https://padlet.com/yaarhin/1d0ivjuzlsqkmspu Made with a little mischief en-us 2021-10-25 14:34:12 UTC 2025-05-27 15:49:24 UTC hello@padlet.com yaarhin https://padlet.com/yaarhin/1d0ivjuzlsqkmspu/wish/1845611288 Bright and Gledhill's , 'Mapping Peace and Conflict Studies was very eye opening for me. Below are some of the things i realized and reflect upon during the course of my reading:
 Peace and Conflict Studies is a multidisciplinary field. It includes researchers from various fields, even those considered as quantitative research field. Such as, economics, mathematics, Physics, Political Science, International Relations etc. What was most remarkable to me was that ; even though i had always thought this multidisciplinary nature of PACS could only contribute positively to the field. I learnt that this is one of the main reasons for the field being a divided one. Factors from how PACS research is approached and from what angle, whether from the violent perspective or Peace perspective all play into this division. 
This leads to my second point ; domination of violence in PACS research. Anyone hearing of PACS would assume that we are mostly concerned with the research of Peace , this however proves not to be the case. "Peace Research is concerned with the issue of Violence"(Wallensteen, 2011).In a mapping also done by Bright & Gledhill, they found that studies of "conflict" account for a majority of classifiable articles (71% of the automatic sample and 53% of the manual sample).
It was also interesting to note how Gender plays a role in this bias for violence in the PACS field.  Male authors are twice as likely to study 'Conflict' as 'Peace', whereas female authors are slightly more likely to write on 'Peace' than 'Conflict'(Bright & Gledhill, 2018)This gender aspect can actually help explain why the field of PACS is skewed towards 'Violence'; as  the field is unfortunately still Male dominated. 
This led me to ask myself he question, "Why is the field of PACS so 'preoccupied' with Violence?" This i thought to be because of just how empirically hard it is to study Peace. For instance how do we know we are experiencing Peace if i haven't first seen what the opposite of Peace is like which is Violence. We need to be able to observe and know what Conflict is like , so that once those factors are not clear we can say that we are having are in a state of Peace.  'Peace is commonly understood as a non-outcome (i.e., the absence of violence; see Klein, Goertz, and Diehl 2008). When conceptualized thus, it is evidently difficult to study peace-related topics without first studying violence'(Bright & Gledhill,2018), this statement best explains my point.
Finally i learnt that even though PACS is biased towards Violence studies it does not make Peace Research just the study of war( Gleditsch, Nordkvelle & Strand,2014), as there are some accepted and recognized body of work concerning some peace related processes and outcomes i.e., Peacekeeping, Conflict Prevention, Peacemaking etc.
 

]]> 2021-10-26 16:29:18 UTC https://padlet.com/yaarhin/1d0ivjuzlsqkmspu/wish/1845611288 yaarhin https://padlet.com/yaarhin/1d0ivjuzlsqkmspu/wish/1881426938 From this text i was able to grasp an idea of exactly how broad the study of PACS really is. It has many very interesting topics, However the ones i am most interested in has got to be Conflict Prevention and the role Gender plays in PACS.  
I have a Bachelor in Political Science, this i believe ties in perfectly to PACS. Fortunately, i have HAD the opportunity to have a fore knowledge of some of the concepts and theories in PACS. 
I've also had the opportunity to work in the office of the Clerk to the Parliament of Ghana. Here i saw first hand how some of the methods employed in conflict prevention was used on the floor of parliament during a tussle between the sitting government and the opposition. I saw how some research and recommendations from the Peace and Conflict community were taken into account was making policy.
My expectations for this course is that at the end i would be able to have a deeper understanding of PACS and certain factors and conditions that leads to Conflict and subsequently conflict intervention. My main aim of studying PACS is to have the knowledge and expertise needed to make a real impact in the society not only theoretically but in practice.]]> 2021-11-10 14:27:25 UTC https://padlet.com/yaarhin/1d0ivjuzlsqkmspu/wish/1881426938