1 December 2025 (Monday), 16:30 – 17:30 JST
IDEC Large Conference Room (in-person only)
About the Lecture
A genuine transdisciplinary study of peace must integrate knowledge systems concerning peace across disciplines. Peace ethology and the peace ethology model provide tools to facilitate such integration. A genuine transdisciplinary study of peace also requires a systems perspective that integrates humans with other animals and considers mutualistic relationships between people and domestic animals. Here I address the oldest of such relationships, the dog-human bond.
Research on the dog-human bond provides insight on both the historical and contemporary reality of the human experience of peace. In this lecture, I discuss how peace ethology and the peace ethology model can be used to conceptualize and guide research on specific peace and sustainability aspects of the dog-human bond.
In peace ethology peace is operationally defined as “Behavioral processes and systems through which species, individuals, families, groups, and communities negate direct and structural violence (direct peace; structural peace), keep aggression in check or restore tolerance in its aftermath (sociative peace), maintain just institutions and equity (structural peace), and engage in reciprocally beneficial and harmonious interactions (sociative peace)” [Verbeek & Peters, 2018].
In this lecture, I discuss how cherished pets like Hachikō, and trusted working dogs like dogs for conservation, guide dogs, therapy dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, and human disease smelling dogs, to cite just a few among the many working dog specialties, all work for the good of humanity and act as agents of sociative peace.
About the Speaker
Dr. Peter Verbeek, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), conducts research focusing on obstacles and catalysts of aggressive and peaceful behavior in humans and other-than-human animals. A longtime scholar of peace in its broadest sense, Dr. Verbeek was inspired by the work of Niko Tinbergen and Frans de Waal to develop Peace Ethology as a systematic method for transdisciplinary research on peace. His research brings together biological and cultural perspectives on naturalistic behavior, informed in part by his professional and personal experiences living and working in five different countries, including fifteen years as a faculty member at a university in Japan. Dr. Verbeek possesses broad training and expertise in behavioral research design and execution, including ethogram-based studies of naturalistic behavior and participant observation. His methodological approaches encompass in vivo observation, video recording and coding, as well as frame-by-frame and high-speed (“slow motion”) video analysis.
About six years ago, Dr. Verbeek was invited by a group of European researchers to contribute his expertise in behavioral observation, ethogram development, and video analysis to their pioneering studies using security camera footage of naturalistic bystander behavior in contexts of social conflict and criminal incidents, such as robberies and violent assaults.
Related to his lecture topic, Dr. Verbeek has bred, trained, and shown German Shepherd Dogs (GSD) since the age of sixteen and remains an active member of GSD breed associations in the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Following his secondary education, he also worked professionally as a dog trainer and kennel manager in Germany and France.
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