Student Life in Bangkok

Many of you have emailed me asking me what I am upto. I am sorry for not being able to keep in touch. As mentioned in my earlier blog, life here is extremely busy. I am a full time student now something that I have not done in a long time. Most of the day, I am engaged in lectures, visits to organizations, NGO’s, government officials, field trips, tons and tons of readings from articles and journals, writing papers, assignments and trying to catch up on my sleep. Okay, if my students are reading this, I know, I have harassed you all too with lots of readings. I promise that I will cut some readings out. Even though life is hectic and the work is overwhelming, I am very happy to be here and to have this opportunity to learn and enrich my life. Maybe health wise I am not yet 100% and so am getting very tired. I have joined the local club where I go to work out, swim, sauna and yoga to keep myself mentally and physically fit. One hour in the club every morning is Manisha time.

Now many of you are also wondering what actually I am studying here. The content is very new to me. It has been four weeks now. The course is very intense as I am learning all new theories, models and literature associated with conflict and peace studies. While I am learning this new subject, I have been constantly reflecting on how I will integrate this into my field “Educational Technology” and more importantly how I can bring this experience into my classroom for my students. Will write more about it in later.
Week 1: Few of the highlights of week 1. The first week started with the concepts and values of peace and conflict studies, gender roles in peace studies, causes of conflicts, structural violence that are built in the system (e.g voices of minority, apartheid, meetings that happen at 3:00pm in the afternoon where mothers could not come in, laws that discriminate people, economic disparities etc), John Burton’s needs theory, human rights, nature and types of conflicts, Edward Azar’s Theory of Social Conflict, reconciliation strategies, Mary Anderson’s “Do no harm” and strategic conflict analysis.

Week 2: The second week focused on the diagnosis and analysis of conflict. This was a very intense week learning about different models of conflict analysis. One of the models we studied in detail is a conflict triangle proposed by Johan Galtung. Johan Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian mathematician and sociologist and a principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. It has three important components: The actors (external and internal who play a role in the conflict situation), the compatibilities/contradictions (the variables that act as connectors and dividers in a conflict) and the behaviors/dynamics exhibited by the actors and influenced by the compatibilities and contradictions. We studied in detail the Darfur Conflict Analysis for two days and it was an eye opening experience as I did not know how complex the situation in Darfur is and how many of the countries, NGO’s national and international, and several other international organizations are making money out of the plight of the people in Darfur. One of the root causes of conflict in Sudan is how some of the unaccountable elites have marginalized the rest of the country. It is the fight of the poor against the elites. But too complex, too many actors and behaviors that has made the situation difficult to resolve.

Erik Melandar my course instructor defined conflict as: disputed incompatibility (pursuit of incompatible goals). He talks about Peace as both negative and positive. (Negative Peace: The absence of direct violence between organized parties and Positive peace: the absence of organized direct violence plus the fulfillment of some human rights). Our final exam was to write a 15 page paper on conflict analysis of a situation that we are already are involved in our work. I did my paper on post conflict situation analysis of Mozambique. This paper highlights the situation in Mozambique grappling with the legacy of colonialism, civil war and apartheid and how these factors have shaped the pandemic of HIV/AIDS leaving a devastating impact especially on women and children and causing a hindrance to the post conflict development of Mozambique. It took me a week to write the paper which is why I was away from emails and communications.

Week 3: Week 3 was comparatively much lighter as we had several hands on activities and role playing sessions focusing on the conflict resolution, skills, approaches and strategies. We learnt strategies and tools that are used for mediation, reconciliation and interests based negotiation process. I realized this week how much of this is all an art and not a science. Mediation was very difficult strategy for me to learn without letting my personal bias and preconceived notions creep into the mediation process of the two conflict parties. I actually failed in my first role as a mediator and was very upset at myself for not being able to remain objective. It takes time, is what I was told. This week was really fun as our two Professors, Jan and Joel sang songs and played music in class to keep us entertained.

Currently I am in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Song, northern part of Thailand. I will write more in the morning about the plight of the refugees living in the camp along the Burma-Thailand border, and Human Trafficking issues in Thailand.