White Poppies for Peace   |   White Poppy Peace Scholarships

Inaugural White Poppy Peace Scholarships
Awarded for research in 2010


The inaugural White Poppy Peace Scholarships, for research in 2010, were awarded to Marianne Bevan and Ryan Bodman, please scroll down this page for information about each recipient and a copy of their research.


Ryan Bodman

Ryan completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Arts in the Department of History at the University of Auckland in October 2010. His dissertation 'Don’t be a conscript, be a man!': A History of the Passive Resisters’ Union, 1912-1914 is available here.


Under the 1909 Defence Act, all young men between 12 and 21 (later amended to 14 to 25) were lawfully required to train in the military. The Passive Resisters Union (PRU) was established in early 1912 to peacefully resist this policy. Only young men directly affected by the policy were able to join the union, which had as its goal "to resist coercion, conscription and military training in all its circumstances and defy all penalties that may be imposed".

Strongest in Christchurch and west coast mining towns, the PRU was never a large group but they became, as Elsie Locke explained, the "heftiest muscle" in the anti-Compulsory Military Training (CMT) movement. Their playful activism, the strength of their peace and anti-militarist convictions, the successes they achieved via the spread of anti-militarist ideas and the threat they posed to a draconian law, are all worth remembering.


Marianne Bevan

Marianne completed a Master of Development Studies at Victoria University, Wellington. Her research was titled '‘The Hero Stuff’ and the ‘Softer Side of Things’: Exploring Masculinities in Gendered Police Reform in Timor-Leste'.


Marianne investigated how conceptions of gender and masculinities are shaping police training in Timor-Leste; and whether the related discourse reproduces a view of masculinity (and men) that increases the chance of the Timorese police force becoming more militarised, or if it instead allows for police reform programmes which effectively promotes non-violent enactments of masculinity and gender equality within the police force. Marianne's research was completed in September 2011 and a summary of her dissertation is available here.



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