AGS Professor and AGS Ph.D. Candidate Participate in Peace Studies Summer Program in South Korea

As nuclear tensions mounted between Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un and President Donald Trump, AGS Professor Douglas Yates and AGS Ph.D. candidate Olivier Sempiga participated in the World Peace Academy 2017 held in Jeju, South Korea from August 6 to 9.

This innovative peace studies program is organized by the World Association of Island Studies at Jeju National University, in conjunction with Hokkaido University of Japan. The goal is to promote peacebuilding andpost-conflict healingin Korea and other countries. The audience is composed of an international community of scholars, students, and human rights and peace advocates. Prof. Yates says: "Although not a panacea, nevertheless there is a powerful role for peace education as one component of peacebuilding, privileging nonviolence and enabling a space and a process through which the values and interests of the Korean peoples might be negotiated. The establishment and institutionalization of peace education on Jeju Island can be a part of this peacebuilding process, enhancing the prospects for resolution of this protracted conflict."

The 2017 edition of the Jeju World Peace Academy was entitled "Towards Jeju Type of Peace Education at the Grass Roots Level."Sempiga, who had been a scholarship student in South Korea before joining AGS, and is fluent in Korean, shared his experience as a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Yates, who teaches conflict resolution at AGS, presented a keynote lecture on "Peacekeeping, Peacemaking and Peacebuilding" in the conflict between the two Koreas. Other subjects included the April 3rd 1948 Jeju Island massacre of some 30,000 islanders by US and South Korean soldiers, the construction of a US military base on Jeju, and comparisons with the US base on Okinawa.See full program

AGS students who are interested in participating in the 2018 Jeju World Peace Academy should contact AGS's academic coordinator Marinella Bergese (academics@ags.edu).