Becoming engineers of strategy for building peace

One 4-hour session: Saturday 2/8 (1-5pm Eastern / 10am-2pm Pacific) Drawing on his work as a doctoral student in Quaker Studies, Smith leads the group into re-examining peacebuilding the way military strategists look at waging war. Tactics, strategies, asymmetrical conflicts – even subterfuge and intelligence operations – with violence off the table, these concepts become…

Workshop Description

One 4-hour session: Saturday 2/8 (1-5pm Eastern / 10am-2pm Pacific)

Drawing on his work as a doctoral student in Quaker Studies, Smith leads the group into re-examining peacebuilding the way military strategists look at waging war. Tactics, strategies, asymmetrical conflicts – even subterfuge and intelligence operations – with violence off the table, these concepts become all the more vital to create the conditions of peace that can remove the occasion for war. Using historical examples as starters, including abolition and women’s enfranchisement, students work collaboratively to roleplay peacebuilding strategies across a variety of shared, original scenarios as members of different groups affected by a controlling but varied power structure. You do not have to be an experienced role-player; the leader is a longtime theater educator, artist, and Quaker scholar. That said, be ready and willing to throw yourself into your role(s) for the majority of the four-hour workshop. Format includes brief centering worship, overview of terms and concepts of strategy, establishment of scenarios, roleplaying time, after-action review of the play, and return to a new scenario. No preparation necessary.

Leader Experience

Stuart E.W. Smith, MFA, lives in the California Gold Country on Nisenan land, where he works as an educator and a theatre artist. His doctoral work in Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham centers on learning targets for nonviolent social activists with historical case studies involving Quaker and non-Quaker leaders.