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Pré-Publication, Document De Travail Année : 2011

A Critique of 'Bottom-up' Peacebuilding: Do Peaceful Individuals Make Peaceful Societies?

Résumé

This chapter is concerned with dialogue-based post-conflict practices currently being promoted vigorously by certain international organizations. On the one hand, there is "transitional justice" with its cornerstone forums, deemed truth and reconciliation commissions. On the other hand, there are various "bottom-up" peacebuilding techniques (local dialogues, coexistence programs, conflict resolution training, and so on). Generally speaking, these "bottom-up" approaches work to transform individual prejudices and emphasize relations amongst "ordinary people". The shared objective of these practices is to construct peace that proves more "sustainable" than the usual international peacemaking and peacebuilding policies that focus upon political elites and institutional reform. I seek to demonstrate that it is through sociological analysis of the people and organizations promoting these approaches, rather than a strict evaluation of the programs' efficacy, that can reveal certain surprising characteristics of the groups involved. These groups are quite specific and diverse: religious evangelical and Anabaptist groups, activist groups fighting for peacebuilding via education, and professionals from realms such as para-judiciary conflict resolution and individual therapy. I also aim to show that in exploring these programs' origins, it becomes possible to unveil one of their singular traits: an underlying individualist, relationist conception of social functioning and change. The individual becomes the only true agent of peace; a peace that is supposed to become a shared culture thanks to a gradual social diffusion, starting with the select few who are immediately connected with the international programs in question. Two non-governmental organizations will here bear witness to the usage of techniques borrowed directly from individual therapy practices. Finally, I point to the link between 'bottom-up' approaches and the more institutional forms of peacebuilding. I argue that "transitional justice" is grounded in this conception of peace via the individual, and that, ultimately, this works to de-politicize peacebuilding processes.
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Dates et versions

halshs-00646986 , version 1 (01-12-2011)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-00646986 , version 1

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Sandrine Lefranc. A Critique of 'Bottom-up' Peacebuilding: Do Peaceful Individuals Make Peaceful Societies?. 2011. ⟨halshs-00646986⟩
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