Friendship, Peace and Social Justice

Book excerpt: A just peaceful world. How can that be achieved? What sorts of relationships might be needed? Could the concept of friendship assist? Assembling the work of twenty scholars, this book creates a resource for those aiming to deal with conflict non-violently and promotes peaceful attitudes and outcomes in a troubled world. The book posits that making the connections between Friendship, Peace and Social Justice is vital for living in a functioning and sustainable world. Firstly, it makes connections between scholars of peace and conflict studies, friendship studies, ethics, and social justice. Secondly, it explores the connections between the ethical concepts and practices of friendship, peace, and social justice. Thirdly, it links academic researchers who use a variety of methodological approaches. Fourthly, it provides different academic perspectives of scholars from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The topics covered include civic, social and virtue friendship, peace and psycho-social development, the role of social media and friendship, cultures of peace activism, resistance, justice movements, environmental campaigns, community building, art collectives, dialogue, facilitative listening, Ubuntu, reconciliation, healing and relationship building. This book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars in Politics, Sociology, Social Justice and Peace and Conflict Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Peace Review.