Rationale

  • By peacebuilding we mean, “a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates, and sustains the full array of processes, approaches, and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships.” (Lederach 1997: 35) Peacebuilding is concerned as a result both with change in institutions and social change.
  • Despite the advent of the ‘local turn’ within International Relations (Joakim Ojendal, Schierenbeck, & Hughes, 2017; Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013), peacebuilding as an activity by local actors with agency remains marginal in the literature as a conceptual focus. This initiative aims to contribute to this focus, strengthening this empirical research in a way that bridges disciplinary and institutional boundaries.
  • Although there is a growing interdisciplinary literature on peacebuilding in BIH, it exists in a vacuum, largely separated from peacebuilding practice. Peacebuilding practitioners and practice benefit from critical reflection and engagement with academic rigor both to articulate their understandings of peacebuilding practice and also to ask tough questions about what does or doesn’t work and why.
  • This is additionally relevant because peacebuilding as both a practice and a literature came of age with the case of BiH (Boutros-Ghali’s UN Agenda for Peace) – this is a critical reflection upon more than 20 years since this advent of peacebuilding as such.

Goals

  • Strengthen the voice of scholars from divided societies and those who research the role of local actors for peacebuilding in a manner which liberates the study of divided societies from epistemological colonialism.
  • Strengthen research on the lived experience (including the practical methods and results) of those engaged within peacebuilding organizations and contested meanings of peacebuilding discourse.
  • Strengthen comparative perspectives between divided societies as a conceptual framework.
  • Strengthen connections, collaboration, and solidarity between researchers within diverse disciplines and academic/research institutions.
  • Establish partnerships between practitioners and academia leading to the identification of critical areas of engagement in peacebuilding and the identification of barriers to sustainable peace.

Structure

  • Based within the Peace Academy Foundation (Sarajevo) and on broader partnerships as needed
  • Initial focus on Bosnia & Herzegovina with aim to cover this context well. Later explore interactions with similar groups in other divided societies (existing connections to Post-Yugoslav countries, Ukraine, and Columbia).
  • Advisory board of interested academics/students
  • Minimal regular staff in order to run without funds when necessary – not another grant eater

Activities

  • Research
  • Publishing
  • Classes/workshops for practitioners and researchers from divided societies
  • Mutual assistance by providing feedback and access to relevant materials
  • Conference that gathers diverse actors from divided societies as a way to help assess the ideas, publications and findings from the research and work of the project
  • Activities in 2020
    • Advisory Board established and initial meeting held
    • Library entered into Zotero, focused particularly on academic writing about peacebuilding practice and reflective literature by peacebuilding practitioners. Library description and bibliography is publicly available and full-text access is available to researchers upon request
    • 2020 Summer Course on Resistance to Nationalism and Populism held for 20 participants from 11 countries, significantly expanding the global reach of the Peace Academy (in partnership with Manchester University with funding from the ECPR standing group on critical peace and conflict studies).
    • Funding proposal “Education for democratic values in BiH universities” submitted with the Network for Peacebuilding, additional fundraising efforts for the core work of the Study
  • Activities in 2021
    • 2021 Summer Course focused on peacebuilding practice with a comparative focus
    • Engaging Advisory Board members in original research and publication related to peacebuilding practice
    • Strengthened networking with scholars from divided societies beyond B&H and the Post-Yugoslav Countries
  • Activities in 2022
    • Research proposal “When does collaboration lead to peace education (CO-LEAP)?” in partnership with the TPO Foundation submitted to the  Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues Horizon research project
    • Concept “Green peacebuilding in the Western Balkans” submitted
    • Core activities for the study
      1. Identifying and adding additional resources to the Zotero electronic library
      2. Mapping peacebuilding organizations in BiH – based on self-identification
      3. Build web research tool for linguistic analysis of peacebuilding organizations materials (manuals, reports, websites, social media posts)
      4. Literature review of academic and reflective literature produced by peacebuilding practitioners in BiH and academic literature about peacebuilding practitioners
      5. Interviews with peacebuilding practitioners 
      6. Add documents (manuals/reports/publications) from peacebuilding organizations to the Zotero library
  • Planned activities in 2023
    • Workshop on the role of pracademics in peace architecture in collaboration with the University of Manchester

Advisory Board

Essays