To Örebro University

Peaceful societies are viewed as both the goal and means of sustainable development. In Swedish preschool teacher education, conflict management has been one of the examination objectives since 2011. However, the need for a more comprehensive and adequate peace education remains, as successful teaching for peace that provides a sustainable commitment needs to be transformative and include both intellectual, emotional, and practical aspects.

This study aims to highlight the transformative potential of teacher education by exploring students' learning processes in the field of ​​conflict management. What structural conditions, including teaching methods, can promote students' transformative learning in conflict management? What altered perspectives emerge, and how and why do they occur?

The study combines theories of positive peace and peacebuilding with Jack Mezirow's theory of transformative learning, which both focus on social relations as a prerequisite for personal transformation and collective action. The data consists of documents produced within the frame of a course in a preschool teacher program, such as teaching materials, course evaluations, and 103 students' critical self-reflecting journals and argumentative texts.

The multi-staged data analysis is partly based on the different phases of transformative learning. It includes a) self-examination, b) critically reflecting and reconsidering one's and others' assumptions and actions, c) exploring new roles, and d) describing or applying new ways of acting.

The results show how preschool teacher education can contribute to peacebuilding by stimulating transformative learning. The course's design encouraged the students to reconsider previous beliefs and actions through scenario-based workshops focusing on problem-solving using consensus decision-making processes, nonviolent communication, and role-playing. There were apparent shifts in perspectives regarding students' i) the concept of conflict, ii) self-identification concerning different conflict styles, iii) leadership style, iv) self-believed ability to handle conflicts constructively, and v) understanding of and response to children's acts of resistance.

A commitment to peace and a desire to improve women's situation have for long been leading to transnational encounters between women. This paper studies efforts to support women's peacebuilding in Bosnia, performed by the Swedish foundation Kvinna till Kvinna, through educational activities. Study visits organized in Sweden during the first postwar decade, 1995-2005, and their empowerment potentials are put center stage and investigated through the following questions: How did Bosnian activists experience the time spent in Sweden? How did the knowledge they encountered there impact their activism and organizations? How was, according to them, this knowledge used in the Bosnian context? This empirical study is based on deep interviews with Bosnian peace activists carried out during the fall of 2020 and in the beginning of 2021. By taking the activists seriously as historical actors and carefully contextualizing their perspective, it shows both challenges and possibilites with the transfer of knowledge from the centre to the semiperiphery.  

Peacebuilding in areas affected by war and conflict is a difficult endeavour. The dissertation summerized in this DDB examines possibilities and challenges faced by international interveners in violently diveded Bosnia between 1993 and 2013. The study object is the aid organization Kvinna till Kvinna, mainly supported by the Swedish International Development Coordination Agency. The encounter with domestic women's organizations is put center stage and studied from the perspective of both actors. This study shows clearly that Kvinna till Kvinna has been successful in building trustworthy cooperation with its Bosnian counterparts. However, the findings also demonstrate that even well-intentioned, locally-focused external actors, constrained by donor agendas and circumstances on the ground, contain problematic characteristics common in the era of liberal peace. While subscribing to the idea od transitional sisterhood and focusing on local ownership, the organization exercised soft power over its Bosnian 'partners' which slowly bur surely led them to adapt to donor preferences. Lessons to be learned from this study are that those seeking to support peace in conflict-affected areas constantly need to be on the alert regarding the risk of power imbalance, have deeper interest in contextual knowledge and a critical approach to their own references of the world.

This dissertation examines possibilities and challenges faced by international interveners in a post-socialist and violently divided area. The study object is the Swedish foundation Kvinna till Kvinna, formed in 1993 during the Bosnian war, originating from the peace movement and supported by the Swedish government aid agency Sida. The aim is to contextualize and analyze Kvinna till Kvinna’s two decades of engagement in peacebuilding in Bosnia. The encounter with domestic women’s NGOs is of particular interest. By focusing on rhetoric, practice and silences, the ambition has been to understand the international/local relationship from the perspective of both actors.

  In terms of methodology, this study combines a hermeneutic approach with that of oral history. The empirical material utilized consists of both written and oral sources, the majority of which appear in research for the first time. To capture the complexity of the peacebuilding endeavor, critically scrutinize it and discern its benevolence, this research draws inspiration from postcolonial and semiperipherality theories, as well as influential theorizing on peacebuilding, sisterhood and solidarity.

  This study shows that even well-intentioned, locally-focused external efforts, constrained by donor agendas and circumstances on the ground, contain problematic characteristics common in the era of liberal peace. While subscribing to the idea of transnational sisterhood, Kvinna till Kvinna also presented a belief in Swedish supremacy and demonstrated a lack of interest in local knowledge. It sought to educate and change its Bosnian counterparts by using soft methods. Further, the findings challenge idealized images of the ‘local’ as a peace-loving force for change and a powerless victim of Western domination. The hierarchical sisterhood that over time evolved between the two actors, founded on basic shared values related to women’s situation, was driven by mutual benefit. Acknowledging advantages of this type of transnational encounters in peacebuilding contexts, the study raises questions about dilemmas in them and underlines the importance of rhetorical listening.