Most recent works about the efforts of local communities caught up in a civil war have focused on their efforts to remain places of security and safety from the violence that surrounds them--neutral peace communities or zones. This book, in contrast, focuses on local peace communities facing new challenges and opportunities once a peace agreement has been signed at the national level, such as those in South Africa, the Philippines, Burundi, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the present peace process in Colombia between the FARC and the Colombian Government. The communities' task is to make a stable and durable peace in the aftermath of a violent civil war and a deal on which local people have usually had little or no influence. Such agreements seek to involve them in both short and longer term peace-building, and expect local communities to cope with problems of armed ex-combatants, IDPs and refugees, law and order in the absence of much state presence, high unemployment and the need for widespread and massive reconstruction of physical infrastructure damaged or destroyed during the war. How local communities have coped with the demands of "peace" is thus the theme that runs through each of these individual chapters, written by authors with direct experience of grassroots communities struggling with such "problems of peace."
Table of Contents:
1. The Problems Peace Can Bring.- 2. Assuming Peace at the Beginning of the Post-Agreement: The Case of the “Women Weavers of Life” in Putumayo, Colombia.- 3. Bridges, Paths or Crossroads? The Magdalena Medio Development and Peace Program before and after the Havana Accord.- 4. Mobilizing to Counter Post-agreement Security Challenges: The Case of the “Humanitarian Accord Now” in Chocó.- 5. Samaniego after the 2016 Peace Agreement: Between Hope and Fear.- 6. The Illusion of Peace: Rural Colombia in the Post-Agreement. The Case of Policarpa.- 7. Rural Human Networks in Granada: the Challenges of Sustaining Peace Infrastructures in a Post-Agreement Phase.- 8. Local Peace Committees and How They Relate to Governments and Peace Agreements: Five Examples from Africa.- 9. Whose peace agenda first? Unravelling the tensions between national peace processes and local peacebuilding in Burundi.- 10. Constant Motion: Multi-Dimensional Peacebuilding for Peace Processes.- 11. Uneven Peace Infiltration: Two Case Studies of Rebel-Led Community Peace Initiatives in the Bangsamoro.- 12. Local Peace Roles in Post-Agreement Nominal Peace and Continuing Conflict./
About the Author :
Susan Allen is Director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, USA, where she is an Associate Professor teaching action research, reflective practice, evaluation and other ways of blending research and practice in the conflict resolution field. Dr. Allen holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from the same institution in Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
Landon Hancock is Professor at Kent State University's School of Peace and Conflict Studies, USA, and Affiliated Faculty at Kyung Hee University's Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, South Korea, and the Program for the Prevention of Mass Violence at George Mason University's Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, USA. His research focuses the role of ethnicity and identity in conflict generation, dynamics, resolution and post-conflict efforts in transitional justice. This is coupled with an interest in grassroots peacebuilding, zones of peace and the role of agency in the success or failure of peacebuilding efforts. He is co-editor (with Christopher Mitchell) of Zones of Peace (2007), Local Peacebuilding and National Peace (2012) and Local Peacebuilding and Legitimacy (2018).
Christopher Mitchell is Emeritus Professor of Conflict Research at George Mason University's Carter School, USA. He works on the practical and theoretical aspects of peace making, and has published books and articles on conflict resolution, and on ending asymmetric conflicts. He has recently co-edited three books about grassroots peacebuilding with Landon Hancock, the latest of which, Legitimacy and Local Peace-building [Routledge] was published in Spring 2018. His retrospective text book, The Nature of Intractable Conflict, was published in Spanish as La Naturaleza de los Conflictos Intratables [Edicions Bellaterra] in 2016.
CécileMouly is Research Professor at FLACSO Ecuador and their Coordinator of the research group in Peace and Conflict. She is also a practitioner and as teaches postgraduate courses and practitioner trainings on conflict analysis, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. She is a resource person in "Conflict Prevention: Analysis for Action" for the UN System Staff College and a member of the academic council of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. She currently collaborates with the Colombian truth commission. Her research focuses on the role of civil society in peacebuilding, peace processes, civil resistance in the context of armed conflict and the social reintegration of former combatants.
