Peace Education
Websites/Multiple Documents
Description:
Studies and other documents on Burma/Myanmar as well as on peace and conflict in other countries in SE Asia
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of entry/update:
2012-10-22
Grouping:
Websites/Multiple Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies)
Language:
English
more
Individual Documents
Description:
Executive summary: "International peacebuilding actors have so far been wary of engagement with political parties. However,
there is growing recognition of the importance of working with local political systems, institutions and
parties in the promotion of peace. It is therefore important that international actors strengthen their
understanding of political parties in conflict-affected contexts and how such parties relate to conflict and
peacebuilding, as well as examine how best to deepen engagement with them.
This report examines the nature of political parties in conflict-affected contexts and the challenges such
parties face in becoming effective actors for peace. It analyses three cases ? Sri Lanka, Nepal and
Myanmar ? where parties have played very different roles in relation to both the grievances and struggles
that have fuelled conflict, and efforts to build and sustain peace. It then discusses how lessons from these
cases can inform the work of international peacebuilding actors.
Finally, the report examines the track record of the international community in working with political
parties in conflict-affected contexts. It argues that international actors must move beyond ?blueprint”
approaches to party support and instead develop more comprehensive and context-relevant responses to
the specific challenges that such parties face."
Clare Castillejo
Source/publisher:
Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center
Date of publication:
2016-01-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-24
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
140.44 KB
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Description:
"This publications showcases final short papers from 2011 graduates of CPCS? Applied Conflict Transformation Master?s Course that we offer in cooperation with the Pannasastra University in Phnom Penh..."....."....In the following chapters an array of issues are tackled resulting in a colourful collection of insight and analyses. Chapter 1 situates the works through a detailed introduction to the ACTS course, and a discussion of the effectiveness of action learning to build the capacity of peace practitioners in the region. In Chapter 2 we begin to see the work of the students themselves as they engage and challenge key assumptions and perceptions of poverty in Vietnam and conflict in Afghanistan; ultimately these reports urge careful and rigorous analysis of the context of any intervention. Chapter 3 sees the theoretical discussion of two Designs for Peace. These articles provide innovative alternatives for responding to violence both in Bangladesh (by developing a peace curriculum for youth) and in Cambodia (through the architectural design of a museum for peace). In Chapter 4 we are presented with three articles which seek to share the larger lessons from the authors? own experiences at the practical level. This is achieved through discussing donor cooperation in Banda Aceh, community feedback mechanisms in the GRP ? MILF peace process, and civil-military cooperation in Maguindanao. Finally Chapter 5 takes on a more personal face with two particularly reflective accounts by the
viii
students, who question how to improve their own role as practitioners in Sri Lanka and Thailand..."
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.33 MB
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Description:
"Co-authored by CPCS Academic Director Noah Taylor, this conceptual paper explores the diversity of perspectives on peace moving beyond the idea of peace in relation to the absence of conflict and the presence of security. In this framework peace is explored as impure, diverse and conflictive, advocating for an understanding of peace that embraces diversity, and engages with conflict rather than suppresses it.".....Abstract: "While the central question of diversity has often been how to live in peace with difference, we approach the
question —what happens when diversity also involves conflicting approaches to peace? This paper contains the authors?
reflections on the colloquium with the same title held in the On Diversity Conference 2012 in Vancouver, where the
authors and participants explored peace itself as an expression of diversity. We argue that an attempt to answer this
question requires a change in focus; if there is no longer a unifying peace, how can
we
engage with diversity in a
plurality of conflicting peaces? Mainstream peace and conflict studies literature understands conflict as opposite to
peace. Supported in contemporary critical research, we argue that the concept of peace rather than being perfect,
absolute and pure is in fact impure, diverse, and conflictive. Hence, an understanding of peace that attempts to embrace
diversity will necessarily be relational, include conflict and
engage
with it, in contrast to silencing it or suppressing it.
We argue that instead of being its opposite, conflict is in fact
an
essential component of peace. To elaborate on
the
argument, we deal with two of the possible interpretations of peace in history and culture: peace linked to security,
understood as the eradication of threats from others and therefore recurring to ideals of perfection and homogeneity; and
peace as an
experience of harmony, highlighting mystical or musical harmony, which, far from being pure, emerges
also
out of conflicting tones. We conclude that both in traditions of mysticism and in security politics, diversities
in friction lie
at the core of experiencing
and conceptualizing
peace."
Florencia Benitez-Schaefer, Shawn Bryant, Catalina Vallejo, Noah Taylor
Source/publisher:
The International Journal of Community Diversity, Illinois USA via Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2013-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
340.08 KB
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Description:
"This mapping exercise seeks to provide a better understanding of national apologies by analysing the nuances associated with the term while studying examples of apologies made by states to their people."....Abstract: "The national apology is a phenomenon which can loosely be defined
as a collective, political, intra-state apology, issued from one group
to another through the use of appropriate representation. Broadly
speaking the ?age of apology? started twenty years ago, yet even
with age the term ?national apology? has remained one which is
particularly analytically elusive. The bulk of the concerned literature
has attempted to face up to this dilemma, to clarify the issues and
fortify (or discredit) the utility of the practice. However what it
has achieved is confusion over the points of suitable definition,
purpose, form, delivery, target audience, and so on. This paper
attempts to address these issues through analysing the nuances
associated with the term, to contribute meaningfully to the topical
discussion through a mapping exercise. As such this paper seeks to
provide the knowledge for understanding both composition and
critiques of national apologies.
The process of mapping national apologies is started through
mounting a discussion of its variables which are historical
location (historic or recent), incidence (discrete or sustained) and
significance (whether it remains relevant in the current context).
It then continues to argue that the correct form for a national
apology requires paying particular attention to the publicity, official
character, and ceremony of the statement, as well as by choosing an
appropriate speaker. Such contextual adequacies however are not
enough to validate an apology. The statement must include within
its content an acknowledgement of the injustices committed, an
expression of remorse, a guarantee of non-repetition, and refrain
from appealing for forgiveness. Finally complementing such an
apology with further reparative action (measures of sincerity,
National Apologies: Mapping the complexities of validity4
corrective action, and material compensation) give the best chance
for a national apology to be considered valid and accepted.
In conclusion the report affirms that although the mapping
exercise has surely been informative to the reader, and may
act as a resource for the analysis and correct construction of
national apologies, the information put forward is clearly not
intended to be indisputable. It is a current theory in the face
of a lack of engagement with this under studied topic, and the
author?s intention has been to inspire debate. When this field has
a significant potential to contribute to reconciliation and peace
efforts around the globe it seems inappropriate to accept it as
unexplainable. Thus, the report finishes by suggesting it is only
through persistent and constructive dialogue between academics
and practitioners that we may hope to one day reach consensus
on best practice of national apologies."
Eneko Sanz
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2012-04-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
751.22 KB
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Description:
"Encouraging practitioners to question and challenge narratives around strategic peace building frameworks this research critically analyses such narratives and shows that they tend to be subjective in nature, signal certain political positions and are often framed through the lens of modernist state-building theory.".....Introduction: "There are innumerable actors engaging
post-conflict contexts
at the international, national and
local level. Their activities target a broad range of
political, economic, social and cultural
agendas,
spanning
long pe
riods of time and
enduring
particularly
unstable conditions.
Since the publication
of
An Agenda for Peace,2
the international community has
been driven
to
amalgamate
all
such
activities into an increasingly broad
and
multidimensional enterprise labelled
post-conflict
peacebuilding. As ti
me passed,
additional
elements related to this new concept
continued to be
identified and
duly
incorporated into the undertaking,
seeing in practice the ever-widening
scope
and breadth
of
peace
building.
In light of this, and after a string of less than successful experiences,
practitioners and policy-makers alike recognized the need to
tame
such complexity and requested
a more coherent master plan.
In response to this demand s
trategic planning frameworks for
int
ernational post-conflict
peace
building (SFPs)3
have been pr
oduced since the mid-nineties,
by
the UN, IFIs, governments of donor and conflict-affe
cted countries, regional organiz
ations and
NGOs. By 2010 the g7+ group of fragile states
had identified ?the pr
oliferation of strategic
frameworks”
as a
significant
challenge to
peace
building.4
Meanwhile, the European Parliament
was considering drafting the EU?s own SFP.5
SFPs are policy
planning
documents comprising analysis and recommendations. They belong to the
genre of technical-
administrative texts but,
as many plans do, SFPs
also
make use of narrative
devices
usually associated with literary works. In trying to produce a coherent prioritization,
phasing and sequencing of activities, they construct a plot with
a
beginning, middle and end. In
the
process of attempting to
identify and coordinate multiple actors,
SFPs
make distinctions between
main and secondary characters, and
between
heroes, villains, and victims. And in trying to give a
common meaning and purpo
se to the myriad
of
tasks performed under the label of
peace
building,
these documents
portray themes of progress and crisis against the backdrop of dramatic stories
about the fight between good and evil.
This paper will try to illustrate how such
narrativity
present in SFPs signals certain political
positions.
To achieve this it will present
an outline of the narrative analysis approach to policy
planning. This is followed by a description of how the methodology has been adapted for this
study to the requir
ements of SFPs. The analysis is then divided in two distinct parts. The first
discusses some features of the characters in the
?peace
building story”: who are the heroes and
their allies, the anti-subjects, the donor, and what
does this signify.
The second
part deals with
plot: how SFPs are structured around the triad
Security-Development-Political Reform, and how
this produces a set of recognizable stories.
It is
considered
how the attempt to give coherence to a
collection of literally hundreds of episodes,
each of them an intricate narrative in itself, reflects the
fact that the
peace
building story may turn out to be a version of another one, namely the
modernist
state
building story. The paper ends with some reflections about how a narrative policy
analysis
can help us read and construct different discourses on
peace
building."
Eneko Sanz
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2013-07-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.31 MB
more
Description:
"his paper reflects on Conciliation Resources? experience of formal hybrid mediation support in the Mindanao peace process. Key lessons are drawn from this new approach and its potential for further use in the field of mediation and conflict transformation is evaluated.....Summary: -The International Contact Group (ICG) in Mindanao is the first
ever formal
hybrid
mediation support initiative..It developed organically over 15 years of protracted negotiations...Diplomats and international NGOs played complementary
roles, strengthening the overall value of their participation...The experience of the ICG suggests that hybrid Contact
Groups can be a valuable response to the complexity of
long-standing conflicts
Kristian Herbolzheimer, Emma Leslie
Source/publisher:
Conciliation Resources via Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
Date of publication:
2013-07-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Peace Education, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
168.94 KB
more
Description:
"Kyoko Okumoto, a well-respected
Japanese peacebuilder, once said to
me, ?I firmly believe that to be an
effective peacebuilder you need to
be able to trust.” By trust she did not
mean a blind, naïve faith in whomever or
whatever comes along; she meant a will-
ingness, across cultures, faiths, political
affiliation, and gender, to allow other
in—that is, to suspend all our prejudices
and stereotypes. Such trust requires us
to show our vulnerabilities to people we
might not ordinarily reveal them to, in
order to demonstrate that we have flawed
humanity in common. This means entering
into a place of insecurity and entrusting
our host or guide to lead us and take care
of us. This position of cultural humility is
the foundation of peace work, allowing
practitioners to connect with people on
a basic level that is both informative and
insightful in shaping effective peace prac-
tices and programs..."
Emma Leslie
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2013-09-00
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
263.02 KB
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Description:
"In January 2012, our Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies facilitate a visit of the
Karen National Union to visit the Moro Islamic Libera
tion Front in Cotobato
City, Mindanao. The KNU had asked about the experience of armed groups in
ceasefires, and there is no better place in the region today than to see how hard
the Philippine government and MILF have worked to sustain a ceasefire while there peace talks go on.
The Chairman of the MILF peace panel, Mohagher Iqbal,
chose carefully his
advice to the KNU. Number one he said: ?Prepare, prepare, prepare. And when
you think you are ready prepare some more.” He explained that as an armed
group you have been well trained to fight in the jungle, but negotiations is a
different arena, and requires training, preparation, knowledge, awareness,
tactics, strategies, skills. He understood that even when you think as the group
demanding your right you are
ready, there will some aspect of the negotiation
you have not
yet
considered.
Secondly, he said: Maintain military discipline. He said military discipline is not
just for fighting wars. He said when you sign a ceasefire agreement you need to
ensure that
your chain of command is in tact. A ceasefire does not mean disarm.
A ceasefire is the ceasing of hostilities so talks can go on.
If
you sign a peace
agreement you need to know that when you tell you troops to disarm they will
put down their guns and
they
will
go home. You can negotiate
confident
you
cannot
deliver on your own promise.
Thirdly he said: You will think negotiating with your opponent is hard, but
negotiating within your own group is even harder. Unifying and bringing your
people along with the negotiation is the most challenging aspect of peace talks.
At times you will feel closer to your negotiating counterpart, then you do to
your own stakeholders..."
Emma Leslie
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2013-10-14
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
84.77 KB
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Description:
"Over the past few decades, the shifting dynamics of
the nature of war, combined with a maturing
field of peace process support, have led to parallel shifts in the nature of mediation in peace
processes. There has been
a significant increase in the number of ongoing civil wars, as opposed to
interstate wars, and the field of conflict transformation has changed accordingly. Under the
leadership of Kofi Annan, the United Nations began
the process of mainstreaming the inclusion of
civil society and other actors into the fields of peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Now, more
actors, using more-advanced support mechanisms, are
engaging in peace-process support. This
maturing of the field has also helped facilitate innovative approaches to overcoming the challenges
of contemporary peace talks in a civil war setting.
This article will reflect on some of the changes in
practice in relation to the peace process currently
underway in the Philippines..."
Emma Leslie
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS)
Date of publication:
2013-12-17
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Dialogue/transition: resources, Conflict resolution - mediation - resources, Peace Education
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
89.54 KB
more
Description:
"Third parties? interventions to support conflict resolution in
South East Asia have been rather rare in the last
decades. Indeed, it has proven difficult for outsiders to play a facilitation or a mediation role in that part of the
world and this for different reasons. Among some possible explanations: the perception
of interference in
internal affairs, the history of a colonial past impacting the present, and the mistrust towards foreigners. In
particular, in comparison to most of the African conflict resolution cases, the interventions in South East Asia
have been mo
stly locally conducted and space for outsiders
is
scarce.
Nevertheless some foreigners have found ways to contribute to support peace in that part of the world and
Emma Leslie
is a stimulating example of this. She is currently involved in three peace processes
across the
region
?
the Moro Islamic Liberation Front/Philippine government; Karen National Union and Myanmar
government; and the All Burma Students Democratic Front and Myanmar government.
The Mediation Support
Project (MSP) round
table discussion
therefore focused
on the Philippines and Myanmar. Emma shared
her
experience on how to deal with those specific mediation/facilitation challenges and draw lessons from those
cases..."
Emma Leslie
Source/publisher:
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS),
Date of publication:
2013-06-10
Date of entry/update:
2016-02-20
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
more