Qualitative comparative analysis reveals divergence in peace education between recognized and contested states, highlighting the critical role of academic freedom in research integrity.
This paper responds to two politically charged reactions to my scholarship on peace and global citizenship education (GCE): the censorship of a UNESCO Beijing conference presentation in Seoul (August 2025) and a confrontational exchange with a Chinese postgraduate student in New Zealand. Drawing on literature on research integrity, politicisation and the conceptual framework of knowledge diplomacy, I examine how scholarship on conflict‐affected societies is reframed through nationalist narratives that equate “neutrality” with silence and erasure. The censored study presents a qualitative comparative analysis of 40 faculty in China/Taiwan, Cyprus, Korea and Somalia/Somaliland, informed by the “local turn” in peacebuilding and postcritical theory. It finds that understandings of peace and GCE are contextually grounded: educators in recognised states foreground sameness, while those in contested contexts foster dialogue across difference. In this paper, I examine the study's contested reception and defend dialogic academic freedom as essential to research integrity and knowledge diplomacy.
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Kevin Kester (2026) studied this question.
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