Sometimes, researchers in the social sciences, and also in other fields, play significant roles, not only in academia, for students and colleagues within their ivory towers, but also for the general public, even in concrete and practical politics, if they listen. Today, I shall draw attention to two unique men in the social sciences, notably professors Ottar Brox (1932-2024) and Johan Galtung (1930-2024), both Norwegians with theories, models and practice that can be applied to the wider world. They passed away at 91 and 93, respectively, earlier this month. We mourn their passing, but we should also celebrate their lives and be grateful for their many books and articles, and their interviews and talks on radio and TV, nowadays available on YouTube, in Norwegian and English.
Professor Brox was the more local of the two, always looking at issues from below, listening to ordinary people and considering their solutions, perhaps with some inputs from academics and experts. He served as a member of the Norwegian parliament for one term, for a leftist party in the 1970s, but he said that social scientists and other academics were not necessarily better politicians than others. He also suggested that if an academic tried to run farming and fishing businesses based on bookish knowledge, he would soon go bankrupt, because there is so much more to it all, which one cannot learn from books and in the auditoriums, only from real experience. Brox expressed great respect for the complicated work of politicians, farmers, fishermen, and for that matter, people in other jobs and life situations. I wish we all carry with us his lessons and realize that hierarchical arrogance does not help in solving problems and creating harmony.
South Punjab Secretariat aims to pace development Professor Galtung was the more international of the two. Yet, he also had a local foundation for his theories, empirical data and anecdotes. He drew on in his work with the first Norwegian development aid project, the Indo-Norwegian Fisheries Development Project in Kerala, India, from 1952. His famous centre-periphery theory is in support of ordinary and poor people. His advice about how solve wars and conflicts are about including ordinary people, underlining that durable solutions can only be found if the two or more parties of men and women truly listen to the opponents, not describing one side as good and the other as bad, but transcending stereotypes and stencil analysis. In one radio interview I recently listened to with Galtung, he asked if anyone had in honesty tried to understand what the Taliban really want, not only saying that their ideas are wrong. About the ever-lasting Israel-Palestine conflict, he said that there could not be real peace if they both put walls around their territories and values, but only if they accept and tolerate each other and try to live together as true neighbours. As it is now, or some years ago when he spoke about it, Galtung thought that avoiding direct war and conflict, would only be possible if the United Nations, or another multilateral force, was placed long-term to keep peace in Israel and Palestine. But that wouldn’t really be peace and it is no way for children to grow up and people to live together in the long run. Hence, new approaches and negotiations that transcend old ways must be found.
DC orders regular cleanliness operations at parks Professor Brox discussed these issues in his several books, taught students and colleagues about the curse of poor people in these and other remote areas. The riches are there, but it is not possible for the people to make use since they lack capital. Sometimes, rich capitalists from the south of Norway or from foreign countries, invest, leading to some jobs for locals, but the main profit is taken out, and there is uncertainty about how long the outsiders will stay. If they can earn higher profits elsewhere the capitalists have no loyalty to stay, leaving the locals even worse off than before.
Some of the issues are specific to North-Norway, but most of them are also relevant to other remote areas, and to countries anywhere in the world where the centre dominates the periphery, as it does everywhere. But then, we should also remember that it is the resources from the periphery that often develops the centre, be it at national or international levels. Ottar Brox’ best known book came already in 1966, entitled ‘Hva skjer in Nord-Norge?’ In English, ‘What Happens in North-Norway?’ He was a young man then. Perhaps new ideas come best and sharpest from young people?
IMI training participants visit South Punjab secretariat Johan Galtung is the founder of peace research as an academic discipline. He was one of the key academics, with his wife that time, sociologist and politician Ingrid Eide, who in 1959 founded the International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He developed the centre-periphery theory, as I already mentioned above, which is an analytical tool in studying remote areas and developing countries, indeed in understanding imperialism. The core of the theory is simply that the powerful people, institutions and capital in the centre cooperate with the same at higher and lower levels. That means that the industrialised countries in what we nowadays call the Global North link up with their rich partners in the Global South. The centre maintains all the power, sets all the terms and draws all the profits. The periphery not only stays poor, but it becomes poorer than before as its resources are exploited and taken away from them. True, in the periphery, the centre’s partners there benefit, too, at least to some degree, so they will stay loyal to the real centre’s forces. Are they traitors? Yes, they are, but that is how the world’s economic system and competition work; the strong wins while the poor looses, and those who already have, will be given more. Galtung’s centre-periphery theory was first published in PRIO’s ‘Journal of Peace Research’ in 1971.
Polio awareness walk held Before I end my article, let me mention that Galtung visited Afghanistan and Pakistan several times in the past decades, being healthy until a year’s time ago. He was a close friend of the former UN (FAO/IFAD) staff member and top Pakistani politician Sartaj Aziz (1929-2024), who passed away last month. I think the two had met as students in the USA in their youthful years. I should perhaps add that Galtung was an admirer of Americans but a critique of the superpower’s international role and dominant policies. He said, the UN should get out of America, and America should get out of the UN. When I was a young student, we enjoyed listening to such sharp statements, fun and analytical at the same time, albeit controversial. Galtung wrote more than a hundred books, and probably thousands of articles, so we can still read and learn from his universally relevant thinking for a long time to come.
Police arrest PO through Interpol Atle Hetland
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com
Research for Peace and Development
64
1
22.02.2024
Sometimes, researchers in the social sciences, and also in other fields, play significant roles, not only in academia, for students and colleagues within their ivory towers, but also for the general public, even in concrete and practical politics, if they listen. Today, I shall draw attention to two unique men in the social sciences, notably professors Ottar Brox (1932-2024) and Johan Galtung (1930-2024), both Norwegians with theories, models and practice that can be applied to the wider world. They passed away at 91 and 93, respectively, earlier this month. We mourn their passing, but we should also celebrate their lives and be grateful for their many books and articles, and their interviews and talks on radio and TV, nowadays available on YouTube, in Norwegian and English.
Professor Brox was the more local of the two, always looking at issues from below, listening to ordinary people and considering their solutions, perhaps with some inputs from academics and experts. He served as a member of the Norwegian parliament for one term, for a leftist party in the 1970s, but he said that social scientists and other academics were not necessarily better politicians than others. He also suggested that if an academic tried to run farming and fishing businesses based on bookish knowledge, he would soon go bankrupt, because there is so much more to it all, which one cannot learn from books and in the auditoriums, only from real experience. Brox expressed great respect for the complicated work of politicians, farmers, fishermen, and for that matter, people in other jobs and life situations. I wish we all carry with us his lessons and realize that hierarchical arrogance does not help in solving problems and creating harmony.
South Punjab Secretariat aims to pace development Professor........
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