Can you write a fairy tale for peace?

Inspired by her extensive research into traditional fairy tales and storytelling for peace, and by her own creation of a fairy tale for peace, Visualising Peace student Kim Wahnke has written a letter to other storytellers, inviting them to experiment with peace storytelling and offering some tips: Dear writer, Do you want to write for peace? Do you … Read more

The Little Girl, the Flowers and the Witch 

A fairy tale for peace – by Kim Wahnke This fairy tale has been inspired by Kim’s extensive research into traditional fairy tales and storytelling for peace, which you can read about through the links on this page. Below the English version is a German translation, and you will also find some reflective questions to help you respond to … Read more

Tolkien’s Art of Peace

Albert Suriñach I Campos, April 2024 J.R.R.Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “The Silmarillion” and his other many tales and poems from his fictional world of Middle-Earth have garnered world-wide acclaim in the 20th and 21th century, cementing him as one of the fathers of modern fantasy. However, despite the many militaristic and … Read more

Peace Education in Scotland

‘Scotland’s national curriculum, the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), represented a radical departure from Scotland’s previous prescriptive curriculum. While it has had great success in many areas, it has also been met with staunch criticism (Stobart, 2021). Regarding this criticism, and the increasing importance and relevance of Education for Peace, I believe it is worth considering a review of the Scottish … Read more

(Re)Visualising Children and Adultism in Peace Education

Jakub Lewandowski, April 2024 The Visualising Peace Project has previously included a significant focus on peace education, examining the roles of students and teachers in fostering expanded and critical pedagogies of peace in the classroom. Building on this work, this paper aims to examine how narratives and understandings of childhood and youth agency undermine the … Read more

State Memorialisation and a Perpetrator’s Peace in Sri Lanka

Prominent monuments are backed either through approval or funding by the state and these monuments present a selective historical narrative that marginalizes and facilitates the Sri Lankan government and the perpetrator state. According to Bellentani and Panico’s method of semiotic analysis,[1] considering both the material and cultural contexts, state-backed war memorials are exclusionary and ethno-nationalist on … Read more

Collaborative debate

The Visualising Peace team has been exploring the relationship between responsible debate and peacebuilding. As part of this a group of students – Tao Yazaki, Zoe Gudino, Finlay Whitton, Anna Pilgrim, Jazmin Smallridge, and Tabitha Stuart – have been running a series of debates using different formats, from competitive to collaborative approaches. We had two aims … Read more