47 Facts About Adam Curle

Charles Thomas William Curle, better known as Adam Curle, was a British academic, known for his work in social psychology, pedagogy, development studies and peace studies.

Charles Thomas William Curle was born in L'Isle-Adam, Val-d'Oise, France, on 4 July 1916, as the Battle of the Somme raged nearby.

Adam Curle's father was the British author, critic and journalist Richard Curle.

Adam Curle was named after three of his mother's brothers, and took the name Adam, after his birthplace, after returning to France in 1919.

Adam Curle grew up in Wheatfield, Oxfordshire, where he developed an affection for animals and a sensitivity to landscape.

Richard Curle was not a frequent presence in his son's childhood; Adam did not meet his father until he was three years old.

Adam Curle attributed his pacifism to the influence of his mother, who lost three of her brothers to war and instilled a hatred of war in her son.

Woodhouse argued that Adam Curle's mother was responsible for the "self-confidence which was to enable him later to make a series of unconventional moves at critical turning points in his life".

Adam Curle continued his studies at Exeter College, Oxford and the Oxford Institute of Social Anthropology, and in 1938 travelled to Sapmi and the Sahara Desert on field trips.

Adam Curle served in the British Army for six years during World War II, rising to the rank of Major and becoming a research officer in the Civil Resettlement Units.

Adam Curle received a postgraduate degree in anthropology in 1947, having drawn on his experiences with the CRUs in his work.

Adam Curle began his academic career with a series of journal articles drawing on those experiences, the first of which was a paper in Human Relations on the experiences of prisoners of war in returning to their communities and the relationship between individual and community.

In 1947 Adam Curle took up a position at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, where he researched rural decay in South West England.

In 1959 Adam Curle was appointed Professor of Education at the University of Ghana.

Adam Curle travelled widely in Africa during this time, and advised the Ghanaian government on education and development.

Adam Curle resigned from the university in 1961, having reached the conclusion that the institution, which was then predominantly white, was "out of place" in a political context marked by the growth of African nationalism.

Adam Curle visited India and Pakistan as part of a Quaker contingent in the wake of the Tashkent Declaration, the January 1966 agreement which ended the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

Adam Curle was selected for the role due to his knowledge and experience of Pakistan.

Adam Curle's role involved presenting the case for conciliation to the younger people involved in the conflict and those sceptical of possibilities for peace.

In Making Peace Adam Curle described his and Anne's role as involving "persuasion, clarification, message carrying, listening, defusing, honest brokering, encouraging, and liaison with the Commonwealth Secretariat".

The Curles then returned to Nigeria, where Adam met again with Gowon.

Ojukwu's representatives expressed interest in Diori's proposal, and Adam Curle discussed the proposal with Smith and a representative of the British government.

In October 1969, Adam Curle met again with Gowon alongside Volkmar and Kale Williams.

In 1973 Adam Curle became the United Kingdom's first Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.

Towards the end of his tenure at Bradford, Adam Curle began to feel the need to return to more direct involvement in international reconciliation, and so left the university in 1978, after five years.

In 1992 Adam Curle co-founded the Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Non-Violence in Osijek, Croatia, a contested area that was the site of significant violence.

In Zupanja, Croatia, a multi-ethnic community which had similarly seen conflict and dispossession, Adam Curle co-founded Mir i dobro, which sought to aid the local community in adjusting to the war's aftermath and to build peace.

Adam Curle's turn to peace studies was the result of these experiences, which instilled a desire to understand the causes of conflict.

Adam Curle viewed peace in terms of human development rather than in terms of organisations or rules that would enforce peace.

Adam Curle played an important role in the emergence of peace studies as a separate field from international relations, and in the incorporation of insights from psychology, especially humanistic psychology, into the field.

Adam Curle's work addressed the problems of occupational burnout and apathy among peace studies scholars and practitioners.

Adam Curle saw peace studies as an interdisciplinary endeavour benefiting from a variety of backgrounds and skills.

In keeping with Quaker thought, Adam Curle saw the Inner Light as a force in each human akin to a universal mind.

Adam Curle emphasised the artistic and creative aspects of peacemaking and of writing on the subject.

Adam Curle's proposed mediation process has four parts: first, mediators develop and improve communications; second, they provide information to, and between, the parties; third, they "befriend" the parties; and fourth, they encourage a willingness to engage in negotiations.

Adam Curle criticised "top down" forms of mediation as ineffectual, though, and argued mediation ought to be accompanied by the transformation of attitudes and of economic and social conditions.

Adam Curle saw this form of mediation as applicable on conflicts at all scales, from wars between nations to disputes within families.

Adam Curle came to favour a form of conflict resolution in which outsiders' involvement would focus on training and supporting local peacemakers, and argued that effective peacemaking processes ought not to focus on the proliferation of peace treaties by elites, but rather ought to empower communities affected by war to construct peace "from below".

Adam Curle's Educational Strategy for Developing Societies is a review of the role of education in economic growth and social and political transformation.

Adam Curle's Making Peace applies ideas from peace studies to his own experiences, explores the definition of peacemaking and considers what constitute peaceful and non-peaceful relationships and what cause them.

Adam Curle identifies this as especially problematic in developing countries, where education is "attuned to the competitive and materialistic ideologies of the rich nations".

Adam Curle concludes by discussing globalisation, which he argues is driven by the desire for power and profit.

Adam Curle argues here that feelings of hatred, anger, jealousy and the like are not unchangeable features of any individual, but rather the result of failures to understand and develop their own potential.

In concluding, Adam Curle proposes the creation of an international organisation within the United Nations dedicated to mediation, which would conduct research and provide mediation, training and resources.

In To Tame the Hydra, Adam Curle describes a global situation in which violence, successfully subdued, immediately flares up elsewhere, akin to the Hydra, a mythological monster which grew a new head each time one was cut off.

Adam Curle saw these outbreaks of violence as fuelled by the pursuit of money and power, and argued for the continuing necessity of peacemaking techniques.

Adam Curle died from acute leukaemia on 28 September 2006 in Wimbledon, London.