The theme of this special issue, local responses to conflict in Muslim contexts, is not new. Yet the meaning of the local and localisation evolves dynamically in a fast-changing world in which trends in conflict and crisis are always shifting, and therefore the topic requires revisiting. Originality in peacebuilding, development and relief emerges from scholars and practitioners engaging in contextualisation and experimentation on the theme. This special issue has its roots in a conference organised by the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS), in Doha, Qatar on 16-18 December 2017. The conference was groundbreaking as the first major academic event in the Arab region to address the issue of localisation of conflict response in the region. Many excellent papers were presented at the conference by academics and practitioners from the region, stimulating wide-ranging discussion, and some selected conference papers were developed into articles for this special issue. CHS aims to bridge the local and the international in studying and researching conflict in the Arab region, with scholars and practitioners addressing the subject in both English and Arabic. Whilst CHS focuses on Arab and Muslim societies and has extensive networks with local academic and practitioner organisations in the region, it also partners with leading international centres including the Peace Research Institute Oslo and the London-based Overseas Research Institute (Burki, 2017). Localisation was a major theme at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, held in Istanbul. Whilst the importance of the local has long been recognised in the fields of humanitarianism, peacebuilding, and development, the war in Syria has single-handedly pushed forward an evolution in the way in which we respond to conflict, with local actors often in the lead by necessity (Salamey et al., 2018). These issues are explored in the article by Sultan Barakat and Sansom Milton on localisation across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. In it they argue that understanding the local across these three elements of the "triple nexus" is important because "the local is a natural place for working beyond silos as crisis affected populations tend not to operate with the same distinctions between sectors that structure the international aid apparatus" (Barakat & Milton, p. 149).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.