Reclaiming Everyday Peace
Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation After War

Introduces the Everyday Peace Indicators as a measurement, diagnostic and evaluation tool and makes an argument for its utility in conflict affected contexts.

Pamina Firchow (Author)

9781108402767, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 September 2018

206 pages, 19 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.8 x 15 x 1.2 cm, 0.32 kg

'This book provides the tools through which to transform peacebuilding programmes, but it also has the capacity to influence a wider field of research, as it seeks to address the long standing, structural power imbalance inherent within conflict intervention.' Sarah Edgcumbe, CVIR

Bringing armed conflicts to an end is difficult; restoring a lasting peace can be considerably harder. Reclaiming Everyday Peace addresses the effectiveness and impact of local level interventions on communities affected by war. Using an innovative methodology to generate participatory numbers, Pamina Firchow finds that communities saturated with external interventions after war do not have substantive higher levels of peacefulness according to community-defined indicators of peace than those with lower levels of interventions. These findings suggest that current international peacebuilding efforts are not very effective at achieving peace by local standards because disproportionate attention is paid to reconstruction, governance and development assistance with little attention paid to community ties and healing. Firchow argues that a more bottom up approach to measuring the effectiveness of peacebuilding is required. By finding ways to effectively communicate local community needs and priorities to the international community, efforts to create an atmosphere for an enduring peace are possible.

Introduction
Part I. Understanding Everyday Peace: 1. Measuring peace
2. Who counts in the measurement of peace?
3. A new approach to measuring peace
Part II. Evaluating Everyday Peace: 4. Everyday peace in Uganda and Colombia
5. The multidimensionality of everyday peace
6. Why do local interventions fail and why do they succeed?
Conclusion
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Human rights & civil liberties law [LNDC], Peacekeeping operations [JWLP], Diplomacy [JPSD]