Peacebuilding, Conflict and Community Development

Description

How do local communities effectively build peace and reconciliation before, during and after open violence? This trailblazing book gives practical examples, from the Global North, the former Soviet bloc and Global South, on communities addressing conflict in divided and contested societies. The book draws on a range of critical perspectives and practitioner analysis. The diverse case studies demonstrate the considerable knowledge, skills, commitment, courage and relationships within local communities that a critical community development approach can support and encourage. Concluding with activists' perspectives on working with the challenges of violence, the book offers insights for both an understanding of the root causes of conflict and for bottom-up peacebuilding.

John Eversley is Managing Director of two social enterprises: Policy, Practice, Research and Education and Macroscopia. Sinead Gormally is Senior Lecturer in Community Development and Adult Education at the University of Glasgow. Avila Kilmurray is Migration and Peacebuilding Executive at The Social Change Initiative.

"Practitioner accounts of community development in contexts of violent conflict are showcased via impressive international case studies using conceptual debates on the 'local' turn in peacebuilding and 'everyday peace'." Donna Pankhurst, University of Bradford "This is an outstanding and rigorous intervention into debates on 'local' and everyday peace by grassroots community development practitioners across multiple contexts of violent conflict. The book reinforces the importance of both community inclusion, at all stages of peacebuilding, and the vital contribution of community development to sustaining peace." Mo Hume, University of Glasgow "Much more than peace in relation to conflict, here is a huge contribution to community development theory posing 'everyday peace' as a way of life, a framework for grassroots practice which focuses on the co-existence and sustainability of all humanity." Margaret Ledwith, University of Cumbria