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There is widespread dissatisfaction with the current suite of evaluation and monitoring tools available to peacebuilders and those responding to conflict. Yet, despite this dissatisfaction, there are few concrete moves to investigate alternative methods of gauging the success or failure of peace initiatives. This volume explores alternative methods of assessing peace. These methods tend to be bottom-up and people-centric and are interested in many aspects of conflict societies that orthodox top-down indicators often miss. The methods explored in this work chime with the contemporary interest in critical approaches to peace and conflict studies, and approaches that are interested in local perspectives. The volume also connects with a growing interest in civic epistemology, or the co-production of data whereby research 'subjects' participate in the research and have a chance of understanding the relevance of research. All of the contributors to the volume have significant field experience in conflict-affected areas and their work is informed by an engagement with the everyday challenges and opportunities facing people in war zones.
This bookw as published as a special issue of the
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
List of contents
1. Introduction: The Transcripts of Peace: Public, Hidden or Non-obvious? 2. The Limits of Formal Metrics during Conflict and Post-conflict Transition: Exploring Opportunities for Qualitative Assessment in Sri Lanka 3. How to Assess Social Reintegration of Ex-Combatants 4. Narrative Therapy and Peacebuilding 5. 'High Resolution' Indicators in Peacebuilding: The Utility of Political Memory 6. Need a Hand? No Thanks! Media Representations and Peace Building Indicators: The Case of UK Foreign Aid Programmes in Colombia
About the author
Roger Mac Ginty is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, and the Department of Politics, University of Manchester. He edits the journal Peacebuilding. His latest books are
International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance (2012), and the edited volumes
Sage Major Work on Peacebuilding (2013) and
Routledge Handbook on Peacebuilding (2013).
Summary
This work investigates alternative and bottom-up ways of assessing the progress with peace initiatives. Rather than top-down assessment methods, this book is interested in people-centric and bottom-up ways of monitoring change. These bottom-up and alternative indicators are likely to have more resonance with the people who actually live in the c
