Resilience Building in Protracted Conflicts
Research of wartime civilian agency demonstrates how civilians resist armed actors collectively, adapt to changing conflict zones, and build local resilience. How does civilian resilience building impact conflict dynamics, peacebuilding, and international efforts to protect civilians? What are the legacies of resilience building and how do they mitigate vulnerability to renewed conflict in settings of protracted conflicts?
Project Description
This project builds on my first book, Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War (Cambridge University Press 2018), which found that civilian adaptation to conflict dynamics can build temporary resilience but rarely a local peace that trickles up and transforms conflicts. Civilian efforts often save lives, reduce suffering, facilitate humanitarian access, and preserve hope for future peacebuilding. Protection strategies shape civilian perspectives, community organization, and gender relations, and prospects for peacebuilding. The project examines the potential and limitations of civilian self-protection and local conflict management for ‘resilience building’. It focuses on Myanmar and South Sudan, two countries affected by repeated cycles of civil war and communal conflicts.
Selected Publications
1) Resilient Communities: Non-Violence and Civilian Agency in Communal War. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
2) Gender Dimensions of Nonviolence in Communal Conflict: The Case of Jos, Nigeria. Comparative Political Studies, 2018 (online before print).
3) Krause, Jana, Werner Krause and Piia Braenfors. 2018. Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and the Durability of Peace. International Interactions, 44:6, 985-1016.