Resolving conflict taught at University level

Dangerous issue: Professor Clements with Grant Gillett (at right), of the University of Otago Bioethics Centre, who criticises some attitudes underlying the use of nuclear weapons.

The National centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Otago University teaches students how to resolve conflict and work towards peace domestically and globally.

The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS), was started in 2009 by Professor Kevin Clements, (pictured) on his return from holding leading positions working for peace and conflict resolution in Australia, the United States and England.

Professor Clements says the programme focuses on the sources of conflict on local, domestic and international levels. It is aimed at generating strong diagnoses of conflict and then working with parties to those conflicts on suitable solutions.

“From the neighbours barking dog, to global conflicts in such countries as Timor, Solomon Islands, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal and the Philippines.”

The PhD programme has 32 students from 19 different countries. The Masters of Peace and Conflict Studies programme has 21 students from five different countries. 

“So we have a little United Nations here in our student body,” Professor Clements says.

The NCPACS is New Zealand’s first centre to combine global cross-disciplinary expertise on the issues of development, peace-building and conflict transformation.  

Teaching began in 2010 and offers the following:

• postgraduate programmes at Masters and PhD level
• conducts high-level research on the causes of violent conflict and conditions for sustainable peace
• provides training, evaluation expertise, and expert advice to government and non-governmental organisations engaged in peace-building and humanitarian intervention.

The NCPACS is a theory, research and practice centre located within the Division of Humanities, at the University of Otago.

Professor Clements says students who have graduated from the school have undertaken work in a wide variety of different places and organisations.  

Examples include researching water-based conflicts in Central Asia, helping post-conflict truth and reconciliation processes in Timor and the Solomons and focused on peace negotiations in diverse parts of the world. 

The Centre has also been involved in the locally-based programme Stopping Violence Dunedin, which is dedicated to looking at solving domestic violence issues.

“We set up a Dunedin based community mediation programme and work closely with Auckland University senior lecturer and preventive health associate Janet Fanslow on the sources of intimate partner violence,” Professor Clements says.

“Research shows that violence causes long-term developmental problems in people. It’s important, therefore, to understand its causes and consequences, and how to expand the repertoire of non-violent remedies for violent behaviour,” he says.

The Centre focuses on restorative justice as opposed to punitive justice. 

“We are interested in how to restore broken relationships.”

Professor Clements says the New Zealand government has taken on board the idea of restorative justice and looking at other options to prison for one-off mistakes or unintended offences.

Teaching peace: 
Professor Kevin Clements who founded the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Hiroshima Day is Tuesday, August 6 to commemorate the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A peace vigil is planned to be held at the Peace Pole.

NCPACS has a series of student organised events, beginning with the launch of an exhibition in the Link on Monday, August 5, at 4pm.