Abstract
In peace and conflict studies, community-based, pre-violence conflict prevention receives limited attention. Writing about pre-violence prevention tends to focus on governments and other large institutions whilst writing about community-based peace work tends to focus on mid- and post-violence settings. To address this gap I propose the use of the idea of Proactive Peace. This is a concept for specifically focusing on community-based, pre-violence conflict prevention work by using the lens of conflict risk-factors. The specific aims of the thesis are firstly to describe what Proactive Peace work currently looks like and secondly to explore how communities think that this type of peace work could be better supported. These questions are answered using co-design and case study research. The cases are three very different community organisations: The African Centre for Nonviolence and Sustainable Impact (AfriNov), the American Friend’s Service Committee’s Farming for Social Change network and the Hokotehi Moriori Trust.
Several commonalities arose across these cases. These commonalities are that their Proactive Peace work: is both structural and relational; utilises both problem-solving as well as critical approaches; and land issues are central. Commonly raised supports for Proactive Peace included: networks, economic resources and support sharing their story. That commonalities arose at all suggests the primary finding of this thesis, not only is it possible to describe Proactive Peace in individual cases but Proactive Peace it is a concept that is able to be conceptualised in its own right. Secondarily, the commonalties that arose across the case studies contribute to academic discussion and suggest areas for further research in their own right. Additionally, with Covid19 enforcing remote research practices, this thesis contributes to the co-design literature by exploring how it can be adapted to be successfully used remotely.
So often the work of war prevention is invisible in its success. Unnoticed until it fails. The idea of Proactive Peace is one that enables us to see and so in turn to support this important kind of peace work. This gives us a way of intentionally trying to prevent war. so successfully that peace itself appears inevitable.