14th Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace
30th May to 4th June 2015
Organized by the College for Graduate Studies and its Institute for Social and Health Sciences (ISHS), University of South Africa (UNISA) and its Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit, the 14th biennial Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace was held in Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa from 30th May to 4th June 2015. Participants were invited to address the theme Engaging Invited and Invented Spaces for Peace as it relates to a wide range of topics that bear on the psychology of peace, including particular areas of interest and expertise. The local site coordinators were Professor Mohamed Seedat and Dr Shahnaaz Suffla. Approximately 60 delegates from 17 countries participated in the Symposium.
International Symposia on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace bring together approximately 50 invited participants from around the world every other year. These symposia promote intercultural research and practice on peace and social justice issues, and enable scholars and practitioners to present their current contributions to peace psychology. They also provide a platform for mutual exchange of ideas and experiences, where participants engage in intercultural dialogue aimed at reducing cultural bias and ethnocentrism in research and practice in peace psychology. The goal is to privilege voices from cultures and situations that are typically not included in dominant peace discourses, and to build an international community that promotes peace-related research and action.
The 14th International Symposium drew attention to key challenges and developments in peacemaking and peacebuilding in different regions of the world, with a particular focus on Africa, the African diaspora and the Middle East. Though these regions were foregrounded in the meeting, psychological contributions to understanding and intervening in conflict in other regions of the world were also prominent at the Symposium. Following the Symposium theme, presentations reflected on local, national and global peace engagement across spaces that are invited or invented. Peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives, historically and contemporaneously, are situated in spaces that construct engagement as either called or created, or in spaces that reflect the fluidity and medial nature of such participation. Against this backdrop, the symposium theme attracted contributions that showcased the diverse, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, innovative and participatory contributions of peace psychologists towards peace efforts.
The scientific programme provided a balance of presentations, dialogue, site visits, and interest-based working groups. The programme included sessions on national and global illustrations of peace; geo-political and disciplinary boundaries in peace psychology; narratives of post-apartheid South Africa; violence in South Africa; peace in contexts of militarism; community engaged methods in peace research; gender and peace; memory and forgiveness; and educational approaches to peace; documentary and digital story screenings; a photo exhibition; and a Public Lecture that was hosted by the University of Pretoria. The programme also included visits to the Constitution Hill precinct, Apartheid Museum and the community of Thembelihle in Johannesburg. Click here to see the programme.
The meeting in South Africa also resulted in the inaugural proceedings of this symposium series. Titled Enlarging the Scope of Peace Psychology: African and World-Regional Contributions, and edited by Mohamed Seedat, Shahnaaz Suffla and Daniel Christie, the proceedings is part of the Springer Peace Series and is to be published in 2016.
Symposium participants
Left to Right: Professor Lesiba Teffo (Director of School of Transdisciplinary Research Institutes, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa); Professor Glenda Gray (President, South African Medical Research Council); Advocate George Bizos (Guest Speaker); Dr. Shahnaaz Suffla (Local Site Coordinator); Professor Mohamed Seedat (Local Site Coordinator); Professor Greg Cuthbertson (Executive Dean, School of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa)