Nanjing, March 2005 : 1 Peace Studies in the UK: A personal reflection Andrew Rigby Introduction In this paper it is not my aim to present an authoritative history of the development of the field of peace studies within the UK. Rather, my aim is to present a set of reflections upon the development of the field based on my own involvement in the overall project since the 1960s. In the paper I use the term peace studies to cover all academic activities, including research and teaching, relating directly to the study of how to avert the threat of war and achieve a peaceful world. My main arguments are three-fold. 1. Peace Studies as a field of academic enquiry emerged out of the concerns and the initiatives of the wider peace movement, and the changing agenda of peace studies has to some degree been driven by the issues raised by peace movements. 2. The broad peace movement can be portrayed as a general social movement concerned with promoting peace and combating war. Within this general movement there have been and are a wide range of more specific movements with different priorities, programmes and projects. These different ‘tendencies’ within the overall peace movement have been reflected within the general field of peace studies. 3. The vitality and health of the overall peace movement has depended in part upon the creative tension generated by the different stances, priorities and commitments of the different specific movements and groupings within the general movement. In similar vein the vitality of peace studies as a field depends crucially upon the tensions generated by a plurality of approaches to the overall project of studying how to bring about a more peaceful world. The field becomes impoverished to the extent to which one particular approach or ‘school’ asserts its hegemony over others. I shall try to illustrate these points by means of an outline of my own experiences of the development of the peace studies field in the UK since the 1960s.