Men’s Violence Prevention and Peace Education: Drawing on Galtung to Explore the Plurality of Violence(s), Peace(s), and Masculinities

Abstract

This article examines a concern that some programs engaging men in the prevention of violence against women use overly homogenized conceptions of violence. In response, the authors draw on their experience teaching men's violence prevention in North America and the UK and their background in peace studies to bring Johan Galtung’s influential peace and conflict frameworks into the men’s violence prevention context. It is argued a feminist-informed Galtungian approach can support existing men’s violence prevention by 1) incorporating heterogeneous conceptions of men’s direct, cultural, and structural violences; 2) introducing conceptions of positive and negative peaces; and 3) outlining different programmatic strategies through peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding approaches. This article outlines how Galtung’s framework can help improve men’s violence prevention by providing an accessible, contextually adaptable, and analytically useful framework to support men in understanding violence, peace, and the interdependent relationships between violences, peaces, and peace-work in addressing violence against women.