By Madison for a World BEYOND War, the UW-Madison Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and Veterans for Peace – Madison Chapter 25, October 3, 2024
On September 30th in Madison, Wisconsin, a Faculty-Student Roundtable Discussion on Humanity, Warfare, and Peacefare was held. Participants included Anthropology Professor Nam C. Kim, students Charlene Huynh, Venerable Sophea Kai, and Axell Boomer, with panel moderator Esty Dinur.
The purpose was to discuss war abolition, and to learn from anthropological and historical perspectives about ‘peacefare’ – how humans have avoided and prevented war.
Along with UW-Madison students, Professor Nam C. Kim shared an anthropologis-archaeologist’s view of the history of warfare and family connections to armed conflict. Peacefare is a counterpoint to warfare. Culture allows for war and peace. It takes cooperation to avoid or prevent war, and the archaeological record shows that societies make huge investments in conflict avoidance, ceremonies to prevent war, marriages for alliance building, trade as a political alliance, and signaling peaceful intentions to outsiders.
Three UW-Madison students were part of the roundtable.
Charlene Huynh is winner of the 2024 Waging Peace in Vietnam Essay Contest, details here. She will read her winning essay and be part of the discussion. She majors in Sociology and Communications Arts, and has certificates in history and Asian American studies.
Venerable Sophea Kai is a PhD student in the Department of History, where his research interests are history, religion, despicable wars, Asian Americans and multiracial interaction. He will share about the profound impacts of the civil war in Cambodia on him and his family, and how wars never end, due to trauma, unexploded ordinance and refugee crises.
Axell Boomer is the winner of the 2024 Beinecke Award, and works with the UW Nonviolence Project. He will share his work on Resurrection City, the encampment created in 1968 in Washington, DC by the Poor People’s Campaign, and how civil rights and anti-war organizing were interrelated. He majors in History and Religion.
The panel was moderated by journalist Esty Dinur, herself a child of war. A recent essay of hers about Israel, Palestine, Russia and Ukraine is in the Cap Times here.
PhD student Joel Ballivian helped out with tech and Q & A. His research is in political philosophy and, more narrowly, reparative justice. Outside of school, he enjoys midwest emo, tacos (Taqueria Marimar has the best), and political action aimed at getting the university’s investment portfolios to comply with principles of ethical investment.
We hope to have another warfare/peacefare roundtable next semester, with a focus on Southeast Asia and Vietnam, as part of campus events to commemorate the 50-year anniversary, in April 2025, of the end of the American war in Vietnam.
Sponsored by Madison for a World BEYOND War, the UW-Madison Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and Veterans for Peace – Madison Chapter 25.
