Discourse, Peace, and Conflict: Discursive Psychology Perspectives

This first-of-its-kind volume brings discursive psychology and peace psychology together in a compelling practical synthesis. An array of internationally-recognised contributors examine multiple dimensions of discourse—official and casual, speech, rhetoric, and text—in creating and maintaining conflict and building mediation and reconciliation. Examples of strategies for dealing with longstanding conflicts (the Middle East), significant flashpoints (the Charlie Hebdo case), and current heated disputes (the refugee ‘crisis’ in Europe) demonstrate discursive methods in context as they bridge theory with real life. This diversity of subject matter is matched by the range of discursive approaches applied to peace psychology concepts, methods, and practice. Among the topics covered: Discursive approaches to violence against women. The American gun control debate: a discursive analysis. Constructing peace and violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Discursive psychological research on refugees. Citizenship, social injustice, and the quest for a critical social psychology of peace. The emotional and political power of images of suffering: discursive psychology and the study of visual rhetoric. Discourse, Peace, and Conflict offers expansive ideas to scholars and practitioners in peace psychology, as well as those in related areas such as social psychology, political psychology, and community psychology with an interest in issues pertaining to peace and conflict.

Part I: Introduction -- Chapter 1: Discursive psychology and peace psychology -- Part II: Interpersonal and intergroup conflicts -- Chapter 2: How to increase participation in a conflict resolution process: Insights from discursive psychology -- Chapter 3: Discursive psychology and domestic violence -- Chapter 4: The American gun control debate: A discursive analysis -- Chapter 5: Disloyal, deluded, dangerous: how supporters of violence or separatism discredit their political opponents -- Part III: Intractable and international military conflicts -- Chapter 6: Constructing peace and violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict -- Chapter 7: In the shadow of the other: Arguments about the First Gaza War in British conservative editorials -- Chapter 8: The dynamics of ‘pacifism’ and ‘warmongering’: The denial of stake in debates preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- Chapter 9: Reconciliation revisited: A discursive approach to reconciliation -- Part IV: Refuge and migration -- Chapter 10: Discursive psychological research on refugees -- Chapter 11: Unlawful, un-cooperative and unwanted: The dehumanization of asylum seekers in the Australian newsprint media -- Chapter 12: Constructing the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece: A critical discursive social psychological analysis -- Chapter 13: Citizenship, social injustice and the quest for a critical social psychology of peace: Majority Greek and immigrant discourses on a new migration law in Greece -- Part V: Conceptual and methodological reflections -- Chapter 14: Discursive psychology and social practices of avoidance -- Chapter 15: Structure and agency in peace psychology: Temporality as mediating gesture between abstract and concrete intervention -- Chapter 16: The emotional and political power of images of suffering: Discursive psychology and the study of visual rhetoric -- Chapter 17: Charlie Hebdo and the prophet Muhammad: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of peace and violence in a satirical cartoon -- Part VI: Concluding remarks -- Chapter 18: Developing a critical discursive peace psychology.