The political economy of peacebuilding: The case of women's cooperatives in Nepal

Abstract

Critiques of liberal, top-down approaches to peacebuilding have motivated a discussion of alternative, locally-led, and community-based approaches to achieving and maintaining sustainable peace. This article uses a case study of women's savings and credit cooperatives in post-violence Nepal to examine the ways in which grassroots-based, locally-led peace initiatives can counter top-down approaches. The article presents ethnographic evidence from fieldwork in Nepal on how cooperatives expand through their everyday activities the definition of peace to include not only the absence of violence (negative peace) but transformatory goals such as social justice (positive peace). By focusing on ongoing root causes of structural violence, cooperatives problematize the postconflict period where pre-war normalcy is presumed to have returned. They emphasize local agency and ownership over formal peace processes. The findings suggest ongoing struggles that cooperatives face due to their existence within larger, liberal paradigms of international postconflict aid and reconstruction assistance. Their uneasy relationship with liberal economic structures limit their scale and scope of effectiveness even as they provide local alternatives for peacebuilding.

Peace and non-violence

“…As such, SEWA brings together women from a variety of caste and religious backgrounds under the umbrella of its cooperatives, in a context where gender-based inequality and religious and/or caste divides are significant. Ramnarain (2011) discusses the ways in which cooperative membership has provided material resources and greater economic security to women, broadened their social and political awareness (against practices such as dowry, sexual harassment in the workplace and domestic violence), and built their capacities to translate that awareness into action, both in their daily lives and in their communities. Women interviewed in the study recognized the close relationship between peace and social justice, and the important role of the cooperative in pressing for greater equity, especially in cases of gender-based violence and harassment, and caste or religious discrimination.…”

“…New inequalities may be produced and old ethnic/class divisions may be inflamed, as social spending is curbed precisely when it is critical to the restoration of peace (Pugh 2006;Duffield 2010). Austerity policies, currency devaluation and the removal of food subsidies have, in several contexts, led to a rise in unemployment, social polarization and heightened tensions (see Ramnarain 2013 for examples). SSEOEs can emerge as spaces for an alternative and radical political economy that challenges the liberal peace model, and its market-and profit-centric tenets.…”

“…Further, peace is defined narrowly as the absence of physical violence and subsumed under a securitized form of state-building. Finally, the liberal model of peacebuilding and reconstruction also comes under scrutiny for its continued espousal of neoliberal and macroeconomic adjustment policies -promoting austerity and the withdrawal of the state from the provision of basic services and social protection -and an emphasis on 'development as usual', provoking questions surrounding who benefits from the development and what is being 'reconstructed' (Pugh 2006;Ramnarain 2013).Countering these failures of top-down, liberal approaches, diverse alternative approaches, ranging from critiques of peace conditionalities to hybrid forms of peacebuilding, community-based development (CBD) and social and solidarity economy (SSE) perspectives have emerged (Ramnarain 2013) (see also entry 16, 'Community-Based Organizations'). Notably, however, the hybrid peace and community-based peacebuilding and development models do not jettison the liberal rubric entirely, but rather make a case for the coexistence of its core norms -security and stabilization, reinforcing states, democratic governance, and marketization -alongside local agency and participatory methods.…”

“…Further, peace is defined narrowly as the absence of physical violence and subsumed under a securitized form of state-building. Finally, the liberal model of peacebuilding and reconstruction also comes under scrutiny for its continued espousal of neoliberal and macroeconomic adjustment policies -promoting austerity and the withdrawal of the state from the provision of basic services and social protection -and an emphasis on 'development as usual', provoking questions surrounding who benefits from the development and what is being 'reconstructed' (Pugh 2006;Ramnarain 2013).…”

Three Dimensions of Gender Mainstreaming in Economic Peacebuilding: Insights from Indonesia and Nigeria

“…To bolster their arguments, scholars have shown how deeply embedded norms of marriage, inheritance, land ownership and the different economic roles of men and women can foster or prolong conflict and further gender inequalities (Baliamoune-Lutz and McGillivray, 2009;Bowen, Hudson and Nielsen, 2015;Caprioli, 2005;Chinkin and Charlesworth, 2006;Forsberg and Olsson, 2016;Hudson and Matfess, 2017). In addition, they have pointed to the role of neo-liberal capitalism in putting pressure on land and resources, with the effect of rendering already vulnerable populations poorer and further at risk of violent conflict (Basu, 2017;Ramnarain, 2013;Reysoo and Verschuur, 2017;unrisd, 2005). Anti-mining campaigns in Indonesia, the issue of Fulani herders deprived of grazing lands due to increased land appropriations in Nigeria (Rigual, Udasmoro and Achakpa, forthcoming), or mineral extraction for technology industries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Cohn, 2012, 27) are only some examples of the impact that globalised capitalism is having on livelihoods and violent conflict.…”