Global Citizenship Education for Peace in Politically Sensitive Contexts: Research Integrity, Knowledge Diplomacy and Censorship

Abstract

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.