Peace, violence & social distance: Ethnography of an elite school in India

Abstract

AbstractThe article attempts to understand the concept of peace through the prism of social realities. The central argument deconstructs violence and peace as a variable of social distance. Consequently, social interactions become the mechanism of inequalities to underscore how asymmetries of power restructure the social distance. However, interactions are not always actualization of the pre-existing vertical social structures (shaped by power) but how agentic dispositions can counter the course of these interactions and the resultant social distance. The recalibration or maintenance of this distance through the agency is then understood in light of peace or violence framework. The course of analysis builds upon “structural violence” and “Convivencia” as a measure of social distance in relationships. Highlighting the Foucauldian notion of “governmentality”, the article concludes social distance enabled “informal” pedagogy as a more intrusive and more insidious form of pedagogy than the disciplinary one because it attends to the affective aspects of learning. The analysis is based upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an elite international residential school in India. As this builds an evaluative space of “peace thinking”, it provides for complexities of peace research.

Keywords

• Ethnography
• structural violence
• peace education
• school convivencia
• social distance