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Food And Commensality In Non-State Armed Groups: The Case Of The Lord's Resistance Army In Northern Uganda, 1987-2008, Eunice Otuko Apio Dr

Peace and Conflict Studies

The subfield of food and eating practices has registered a significant volume of theoretical and empirical studies. However, there is very limited research targeting non-state armed groups. This article contributes to understanding the nuanced role of food and eating practices (or commensality) in conflict, and its significance in the construction and sustenance of sense of community in non-state armed groups that use particularly elaborate means of indoctrination to build a following. Drawing on the case of northern Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that thrived on mass abduction of children, youth and women between 1987 and 2008, this article argues that …

Palestinian-Arabs Volunteering In State Institutions In Israel: Reconciliation And Peacebuilding Or Conflict And Suspicion?, Edith Blit Cohen, Mays Essa

Peace and Conflict Studies

Volunteering in government institutions by national minorities in conflict with the state raises fascinating issues. The identity of Palestinian-Arabs in Israel is divided, as they belong to the Palestinian people and Arab nation, as well as nominal citizens of Israel. This perception study explores the meaning of the volunteering experience for fifteen Palestinian-Arabs in various Israeli state institutions. Three themes arise from the interview analysis: motives for volunteering, challenges faced by the volunteers, and their coping strategies. The study contributes to the theory and practice of the meaning of volunteering in government institutions for minority members in conflict with the …

An Artistic Response To Social Unrest In Hong Kong: Utilizing The Arts To Build Up And Sustain An Understanding And Respectful Community, Shue-Kei Joanna Mok

Peace and Conflict Studies

The 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, commenced in March 2019, were triggered by the introduction of The Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Bill 2019 by the Hong Kong government. In June 2019, peaceful civil disobedience escalated into violence, signalling the emergence of polarization and antagonism in the city. As of December 2019, an estimated 300,000 excess probable depressive cases and 810,000 suspected PTSD cases were associated with the 2019–20 social unrest. Furthermore with the pandemic, the hopelessness manifested in the city and citizen’s mental wellbeing are of extreme concern. Given the holistic and therapeutic nature of …

Responding To Violence From Abroad: The Mexican Diaspora Mobilising From Brussels And Paris Through Art-Based Strategies, Larisa Lara-Guerrero

Peace and Conflict Studies

Over 150,000 people were intentionally killed in Mexico since 2006, after the Mexican government decided to openly combat organized crime. Against the backdrop of the security crisis, members of Mexican society have developed national and transnational strategies to contribute to the respond to the rampant violence in their homeland.

By introducing a transdisciplinary approach and peacebuilding theories, this paper argues that Mexican migrants living in Brussels and Paris have been able to orchestrate transnational art-based strategies to contribute to the violence alleviation in their country of origin. In particular, this empirical paper argues that Mexican migrants living in these two …

The Paradox Of Power In Conflict Dynamics, Daniel Rothbart

Peace and Conflict Studies

In recent decades the political state has been implicated in genocide, mass violence, political oppression, and targeted deprivations. Yet, in the field of conflict analysis, the meaning of state “power over” in conflict settings is under-theorized. In this article I probe the conceptual depths of state power to show that such power is neither singular nor simple. It’s neither ahistorical nor asocial. Beneath the surface of the state’s wide-ranging practices of governing its political subjects is a fundamental paradox that juxtaposes the state’s authority as the rightful authority over its subjects against the state’s vulnerability to potentially de-stabilizing threats to …

Environmental Insecurity: Another Case For Concept Change, Lee-Anne Broadhead

Peace and Conflict Studies

For decades, scholars and policy-makers have disputed whether environmental degradation caused by human-induced climate change needs to be addressed and reversed in order to prevent conflict, or whether the instabilities generated by such degradation (resource scarcity, reduction of arable land, mass migration of so-called environmental refugees, etc.) provides a compelling new rationale for preparing militarily to fight the "climate change conflicts" of the future. Exploring the tension between these perspectives, the paper argues that any effective practical response implies and requires a change in the conceptual climate of the debate sufficient to discredit a literally devastating circular argument: that environmental …

Toward A Buddhist Theory Of Conflict Transformation: From Simple Actor-Oriented Conflict To Complex Structural Conflict, Tatsushi Arai

Peace and Conflict Studies

This paper presents a working theory of conflict transformation informed by Buddhist teachings. It argues that a Buddhist approach to conflict transformation consists of an integrated process of self-reflection on the roots and transformation of suffering (dukkha), on the one hand, and active relationship-building between parties, on the other. To overcome a deeply structural conflict in which parties are unaware of the very existence of the conflict-generating system in which they are embedded, however, Buddhist-inspired practice of conflict transformation requires building structural awareness, which is defined as educated consciousness capable of perceiving a complex web of cause and effect relationships …

Democratization, Parliamentary Power, And Belligerency: A Quantitative Analysis, Afa'anwi Ma'abo Che

Peace and Conflict Studies

Research linking democratization, institutional strength, and war prescribes the construction of strong central government institutions prior to mass elections as a prime mechanism for mitigating the danger of international belligerency associated with democratization. However, institutional analysis of the democratization – war linkage skews institutional strength measures in favour of the executive, overlooking the other arms of government. Drawing on Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010 – 2011 internationalized post-election civil conflict, which was largely engendered by excessive executive powers and limited legislative leverage, this paper quantitatively evaluates the effect state legislatures bear on the democratization – war linkage. The evaluations yield at least …

Selling Mediation: Mimetic, Distancing, And Appellating Practices In The Marketing Of An Emerging Profession, Andrew Woolford, R. S. Ratner

Peace and Conflict Studies

Individuals both within and outside the legal profession have been drawn by the ‘promise’ of mediation. In it they see a means for facilitating communicative exchanges between actors in conflict, which they view as a dramatic improvement on the adversarial practices of the formal legal system. However, despite the appeal of mediation to potential practitioners, there is not yet sufficient consumer demand to sustain the number of people who possess mediation skills. This has resulted in an overcrowded mediation market in which practitioners are forced to market themselves so as to compete for a limited clientele. In this context, the …

The Role Of Silence And Avoidance In Interpersonal Conflict, Alexia Georgakopoulos

Peace and Conflict Studies

Conflict is an inevitable process in relationships. Effective strategies must be used to manage conflict accordingly. If one is to understand how to incorporate effective strategies when dealing with conflict, the emotional experience related to conflict must be understood. The expression of anger is the emotion most associated with conflict; therefore, anger is an important emotion in the assessment of conflict. Anger is associated with arousal that may be traced to have its roots in the evolution of humankind. The emotion of anger is in part biological which links it to dispositional properties and to another extent largely communicative as …

Conflict, Intervention And The Decline Of The Developing State, Earl Conteh-Morgan

Peace and Conflict Studies

The contemporary international system is characterized by change and continuity in fundamental socio-political processes and economic relationships that constitute the foundation on which state and non-state interactions unfold. In particular, post-Cold War fin de siècle international politics, rather than producing a new era of global peace, economic prosperity, and symmetrical interdependence, is instead characterized by a widening scope and intensity of geopolitical fluidity and socio-economic effervescence which tend either to (1) undermine state sovereignty, (2) assail human rights practices, or (3) impel the key actors (great powers and major international organizations) of the international system to adopt a foreign policy …