Pamina Firchow

Top-down and bottom-up narratives of peace and conflict

Based on findings from the Everyday Peace Indicators project, the article considers how top-down and bottom-up narratives and understandings of conflict often differ. The article posits that top-down narratives are often the result of a peculiar framing system that imposes imaginaries on conflicts and those experiencing them. The bottom-up narratives, based on research in South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe, show that localised perceptions of peace, safety and security are not only articulated in different ways to top-down narratives but also raise different issues.

Must Our Communities Bleed to Receive Social Services? Development projects and collective reparations schemes in Colombia

The provision of social services in protracted conflicts, such as the Colombian conflict, is scarce and sometimes non-existent. Collective reparations are normally composed of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of no repetition. They constitute what normally would encompass development projects and can provide basic social services in contexts of peace and stability with additional symbolic and psychosocial elements. After more than five decades of conflict in Colombia, it seems that significant political will for transitional justice programmes — and in particular, reparations programmes — has emerged with the 2010 election of President Juan Manuel Santos and the ratification of the 2011 Victims Law. In 2007, a pilot project of collective reparations programmes was initiated with the support of international development agencies. This paper uses data collected from these pilot projects to demonstrate the complexity of introducing development projects as a form of reparations in conflict-affected communities. It also questions whether it is good policy to require communities to have to ‘bleed first’ to receive basic social services under the auspices of collective reparations and explores the possible problems involved in implementing collective reparations programmes without a comprehensive development policy in post-conflict contexts.

A Cuban Spring? The Use of the Internet as a Tool of Democracy Promotion by United States Agency for International Development in Cuba

This paper is an exploration of the use of Internet technologies as tools that form a part of democracy promotion programs in authoritarian regimes by international development actors – in particular United States Agency for International Development. It discusses the role of development actors in democracy promotion, the role of the Internet and new media in democracy promotion and the impact this has had on Cubas nascent Internet infrastructure. It discusses and asks questions about the role of development actors in the promotion of democracy, the emergence of online dissidents in Cuba and their impact on discussions pertaining to a so-called Cuban Spring and the challenges of introducing the Internet into Cuba.

Including Hard-to-Access Populations Using Mobile Phone Surveys and Participatory Indicators:

One of the main obstacles for survey researchers—especially those conducting surveys in difficult contexts such as postconflict areas—is accessing respondents. In order to address this problem, this article draws on an ongoing research project to reflect on the utility of mobile phones to connect with hard-to-access populations in conflict affected, low-income countries. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of a number of different mobile phone survey modes. The article goes a step further and discusses how (potential) survey respondents can be included in the survey design process thereby increasing the relevance of the research to them and hopefully encouraging them to participate. We conclude by considering the issue of “good enough” methodologies, or the need to balance methodological rigor with an understanding of the exigencies of suboptimal research contexts.

Power and Resistance in the Shaping of Argentine Domestic Policy

In contemporary Argentina, as in much of Latin America, politics is often found in the streets. In recent years it has bypassed traditional political party politics to bring day-to-day needs to the forefront through road blockades and cacerolazos (pot banging). These methods have been particularly successful in Argentina, not only in changing policy but also in bringing down administrations and politicians. They emerged from the 2001 Argentinazo’s repertoire of assemblies, demonstrations, riots, looting, and sit-ins as the primary tactics for actors participating in protests in Argentina today. The continuity of resistance in Argentina is a concrete example of Foucault’s notions of power and resistance in practice. En la Argentina contemporánea, como en gran parte de la América Latina, la política muchas veces se encuentra en la calle. En años recientes se ha desviado de la política partidaria tradicional para dar énfasis más bien a las necesidades cotidianas del pueblo por medio de bloqueos a los caminos y cacerolazos. Estos métodos han sido particularmente exitosos en Argentina no solo para cambiar políticas públicas sino también para quitar a políticos y administraciones. Emergieron del repertorio de asambleas, manifestaciones, disturbios, saqueos, y sentadas del Argentinazo de 2001 como las tácticas principales usadas por los actores que participan hoy día en las protestas argentinas. La continuidad de la resistencia en Argentina es un ejemplo concreto de las nociones foucaultianas de la práctica de poder y resistencia.

Christopher R. Mitchell and Landon E. Hancock (eds.), Local Peacebuilding and National Peace: Interaction Between Grassroots and Elite Processes

The path to peace is mostly paved with good intentions, but can be perilous to maneuver. Often, the peril does not lie in the policies developed by peacebuilders to build peace, but it is in the implementation of those policies where the best intentions lose their momentum. This is most evident in the interaction between grassroots and elite processes in peacebuilding and the focus of Christopher Mitchell and Landon Hancock’s edited volume Local Peacebuilding and National Peace. The book studies the impact of national actions and policies on local processes of peace and builds on their Zones of Peace book published in 2007, which explores efforts by local communities to achieve safety and democracy amid civil war. Local Peacebuilding and National Peace contains six chapters (apart from the introduction and conclusion), including four detailed case studies of local peacebuilding initiatives and their relationships with national peace processes in Colombia, South Africa, and Northern Ireland. The two chapters that flank these case studies present proposals for new ways of envisioning Zones of Peace. I will begin with these contributions.