Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Education Graduate Minor: Comparative Cultural Studies vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... iv Vita ................................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables.................................................................................................................xii Chapters: 1. THE STUDY OF PEACE IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION ........................................ 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 Personal Experience with Peace Studies ......................................................... 8 Background to the Project .................................................................................... 9 Breadth of the Field ........................................................................................ 9 Title of the Field: Identity and Identifiers ..................................................... 12 Critical Events in the History of the Field ..................................................... 15 The Construction and Production of Peace Research: 1945 to mid-1960s .................................................................................. 17 The Re-production of Peace Research into Peace Studies: Late-1960s to 1980 ................................................................................. 23 The Maintenance of Peace Studies: 1980 to 1990 .................................... 28 The Re-production or Transformation of Peace Studies: 1990 to the present ................................................................................. 32 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 35 Elaboration of the Problem, Questions, and Methodology .................................. 35 Trajectory of the Project ..................................................................................... 39 Outline of the Study .......................................................................................... 42 2. POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN PEACE STUDIES: A TENUOUS POSITION IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION ...... 45 An Inventory of Peace Studies Scholars’ Observations of the Field: Thriving or Invisible? ........................................................................................ 46 Puzzling Perceptions of Peace Studies .......................................................... 48 Summary .....................................................................................................
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