Description
The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) managed to mobilize a global network of humanitarian agencies to forge its first flagship project - Fundamental Education to deal with the post-conflict i.e. post-WWII reconstruction. Drawing upon the experience of the education-driven development project that sought to transform China, UNESCO Fundamental Education aimed at not only educational reconstruction but also comprehensive societal engineering in the backward areas. This paper will bring in a historical constitutive perspective and will locate the initiative of UNESCO Fundamental Education in the history of international intervention in modern China. This paper will analyze how UNESCO Fundamental Education intercepted and intertwined with nationalism, politics, and group dynamics of activism, etc. in the context of post-war reconstruction, peace negotiation, state-building, fully-fledged civil war, and burgeoning Cold War tensions etc.. This paper will reflect upon the complexity and dilemmas of international intervention in conflicted affected states.
Key Words: UNESCO, Fundamental Education, Global Governance, China, Rural Reconstruction
