Class

I realized I haven't blogged about class at all. . .and since that is why I am here I thought I would tell you a little about it. Now that we are through four weeks, it seems a little easier to process. The first week was an introduction to peace and conflict, mediation and negotiation theory. We looked at nature and types of conflict as well at root causes. There was sessions on gender roles that first week too, which might sound odd. It was included the first week because gender needs to be considered at all levels of what we are studying and therefore needed to be discussed early on so it would always be addressed or considered.

The classes were not all lecture. There would be lecture and q/a and then a lot of self study and group exercises. Self study included things like rating our own gender bias and group work including case studies and a 1/2 day negotiation. It was our first week of getting to know one another, 22 people from around the world, it was interesting. Most of you know, I love group dynamics.

The second week was on conflict analysis. A lot of lecture, which was a hard change, ending in a case study on Darfur using what we had learned that week. I really learned a lot in the second week and could begin to see how you can use conflict analysis to more thoroughly and deeply understand a conflict. A big discussion point was about connectors (not just dividers) and working with what connects people.

We then had to write a paper using our own conflict (we picked a topic we were familiar with before we came here, mine being land use issues in Petoskey area) and doing an analysis on it. I actually enjoyed writing the paper because it made me use the knowledge and brought it all together. (We will continue to add to this paper throughout the course, adding more material too it from what we have learned).

The third week things started to change. The whole week was based on culture, mediation and facilitation. Again a lot of self study and group work. We looked this time at our own cultural bias as well as understanding our own individual perspectives, looking back at what creates our own perspective as individuals. This is important to understand when working in mediation and facilitation. We also did a full day interest based facilitation, which I enjoyed. The topic, instead of violence, was actually a land use issue and the process was slow moving but ended up being very productive. Basically we find common interests between parties. We also did active listening and mediation exercises.

Mixed into the first three weeks was a class on eastern philosophies on peace and background information on the conflicts in Burma and Cambodia. We also had a day of background info on our field study, which was going to cover Thai issues of statelessness and human trafficking. The reason for that is the fourth week was field study in northern Thailand where we would need all this background info.

So our field study, it was a not a vacation in any sense of the word, went to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. We spent seven days straight driving around northern Thailand learning about difficult issues. We met people from all sides of conflict and were able to ask them questions and gain more insight. They are difficult issues to hear about and process and I could go on about, but I won't. In general there is an issue that many people in northern Thailand have no citizenship in any country, they are stateless. They have no rights in Thailand but live and work here. A lot of the clothes you find "made in Thailand" are cheap because they have been made by stateless workers who get paid below regular wages. . .

Human trafficking in my mind is just another word for slavery and is awful; often being young women and girls in the sex industry here. Very hard to say the least.

Our last few days was on a resource conflict regarding water. Same issues here really as in other places when it comes to land use and resource management. All very interesting. All unresolved conflict.

So I am studying and working here really I am! I did have some fun in the north. They took us to a few tourist sights. We did have two off days before coming back to Bangkok and I was able to sneak off to a national park for some quiet R&R in mountains. I will post on that next. . .