Disability and conflict: exploring how the peace process in Northern Ireland assesses and addresses the needs of persons with disabilities

This article suggests that attempts to address the needs of persons with disabilities in the post-conflict setting have been largely characterized by a medicalized understanding of disability. In so doing, it neglects an assessment and comprehensive attempt to address the impact of structural and cultural violence on the opportunities and quality of life of persons with disabilities. Accordingly, the article suggests an elicitive approach to post-conflict efforts informed by the social model of disability to better assess and address the needs of persons with disabilities in a post-conflict society.     

Coexistence not Reconciliation: From Communal Violence to Non-Violence in North Maluku,Eastern Indonesia

Cultural approaches to reconciliation, those based on ‘traditional’ practices for peacemaking, have attracted the attention of scholars looking at post-conflict regions in Indonesia. Numerous observers have pointed to the revitalisation of the Tobelo adat notion of hibualamo in the province of North Maluku as a successful example of this approach. This paper disputes those conclusions and explores local strategies for peacebuilding and reactions to these strategies in post-conflict North Halmahera. I compare grassroots understandings of ‘reconciliation’ with those of the local elite behind this revitalisation effort. I also debate the concept of reconciliation as it has been applied to the region. Applying the concept of reconciliation, with its connotations of a positive peace, to the post-conflict situation in North Maluku is more of an idealistic view of the potentialities for peace than an actual reflection of reality. I suggest it is more appropriate to describe the situation as one of coexistence or negative peace.     

Gender,conflict, and peace-building: how conflict can catalyse positive change for women

Although modern-day armed conflict is horrific for women, recent conflict and post-conflict periods have provided women with new platforms and opportunities to bring about change. The roles of women alter and expand during conflict as they participate in the struggles and take on more economic responsibilities and duties as heads of households. The trauma of the conflict experience also provides an opportunity for women to come together with a common agenda. In some contexts, these changes have led women to become activists, advocating for peace and long-term transformation in their societies. This article explores how women have seized on the opportunities available to them to drive this advocacy forward: including the establishment of an international framework on women, peace, and security that includes United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and other international agreements and commitments to involving women in post-conflict peace-building. The article is based on on-the-ground research and capacity-building activities carried out in the Great Lakes Region of Africa on the integration of international standards on gender equality and women's rights into post-conflict legal systems.     

Gender and post-conflict civil society

Abstract

Women have historically participated in revolutionary/liberation movements. A consensus among scholars working in the field suggests that once the broader aims of the movement have been achieved, women's public role and the concern for gender differentiated interests diminish in the post-conflict society. The aim of this study is to apply this hypothesis using the case study of Eritrea. Eritrea offers an opportunity to study a modern, successful revolutionary movement that relied heavily upon women's contributions both as support personnel and as front-line soldiers. Preliminary evidence suggests that Eritrea is following the pattern of many other post-conflict societies. Several questions are addressed here: Does the hypothesis which suggests women's participation is welcomed during a revolutionary struggle, but discouraged in post-conflict society, hold true in the Eritrean case? What role did women play in Eritrean independence and what role do they currently play? Have the reforms enacted by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) carried forward under the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ)? What role does women's inclusion play in creating a viable civil society? How has the generational aspect of women's military service affected society's overall perception of women?     

Power-sharing and political public relations: Government-press relationships in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions

Northern Ireland's democratic governance is consociational (i.e. power-sharing is mandatory) and therefore substantially different from the majoritarian electoral system which characterizes most Western democratic societies. Consociationalism has been advocated as a form of democracy which can reconcile post-conflict societies fragmented along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines. Political public relations within mandatory coalitions have received little attention from scholars to date. Drawing on data from elite interviews with Government Information Officers (GIOs), Ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds) and journalists in Northern Ireland, this paper analyses their perspectives on political public relations in Northern Ireland's evolving democratic institutions. Our findings suggest Northern Ireland's public sphere is characterized not just by the usual contest between government communicators and journalists over political stories, but also by competition across government departments and within departments between GIOs and SpAds. Our research investigates the role of public relations in Northern Ireland's developing democratic institutions and more generally identifies important issues surrounding government communication in post-conflict power-sharing democracies.     

‘(What's so funny ‘bout) peace,love & understanding’: rock culture and the rebuilding of civic identity in the post-conflict Balkans

The article examines current rock culture in the Balkans as a potential vehicle for rebuilding the broken sociocultural bonds between the different post-Yugoslav societies and for creating a constructive cultural space for articulating new forms of civic and post-nationalist identities. The argument offered is that, after the sociocultural exile during the war years, rock culture in the post-conflict Balkans has considerable potential to establish itself as a popular-cultural force of ‘utopian transcendence’ of the current ethno-nationalist sociopolitical moment, and as a catalyst of the new post-Yugoslav spirit of openness, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.     

"Show me your impact": evaluating transitional justice in contested spaces

This paper discusses some of the most significant challenges and opportunities for evaluating the effects of programs in support of transitional justice - the field that addresses how post-conflict or post authoritarian societies deal with legacies of wide spread human rights violations. The discussion is empirically grounded in a case study that assesses the efforts of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and one of its Guatemalan partners to evaluate the effects of a museum exposition that is attempting to recast historic memory and challenge racist attitudes in post-conflict Guatemala. The paper argues that despite the increasing trend to fund transitional justice programs, many international aid donors are stuck in traditional and arguably orthodox paradigms of program evaluation. This is having a negative effect not only upon the administration of aid but also upon how transitional justice research is perceived and valued by local populations. The case study experience indicates that there is no perfect evaluation model or approach for evaluating transitional justice programming - only choices to be made by commissioners of evaluation, evaluators, and those being evaluated. These are profoundly influenced by the extreme politics and moral values that define transitional justice settings as contested spaces in which calls to remember the tragic past must be balanced with aspirations to re-build a hopeful future.     

Education in times of conflict and the invisibility of disability: a focus on Iraq?

Education has come to be a key focus of the humanitarian response of international agencies in countries affected by conflict, but disabled children tend to be excluded from these education initiatives. Yet the reconstruction process can provide governments with a unique opportunity to reassess the way they educate disabled children, and consider moving towards more inclusive educational approaches. Indeed, crises can be seen as opportunities to ‘build back better’. A review of the limited literature is followed by an account of a disability study in Iraq, and reflections on the way forward for collaborative research on educational reconstruction in post-conflict societies.     

The Social and Political Implications of Muslim Middle Eastern Women's Participation in Violent Political Conflict

Five cases from the twentieth centuty Islamic Middle East are investigated in terms of the role patterns of women's participation in violent political conflict and the post-conflict social and political consequences of their participation. The study finds extensive role segregation between male and female participants, and virtual absence of women from leadership roles. These conflicts are seen not to be a catalyst for permanent social and political change, and reason for this consequence are discussed.     

Control and subversion: Gender relations in Tajikistan

Tajikistan stands out among the republics of Central Asia fortwo important reasons. First, as the republic where the sovieticizationprocess was least successful, it managed to retain its Islamicidentity and culture. In Tajikistan today, unlike in the otherrepublics, the tenets of Islam stand solidly behind social normsand community standards. Secondly, its independence from theformer Soviet Union was followed by a devastating civil war.This has left a legacy common to any post-conflict society:the possibility of a return to violence as a way of resolvingdisputes. In most other respect, Tajikistan shares a significantamount with its geographical neighbours. This was a region ofpre-modern societies on which was imposed, first, Russian imperialismand, subsequently,     

The Diversity Imperative: Building a culturally responsive school ethos

In the wake of increasing globalization and the growing migration of refugees and asylum seekers from conflict, post-conflict and third world societies, dramatic changes are taking place in the cultural demography of many western European nations. Correspondingly, schools in these countries are experiencing increasing ethnic diversity in their student enrolments and, as such, are facing an imperative that challenges their traditional western, monocultural foundations. In trying to manage this diversity, these schools commonly are ill-equipped to address the different needs of ethnically diverse learners. This paper presents a framework of practical considerations and strategies for pursuing a whole-school approach toward building a culturally responsive ethos in which all students are valued and assured equal opportunities for success.     

Transnational education and the remaking of social identity: Nepalese student migration to Denmark

There is no significant history of migration from Nepal to Denmark, but the post-conflict situation in Nepal and the expansion of an international, commercialised education market have resulted in a significant number of Nepalese students in Denmark. This article argues, first, that the current forms of student migration from Nepal must be examined within the context of broader class-based mobility practices and the consolidation of a relatively new middle-class in Nepal. Second, it examines the significance of education and educated status for people’s claims to belong to the middle-class in a transnational context where social status is at stake.     

‘When does the end begin?’ Addressing gender-based violence in post-conflict societies: case studies from Zimbabwe and El Salvador

This article analyses gender-based violence in the country contexts of Zimbabwe and El Salvador, where distinct periods of conflict and turbulence led to nominal peace, but no recognisable reduction or improvement in the status of women. Women in these two societies continued to experience high levels of gender-based violence. We outline the experience and strategies of Oxfam America along with national partners in addressing gender-based violence in these post-conflict societies. The article draws from Oxfam America's experiences in El Salvador and Zimbabwe, where a campaign and advocacy approach promoted new policy responses and legislation as a result of changes in societal and political attitudes to gender-based violence. It outlines the strategies and partnerships used by the Zimbabwe and El Salvador campaigns, including community outreach, mass mobilisation, and legislative lobbying, to achieve a positive shift in national policies and practices, to prevent gender-based violence.     

Challenging the international peacebuilding evaluation discourse with qualitative methodologies

Monitoring and evaluating international peacebuilding efforts have become more sophisticated over the past years, but still relies on managerial approaches that often do not capture the complexity of war, peace and the grey areas in between. The article argues that organizations should embrace qualitative approaches more widely and introduces ethnographic vignettes as one example to explain the complexity of post-conflict situations. By understanding the personal dimension, the life- and work-styles of international peacebuilders, the current evaluation discourse can become more meaningful-both for organizational learning and sustainable peace efforts on the ground. The article ends by highlighting some approaches that deserve more attention and that promise to help to critically enhance current and future debates about the evaluation of peacebuilding.     

Women in War and Peace-building: The Roads Traversed,The Challenges Ahead

This article overviews the status of women and/in war and conflict literature and posits that the majority of it tends to view women as victims rather than as active actors, largely as a result of patriarchal structures. It is argued here that women in fact occupy a number of roles and create different fates for themselves, as war is also a site of potential change. The article presents the diverse situations and conditions of women in war, while arguing for the need to integrate women within processes of peace negotiations from the very outset. The manner of these inclusions,and the potential outcomes, are also presented and discussed. The article surveys some of the best practices with respect to both the analysis of women's roles and the inclusion of women working in conflict situations, with a view to encouraging international organizations in particular to seek actively to ensure that women are not only fighters and/or victims, but also negotiators in post-conflict futures. The overview thus extends from the visions as presented in literature, to practical considerations for those actually involved in the field of women in conflict.     

Between trust and distrust in research with participants in conflict context

Trust is often treated as a binary where research participants either trust researchers or not, whereas in reality trust is multi-layered. Drawing on 10 months of fieldwork working with internally displaced persons and their non-displaced neighbours in rural Colombia, this article provides a more nuanced discussion of trust in research. It identifies ways in which participants are vulnerable, provides fieldwork strategies to address these vulnerabilities, and questions the assumption that extended time spent in the field necessarily results in greater trust. It argues that such beliefs underestimate the complexity of conflict and post-conflict research contexts where political and social relations are often unstable. Demonstrating that trust may be compartmentalised, and that trust and distrust can coexist, it proposes that the question researchers should ask themselves is not whether participants trust us or not but rather in what capacity and to what degree they (dis)trust us and what influences their level of trust.     

Practices of border crossing in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina: the case of Mostar

In this article, I bring together literature from the fields of memory and reconciliation to investigate practices of ‘border crossing’ in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. While national divisions prevail, subtle attempts at border crossing can be witnessed even in those areas most impacted by the war’s partition, such as in Mostar, a city that has been left divided into Croat and Bosniak sides. Borders are physically crossed to reintegrate the ‘other side’ into one’s everyday life, but also in a more metonymical sense through the questioning of absolute national identities. Such acts of border crossing heavily rely on memories of positive pre-war cross-national relations, which are brought forward to re-establish these relations in post-war times. The research findings suggest that re-enacting a shared common ground – most often found in the past rather than in the present – bears an integrative potential that deserves more attention in post-conflict settings.     

Politics beyond identity: reconsidering the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland

The Northern Irish civil rights movement, like other minority or subaltern struggles, has been interpreted in terms of the national minority’s struggle for state recognition. Such frameworks emphasise the importance of identity in political conflict and tend to assume the state as guarantor of the recognition of identity. The difficulty here is that political possibilities that exceed the terms of identity and the state are obscured. Moreover, the interpretation of the Northern Irish conflict in these terms forms part of the consociational approach to conflict resolution which operates as normative underpinning to the post-conflict state. This article provides an alternative interpretation of the political significance of the civil rights movement. Rather than assuming the analytical usefulness and political significance of identity, I seek to trace the tension between identity and disidentification within the movement, drawing attention to the ways in which activists were aware of, and sought to respond to, the dangers of identity politics.     

Disintegration conflicts and the restructuring of masculinity

Protracted, armed, intranational conflict thrives in many spots and regions around the world. Much of the gender and development literature on armed conflict implies that men control decision-making relating to armed conflict and that the fighting itself is an exclusively male domain. Women are perceived and portrayed as the victims of violence, yet ensure survival and continuity in post-conflict situations. However, this depiction seriously oversimplifies men's and women's roles. As relief and development agencies attempt to address the dynamics of organized violence and protracted conflicts which increasingly impede or confuse their work, gender analysis and policy will need to be re-examined and widened to include the issue of male gender identity. The complexity of conflict, gender and armed conflict, reasons for participation in conflict, conflict and contests in constructing masculinity, subverting the warrior discourse, and restructuring masculinity are discussed.