Social Reconstruction as a Local Process

Abstract

When it comes to post-armed conflict interventions aimed at restructuring a shattered society, policy makers have largely treated countries as an undifferentiated whole, ignoring local dynamics that reinforce or transform the power relations that are often most relevant to peoples' lives. Using the example of Guatemala, the authors argue that locallevel, bottom-up mechanisms can reflect a country's diverse makeup and experience of conflict, and provide crucial precursors or extensions for wider-scale national and international projects. Local-level initiatives also can involve more community members, promote agency and perhaps be less prone to large-scale patronage and corruption. In promoting truth-telling initiatives and confronting the past, memorializing the departed and burying the dead, and resolving ongoing or recent community conflicts, the authors have found that local-level programs have distinct advantages. The article considers local 'houses of memory,' community-sponsored psycho-social interventions and exhumations; and conflict resolution based on Mayan methods. It concludes that such efforts should be more systematically identified and supported in post-armed conflict settings. In transitional justice, as elsewhere, the authors find, all politics is local.

Social Immobility, Ethno-politics, and Sectarian Violence: Obstacles to Post-conflict Reconstruction in Northern Ireland

“…There has also been much research on the functions of social capital and interethnic contact in fostering trust and changing political attitudes (Hewstone et al 2006;Pickering 2006;Rydgren and Sofi 2011;Rydgren et al 2013;Svenson and Brouneus 2013;Tam et al 2009), and the potential leadership in peacebuilding and restorative justice of grassroots or "community-based" organizations (Arriaza and Roht-Arriaza 2008;Knox 2010;Erikkson 2009;McAuley et al 2010;Parver and Wolf 2008). Yet how ethno-political divisions are reproduced or politically re-activated following the formalities of "peace" merits further critical and empirical attention.…”

“…Research on "bottom-up" or grassroots peacekeeping has emphasized the need for a more holistic understanding of peace which emphasizes the role of civil-society (Arriaza and Roht-Arriaza 2008;Parver and Wolf 2008;Knox 2010;Erikkson 2009), and challenges dominant paradigms which often implicitly restrict its meaning to the cessation of violence. Yet due largely to local, organization-specific focuses, the primary emphasis on community-based initiatives also tends to inadvertently reduce attention to obstacles to peacebuilding rooted in broader political and economic structures and processes, which shape or limit the transformative capacity of voluntary organizations, as already discussed.…”

Reconstructing ‘Traditional’ Justice from the outside in: Transitional Justice in Aceh and East Timor

“…This juxtaposition is in some ways a disservice to the reticulated topdown and bottom-up processes that are at work in many transitional justice programmes, such as Guatemala and Rwanda (Arriaza & Roht-Arriaza 2008;Burnet 2010). For example, Rwanda's gacaca programme is considered an archetype of bottom-up justice in its design for wide citizen participation, the use of traditional justice methods, and its local focus (Karekezi et al 2004, 78).…”

Paradoxes and challenges of transitional justice at the ‘local’ level: historical enquiries in Northern Ireland

“…Theorists and practitioners of transitional justice are more aware than ever before that there cannot be a 'formulaic' top-down legalistic approach. This is reflected in an emerging 'bottom-up' perspective and multidisciplinary literature that advocates politically and culturally appropriate 'localised', 'locally owned' and 'bottom-up' transitional justice processes (for example, Arriaza & Roht-Arriaza, 2008;Betts, 2005;Gready, 2005;Lundy, 2009b;Lundy & McGovern, 2008a;McEvoy & McGregor, 2008). Given the diversity of societies in transition it is perhaps self-evident that what works in one situation may not necessarily in another.…”