Peacebuilding Practice Research Articles

Social Media and Conflict: A Visual Analysis of War and Peace Frames in Pakistan

Based on traditional peace communication scholarship, this study, embedded in journalism studies and visual politics literature, analyzes photographs of conflict using war and peace frames and explores the role social media can play in digital peacebuilding practices. A content analysis of 674 visuals of the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan posted on Twitter revealed the dominance of war photographs. The majority of the visual tweets were related to the afflicted victims and the visiting elites. Our analysis revealed that the visual narrative predominantly adopted a war approach. Results also showed significant variations in the war and peace narrative over time. Overall, this study challenges the views of peace journalism scholars that social media would lead to a more peace-oriented approach. We argue that peace narratives may be difficult to occur on digital platforms in securitized national conflicts where elites and a dominant public opinion oppose alternative perspectives.

Reconstructing theory in mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding: Towards an integrated model for psychosocial peacebuilding

AbstractDespite wide agreement among practitioners on the need for integration, mental health and peacebuilding practice remain siloed in conflict‐affected contexts. Yet before the integration of these two fields should occur, a revaluation of existing practice is needed. Within the field of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), critics have long questioned dominant assumptions and treatment models, raising concerns about top‐down implementation, Western‐centric approaches, and a lack of community leadership. These criticisms are largely echoed within peacebuilding literature. Furthermore, both fields underappreciate the overlap between their practices. For example, the relationship between the structural drivers of poor mental health or the social‐psychological drivers underpinning peacebuilding. Accordingly, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a novel, integrated approach to MHPSS and peacebuilding—or ‘psychosocial peacebuilding’. In doing so, we address dominant critiques of both fields, before discussing the relevance of critical (community) psychology as an ideal means in which to bridge a theoretical and practical gap between fields. Using quality peace as a guiding normative theory, we will also reinforce the argument that working to address mental health concerns is essential to creating peace in post‐conflict contexts. It concludes by exploring potential avenues for further research. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Teaching Peace: A Blueprint for Interfaith Harmony through Cultural Programmes in Religious Institutions

This study aims to explore the role of religious educational institutions in promoting peace-building by examining the programmes implemented at Klaten Hindu Dharma College, Central Java. Specifically, it investigates how these programmes foster interfaith harmony, respect, and social solidarity in a pluralistic society. A qualitative research design with a sociology of religion approach was employed, utilising non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis to gather in-depth insights into the institution's peace-building practices. The research found that peace-building programmes, including Pasraman Astika Siddhi, blood donation drives, and youth exchanges, effectively promote tolerance and respect among diverse religious communities. The success of these initiatives is attributed to their foundation in Hindu teachings and local cultural values, fostering a harmonious campus environment and strengthening ties with the surrounding community. These findings suggest that religious educational institutions can play a transformative role in peace-building by integrating cultural values and community engagement into their programmes. Such institutions offer a replicable model for fostering interfaith harmony and tolerance from an early age, contributing to broader societal peace. This study provides a unique perspective on peace-building by focusing on an educational setting within a religious institution, a context often overlooked in existing literature. It highlights the potential for religious colleges to serve as agents of social harmony, addressing the challenges of interreligious conflict through culturally informed and values-based approaches.

Women, peace and insecurity: The risks of peacebuilding in everyday life for women in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Truth telling processes, initiatives to prosecute war-time perpetrators, and ex-combatant reintegration are examples of common peacebuilding practices after war. Yet, little is known of how women are affected by peacebuilding initiatives such as these, or how they perceive these initiatives for peace. For many women, peace after war does not bring peace to everyday life; research shows that domestic violence increases during and after war. In addition, some peacebuilding measures have been found to increase risk and insecurity, not least for women. To better understand the interconnections between gender and post-conflict attitudes to peacebuilding, we asked 2,041 women and men in Sri Lanka and Nepal of their views on post-war peace initiatives. In line with our expectations, we find that women are more skeptical than men towards peacebuilding measures that involve increased risk in everyday life, such as truth-telling and coexisting with former adversaries and warring groups reintegrating in local communities. There are no gender differences pertaining to peacebuilding initiatives that take place far away at the national level, for example, concerning accountability or, in the case of Nepal, the peace agreement. Our findings suggest that international peacebuilding practice is blind to the everyday insecurities of women after war. That a basic gendered lens is missing from most peacebuilding designs is both alarming and deeply troubling, but identifying this critical aspect provides the opportunity for imperative change. By shedding light on the challenges women face after war, we hope this article contributes to finding ways to mitigate unknown and unintended side-effects of peacebuilding efforts, and thereby to the development of better, evidence-based peacebuilding practice-of benefit to both men and women.

The glaring gaps: environmental violence and peace research and practice

ABSTRACT Human-caused global impact on socio-ecological systems has been labelled the greatest challenge to human and environmental health. It is also a significant, and perhaps the greatest threat to global peace. Restricting peace research to direct violence alone causes a glaring gap in peace research and practice between different forms of human-caused mortality and suffering. Explicitly accounting for Environmental Violence can offer a critical component for building positive peace. This paper seeks to address what I consider to be strategic gaps that require the integration of multi-disciplinary research, intersectional peacebuilding practice, and concerted policy proposals. The four gaps are (1) failure to include environmental violence in peace research; (2) the multi- and trans-disciplinary gap; (3) the gap of scale and thinking in systems; and (4) failure in the specification of the harm and power differentials in contribution to and realisation of environmental risk. Generative pathways to reconcile these gaps are identified and explored.

Illiberal Peacebuilding in UN Stabilization Peace Operations and Peace Agreements in the CAR, the DRC and Mali

ABSTRACT Researchers have shown how UN stabilization peace operations mix liberal and illiberal goals and strategies. Yet, further research is needed to theorize and comprehend illiberal peacebuilding features of stabilization operations. This article fills this gap by demonstrating how UN stabilization operations wield illiberal peacebuilding practices. Building upon previous scholarship, we understand illiberal peacebuilding both as an approach and outcome which is oriented by and helps diffuse illiberal norms in the societies where illiberal peacebuilding is instrumentalized by local, regional and international actors. We frame UN stabilization operations in the CAR, the DRC, and Mali as illiberal peacebuilding processes infused with illiberal strategies and show that liberal actors can engage with illiberal strategies for peace promotion. We also analyse peace agreements that accompany these missions as illiberal peacebuilding outcomes and show how these are shaped by illiberal norms. Our key finding is that a set of illiberal norms – exclusion, violence, power inequality and authoritarianism – are central for both UN stabilization operations and peace agreements signed in CAR, DRC and Mali. Therefore, we challenge the UN discourse that stabilization is a needed first step towards liberal and inclusive peace agreements.

Peace Through Violence and Violence Through Peace: Peacebuilding Practices and a Conflictual Peace in Lebanon

ABSTRACT The literature on peace has been filled with notions of peacebuilding in crisis or creating more problems than it solves. However, as peacebuilding is critiqued for not fulfilling its promises, the nuances of peace and violence present in peacebuilding practices are often left ignored. Arguing that peace is a continuum of peace and violence seen by understanding peace as embodied, spatial, and political, the article analyses peacebuilding practices creating a conflictual Lebanese peace. The article looks closer at three such practices: service provision, local interactions, and Lebanese local governance. Through empirical material, the article illustrates how service provision, local interactions and local governance are performed through power relations sustaining a continuum of peace and violence. As such, the article argues that rather than a continuum between peace and violence, Lebanese peacebuilding is a simultaneous process of peace and violence. This questions the assumed opposition between violence and peace and claims that by emphasising peace as embodied, situated, and political we can discern different peace(s) more peaceful for some than others.

Conceptual Dissonance in Peacebuilding Research: Lessons from a Somali Diaspora

ABSTRACTScholars recognize the important role that diasporas play in conflict dynamics, including efforts to build peace in conflict-affected communities. Broader academic research emphasizes a focus on local conditions and actors, as well as site-specific understandings of peace and peacebuilding practices. This focus on specific communities and contexts often draws on qualitative, narrative-driven data, predominantly collected through interviewing. This article identifies some of the core challenges related to data collection encountered during semi-structured interviews in a study of Somali diaspora members in Melbourne, Australia. We emphasize how issues associated with cross-cultural and gendered understandings of concepts related to peacebuilding can affect each stage of a research project, from the preliminary collection of data to the analysis and discussion of research implications. Specifically, we address challenges related to instances of conceptual dissonance that occur when researchers employ cross-cultural and gendered concepts—in this case, peace, peacebuilding, and leadership. The findings will benefit conflict researchers who work with socially distant groups and ethnically divided populations more broadly, along with those who employ interpretivist methodologies that focus on how meaning making might ultimately influence peacebuilding practices and outcomes.

Nurses'lived experience of peacebuilding.

Nursing has a unique opportunity to address issues of structural violence that contribute to poor health outcomes. Models for designing nursing care relative to the social determinants of health can be adapted from the discipline of peace studies and the phenomenon of peacebuilding. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the lived experience of peacebuilding from the perspective of community or public health nurses. Interviews were conducted with eight participants. Attributes of the peacebuilder included fostering human relationships that value the inherent worth and dignity of others, nurturing a character of humility and moral courage, and contemplating the personal cost of engaging in prolonged processes of peacebuilding. Practices of peacebuilding included mediating conflict through multilayered processes, accompanying others to places of empowerment, and utilizing interdisciplinary teaching and learning to build capacity for change. Increasing an understanding of the lived experience of peacebuilding by nurses is relevant to nursing research, theory, and practice, and adds to a broader understanding of peacebuilding.

How do the emotional and embodied experiences of international interveners influence their understanding and practice of peacebuilding?

What happens if international interveners feel emotions that they consider unsanctioned, unwanted and unprofessional? What if they enact and manage their emotions in ways that they – or others – deem unacceptable? If international interveners face anxiety about being ‘too emotional’ or not feeling or expressing the ‘right’ emotions, does this challenge their sense of identity? And what consequences could this have for peacebuilding and the conflict-affected population in which they were working? Building on the growing body of critical peace and conflict scholarship that has analysed international interveners at the micro-scale, this article analyses how individual interveners’ emotional and embodied experiences influence their understanding and practice of peacebuilding. Based on a discourse analysis of the memoirs of 10 international interveners, this article identifies two primary interpretive repertoires that the interveners employed and argues that they generated two ideal-type subject positions: the intervener as objective, rational, technocratic ‘expert’ and the intervener as irrational, fallible, vulnerable ‘human’. These subject positions determined the feeling rules that the interveners followed and the dilemmas they faced. This, in turn, affected how the interveners perceived the conflict-affected societies in which they were working, and how they understood and practised peacebuilding.

Peacebuilding in the Anthropocene: Negotiating the Problems of Acting in an Entangled World

The performance of international peacebuilding has been far below the high expectations set after the end of the Cold War. Criticism of the modernist conviction that it is possible to build peace along the lines of universal and linear blueprints has accompanied peacebuilding ever since its inception. this critique has gained depth and significance within the broader context of the Anthropocene. This 'intervention' article focuses upon two important publications in this field: Ignasi Torrent’s Entangled Peace: UN Peacebuilding and the Limits of a Relational World (2021) and Jan Pospisil’s Peace in Political Unsettlement: Beyond Solving Conflict (2019). Both monographs highlight that a reconsideration of peacebuilding in the Anthropocene is necessary and search for ways to engage with peacebuilding more effectively and more realistically. However, they also indicate a fundamental problem of how to work in this field without assumptions of linear causal impacts. Based on a through analysis of Torrent's and Pospisil's understandings of peacebuilding practice, this article introduces and scrutinizes the dilemma that arises from the need to reject narrow and instrumentalist approaches in the entangled world of the Anthropocene while maintaining that it is nevertheless necessary to navigate peace and still to act in this world.

The reform of freetown port – lessons from Political Economy Analysis (PEA) to make conflict sensitivity more efficient

ABSTRACT Political Economy Analysis (PEA), which is concerned with the interaction of political and economic processes, is a useful tool to improve the efficiency of development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding practice. However, it has important shortcomings too. Using the reforms in the Port of Freetown as a case study, this paper explores the most important ones while highlighting some of the elements undermining the successful operationalisation of conflict sensitivity. The article suggests that both tools should be mainstreamed within organisations as the first step to improve their effectiveness, which in turn requires a re-thinking of its operational and decision-making structures.

Zone of peace: beliefs, roles, and practices

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the understanding and observance of the program “This School is a Zone of Peace” (SZOP) in schools where conflict and violence are not prevalent.Design/methodology/approachThis paper followed a qualitative research tradition – narrative inquiry. Eight teachers and a school head participated in the study. Data were gathered through nonparticipant observation, photography and focus group discussion with photo elicitation.FindingsThe participants elucidated the declaration, “This School is a Zone of Peace,” as a message of assurance to the community that the school is a home for learners that is welcoming and violence free. Furthermore, learners in a school that is a zone of peace are honed holistically with the participation, cooperation and togetherness of the school community members. Teachers at the forefront viewed themselves as mentors, implementers and models. Teachers contended that peacebuilding practices in schools could be sustained through regular implementation, encouraging others to get involved and have commitment.Originality/valueA handful of articles have illustrated the essence of the School as Zone of Peace program, which pointed out to create a culture of peace in schools; however, it leaned toward the negative conception of peace – the absence of conflict and violence. This study bared additional insights and fresh perspectives of the SZOP initiative observed in schools with different contexts and experiences that may be helpful to policymakers for the enhancement of the adapted program with the goal of peacebuilding to making schools highly functional.

How Many Turns Make a Revolution? Whither the ‘Dialogue of the Deaf’ Between Peacebuilding Scholars and Practitioners

ABSTRACT The past two decades have witnessed myriad ‘turns’ in peacebuilding scholarship. This article explores these ‘turns’ and questions their influence on peacebuilding practice – whether intended or not. It examines the features of academia under late capitalism that contribute to this, asks if these shifts are comprehensible to the agents of peacebuilding and whether implementers are willing and/or able to listen anyway. It posits that scholars and practitioners find themselves in a ‘dialogue of the deaf’ arguing that unless this is transformed then conflict-affected societies will see little benefit from the clever pirouettes occurring in the comfort of the ivory tower.

Promise or peril? Exploring the gender dimension of pragmatic peacebuilding

Abstract International efforts to manage conflict, instability and war-to-peace transitions have undergone a change. Where ‘liberal peace’ once informed peacebuilding strategies, international agencies now frame their work with recourse to ‘sustaining peace’. This change signals a shift towards pragmatism in thinking about conflict and peace-making in the face of the limitations of liberal peace. What is notable in the move to pragmatic modes of peacebuilding is the emphasis on women as agents of peace. While gender-sensitive peacebuilding is not a new concept, the prominent role it plays in the pragmatic peace merits attention. Drawing on feminist pragmatism, I argue that pragmatic peace represents a significant opportunity for shifting peacebuilding practice towards more gender-equal and gender-sensitive modalities. Yet, an investigation into the gender dimension of pragmatic peace in post-Gaddafi Libya, implemented through empowerment programs, finds the promise unfulfilled. While such initiatives have had some successes in supporting women's collective action, capacity-building programs have not only failed to create meaningful opportunities for exercising agency, but have instrumentalized women's participation and reinforced existing patterns of inequality among women. The experiences of those to be empowered suggest that empowerment initiatives fall prey to the type of technocratic and de-politicizing peril that has characterized liberal peace interventions.

Diaspora 'leadership' in post conflict societies: Understanding diaspora influence through remittances in Liberia

While they are often considered as ‘outsiders’ or ‘far removed’ from their contexts, the reality is diaspora populations are, in fact, often intertwined in and significant to what happens in their home countries – this is especially true in many post-conflict contexts. Existing studies of the diaspora often narrowly puts them as playing two distinct roles in their homelands, either as: promoters of peace; or contributors to the perpetration of conflict. Meanwhile studies (and practice) of peacebuilding and the traditional liberal approach all but exclude them in the narrative. There is, therefore, a gap between these narratives. Additionally, thinking in terms of leadership and leadership studies, the role of the diaspora is usually not automatically thought of as that of a ‘leader’, as leadership in the traditional sense has often focused on those occupying positions of hierarchal power or indeed the individual themselves (this approach and understanding of their (lack of leadership) role is again also seen in the study of practice of peacebuilding). However, taking leadership from a relational theory perspective and adopting a leadership as process approach to leadership offers a fuller understanding of how diaspora interact with, build and sustain (or not) relationships with their homeland contexts in the quest for peace. This commentary adopts a leadership as process approach. It looks at the relationship between the Liberian diaspora and their homeland context to highlight how the diaspora attempt to influence local developmental and peacebuilding processes through the use of remittances, and the dynamics of this relationship therei

Peaces of music: understanding the varieties of peace that music-making can foster

ABSTRACT This article offers a new conceptual and theoretical model for researching music-based peacebuilding, an emerging interdisciplinary field that is characterised by heterogeneity of practices, concepts, and analytical approaches. Drawing upon findings from a scoping study of 62 peer-reviewed English language publications that describe music-based peacebuilding practices, it presents a typology of six varieties of peace that this work can foster. Each peace is constituted by a combination of four key variables in approaches to practice and implementation: intergroup encounter; intentional engagement with the extant conflict or politics that drive the need for peace-promoting work; sociality and opportunities for independent social interactions and affective ties; and the projection of the peace message to an external audience. The typology brings needed coherence to this diverse field, providing a nuanced framework for articulating the peacebuilding potential of music and for engaging critically with the possibilities, limitations, and complexities of creative contributions to peacebuilding.

Making Space for Indigenous Approaches in the Southwest Pacific? The Spatial Politics of Peace Scholarship and Practice

ABSTRACT Indigenous approaches to space and place in the Southwest Pacific are crucial to governing peace. However, ‘making space’ for these approaches can only be progressed if scholars and practitioners recognize their emplacement within hegemonic systems of knowledge and the contested entanglement of Indigenous and introduced systems in peacebuilding practice. Addressing this challenge requires respectful and careful engagement with diverse peoples and colonially inflected peacebuilding practice, attending to the emplacement of peace and conflict scholarship amidst the colonial politics of knowledge, and critical reflection on the ways that peacebuilding expertize is defined, attributed and evaluated.

Conflict analysis in peacebuilding: A review

ABSTRACT Studies have examined the dimensions and components of conflict analysis. However, little or no review attention has been paid to understanding the conceptual perspectives, theoretical underpinnings and methodological issues. Hence, this paper aimed at filling the gaps and answered the basic questions: Is conflict analysis a potential tool for peacebuilding? In what ways does conflict analysis influence the practice of peacebuilding? How can conflict analysis cover the limitations of peacebuilding? Using secondary data sources, this paper underscored the perspectives and theoretical discourse which underpin the context and structural dynamics of conflict analysis. It also discussed methodological issues by exposing its different levels of practical benefit. Evident examples of conflict analysis were reviewed with notable instances in Africa. This paper, therefore, found out that conflict analysis has great potential for facilitating positive value and social coherence for peacebuilding practices. On the one hand, the outcome of conflict analysis has a direct response to the implementation of peacebuilding strategies. On the other hand, conflict analysis exposes complementary problems resulting in the limitations of peacebuilding. Also, this paper contributed to knowledge by remedying the limitations of peacebuilding. It concluded that a broad participation network would guarantee insightful conflict analysis towards the enhancement of peacebuilding.

Power/resistance: External actors, local agency, and the Burundian peacebuilding project

AbstractPeacebuilding policies and practices represent strong attempts by external actors to exercise power in postconflict settings. Yet the extensive theoretical treatments of power in International Relations remain somewhat disconnected from empirical analyses of peacebuilding, and how external actors exercise power is under-conceptualised in the literature. Likewise, the literature on forms of resistance by local actors is seldom examined as an exercise of power in itself, and as part of a multidimensional relationship of power/resistance between external and local actors. This article thus theorises the different dimensions of power/resistance, with a detailed focus on an exemplary case – international efforts at peacebuilding in Burundi – that spans more than twenty years. It deploys a tripartite conception of both to analyse the ways in which different forms of power and resistance can be uncovered in peacebuilding practices, We demonstrate this via an analysis of postconflict peacebuilding in Burundi, and in particular the longer-term efforts of local actors to overtly and covertly bend and fuse peacebuilding practices to their own ends.