A fundamental assumption of the peace education industry in Israel and across the globe is that dialogue can help—help to humanize the other, dispel stereotypes, and provide voice to silenced narratives. This presentation critically interrogated this assumption through a synthesis of research with Israeli and Palestinian youth.
Speaker Biography:
Phillip L. Hammack is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Psychology from the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago and has published widely in social, cultural, and developmental psychology. His research broadly investigates youth identity development in political and cultural context. He is the author of Narrative and the Politics of Identity: The Cultural Psychology of Israeli and Palestinian Youth (Oxford University Press, 2011) and the forthcoming Can Talking Help? Dialogue and the Politics of Difference (Oxford, 2016). Hammack is also editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Social Psychology and Social Justice (Oxford, 2016). His work with Palestinian and Israeli youth has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and the National Science Foundation. Hammack identifies as a “scholar-practitioner” and has thus also held a number of non-academic positions in peace organizations, including roles in group facilitation and program administration in peace education programs. From 2010-2011, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Hammack has received Early Career Awards from the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) and from two divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA): the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9) and the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48).
