Role-Playing International Intervention in Conflict Areas: Lessons from Bosnia for Northern Ireland Education

Abstract

Role-playing is a useful exercise in overcoming some of the limits of traditional lecture-based teaching. While lectures presuppose the existence of a knowledgeable professor transmitting information to overall passive students, role-playing requires both the redefinition of the professor/student relationship and the active and purposeful involvement of students. This paper is an initial attempt to assess a role-play designed to achieve three main results: support students to take a more active role and ownership of their learning process; develop students’ research, writing and presentation skills; and apply their knowledge to a specific case. Substantively, the exercise aimed at investigating the dynamics of conflict management and intervention in conflict areas by addressing a crisis situation in a Bosnian town. Because this exercise took place in an area (Northern Ireland) with a long history of conflict, all students had very personal and direct knowledge of inter-communal tensions and clashes. Role-playing gave them an opportunity to investigate critically the dynamics of conflict management and the limits of external intervention.