Culture of Peace and Democracy. Complementary visions in an education for inclusive societies

This work analyses how the culture of peace paradigm has contributed to strengthen educational processes aimed at the development of learning to face the challenge of building a democratic community based on a radically inclusive perspective, considering the difficulty that living together in this era implies. Drawing from the analysis of the conceptual and methodological assumptions that support the culture of peace, as well as its pedagogical implications, its inputs are addressed in three dimensions that contribute to the development of skills and willingness to denature the culture of violence and cope with conflicts from a transformational perspective (Lederach, 2000); the enrichment of dispute resolution and legal regulation arrangements, through methods related to reconciliation, compensation and reconstruction, stemming from the field of peace studies (Galtung, 1998), as well as the construction of avenues leading to the recognition of the other in his/her difference, as a subject of law. From the positive peace horizon, this perspective is considered as broadening the range of possibilities for the treatment of differences, in societies where discrimination and exclusion processes towards certain social sectors that have been historically configured —such as the population of indigenous origin in Mexico—, prevail. Through deeper and more comprehensive approaches, another episteme is proposed, which poses a new vision that questions the beliefs and values associated to the culture of violence, to justify the rejection and even the annihilation of the other, by considering him/her as an enemy and/or a subject of waste, in order to replicate structural inequality. Said new episteme facilitates the claim for recognition of the difference from a decentred perspective, which assumes the existence of a great plurality of ways of perceiving time and space opposed to the unilinear sense typical of the liberal democracy paradigm, which highlights its limitations to solve on its own complex tensions arising from the relationships between traditional groups and modern sectors, by getting caught in the opposition between Western culture and local culture. References Galtung, J. (1998). Tras la violencia, 3R: reconstrucción, reconciliación, resolución. Bilbao, Ed. Gorgoratuz. Lederach, J. (2000). El abecé de la paz y los conflictos. Madrid, Editorial Catarata.