Abstract
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has attracted much academic attention. In psychology, scholars have suggested tools to overcome the intractability of the conflicts and to deconstruct prejudice and stereotypes between Jews and Arabs (e.g., Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005). Hammack’s book is a substantial contribution to this body of work. It analyses the power of master narratives about the conflict, among young individuals on both sides, and it engages critically with the limitations of peace education programs.
The research monograph aims to address two main questions: what is the relationship between master narratives and personal narratives in the context of intractable political conflict? Is contact between Israeli and Palestinian youth, as structured by two American peace programs, more likely to result in the reproduction or in the rejection of these master narratives? The book guides us through narratives that describe young people’s fears, hopes, and convictions before and after their participation in the peace programs. The author gives an empathetic and well-balanced analysis of how master narratives about the conflict, as expressed in Israeli and Palestinian official discourses, are endorsed at the personal level by participants in the study. The study shows the importance of space and local identity in how young Palestinians and Israelis perceive the conflict. When the conflict is largely tangential to the daily experience of young Israelis and Palestinians, this affects their ability to resist master narratives about their own and the other group.
The findings of the study clearly demonstrate that the master narratives constructing Israeli, Palestinian, and Palestinian–Israeli collective selves, together with the material reality of the conflict, shape but do not determine the microlevel personal narratives of identity. This approach fits with theories of “political opportunity structure” in the study of social movements (e.g., Koopmans & Statham, 1999; Tarrow, 1994). Hammack indirectly contributes to these debates by describing ways in which discursive and institutional structuring of opportunity constitute the identity of collective actors and by highlighting the dynamic reactions to these structures—something generally overlooked in the political opportunity structures literature. It is in this context that one would wish for a more precise discussion of the institutional and discursive role of the Israeli state and the Palestinian political apparatus in maintaining and legitimizing master narratives. Have the politics and rhetoric of different Israeli administrations changed the master narratives about the peoples and the conflict? In what ways have Yasser Arafat’s death and the rise of Hamas changed master narratives about Palestinian identity? Assuming that a particular institutional apparatus can legitimize certain discourses in the public sphere, a closer analysis of the state could illuminate the development and legitimation of master narratives.
To address the second research question, Hammack draws on interviews with youth after they have taken part in the peace programs in the United States and on participant observation from his extensive fieldwork in the programs. The analysis shows that the programs are only partly successful in humanizing the other and de-polarizing the situation. Both case-study programs are detached from the reality of the young participants. As one participant said: “The problem with the program is that, when you come back and end this program, you are going back to reality, and your reality is not the way it was in the program” (p. 312). Hammack argues that the normative underpinnings of these programs do not line up with the structural and normative reality of the conflict. The programs are embedded in the American context of racial discrimination and intergroup relations (e.g., Allport, 1954) and aspire to a cosmopolitan ideal (e.g., Appiah, 2006) which advocates the development of a superordinate identity that transcends vernacularism and strong group identification. In a context in which mutual recognition of group identity and acknowledgement of structural inequalities are pivotal to peace talks, these programs “seem to most often serve the interests of those who organize them” (p. 18). Hammack shows that most of his participants either returned to their previous conceptions of the two groups or even accentuated their in-group identity. It is clear from the study that we need even more research on peace education in conflict situations.
In addition to catalyzing further work on these kinds of settings, the book also speaks to the wider literature on intergroup relations. Research on “multiculturalism,” in particular, would benefit from the insights of this study. Characterized by sophisticated normative arguments about coexistence and the development of supraordinate civic identities (e.g., Kymlicka, 1995; Parekh, 2008), research on multiculturalism could be enriched by adopting an approach similar to the one that Hammack takes. Researchers can shed light on how to overcome intergroup tensions and conflicts only by providing a contextualized and empirically grounded understanding of intergroup relations. This should take into consideration the lived experiences of the people involved, as well as structural asymmetries of power.
This is a compelling and important book, of interest to a large number of researchers in psychology, politics, sociology, and anthropology, as well as practitioners involved in peace education. Hammack defines himself a “scholar-practitioner.” The book illustrates what he means. As a scholar, he sheds light on the complex relation between the personal and the structural and makes a passionate call for contextualized, evidence-based theory development. As a practitioner, Hammack warns against the perils of ethnocentrism and ideology when developing programs that aim to educate about or transform a conflict. Despite good intentions, such programs may contribute to the reproduction of orientalistic narratives about the enlightened West and the “to-be-civilized” Other, more than they challenge intergroup tensions and power asymmetries.