Tools & lenses
Agonistic Peace
Can peacebuilding institutions contribute to the establishment of sustainable peace while they elude or exclude people and population groups who resist the signature of a peace accord or seek to subvert its implementation? Words like deviance, incivility or abnormality might come to the mind of people seeking to understand how to deal with those who resist to engage in a peacebuilding process or who actively undermine efforts to establish peacebuilding settlements. However, studies have shown that not all those who resist a peace process actually seek to destroy it but rather try to shape the terms of the agreement.
Intersectionality
Can we trace a clear line between victims and perpetrators? Shall we presume that a peace reflected in a peace agreement embodies a universal good? Shall the victims of grave human rights violations share similar understandings of reparation and forgiveness?
These dilemmas touch upon the difficulties of using impermeable categories and binary divisions in dealing with massive human rights violations during conflict and democratic transitions. Similar concerns were raised by feminist legal scholar Kimberly Crenshaw when she introduced in the 1980s the notion of intersectionality.
These dilemmas touch upon the difficulties of using impermeable categories and binary divisions in dealing with massive human rights violations during conflict and democratic transitions. Similar concerns were raised by feminist legal scholar Kimberly Crenshaw when she introduced in the 1980s the notion of intersectionality.