Economies of Peace: Economy Formation Processes and Outcomes in Conflict-Affected Societies

Tschunkert

Schläpfer³

2022

Disasters

Self Cite

Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has become a widespread humanitarian tool to support people affected by conflicts, displacement, and disasters. It promises improved ways to meet the diverse needs of aid beneficiaries. Current policy and academic debates mainly centre on technocratic questions concerning economy, effectiveness, and equity, and, to a lesser extent, the effects on individual recipients and households. This paper challenges the assumption of CVA as a linear process and argues that the shift to CVA is more than changing the aid delivery platform. It contends that scholarship and practice have so far overlooked the social meaning of money, and therefore its broader implications for humanitarian aid and local markets. The paper presents evidence that CVA impacts on social relations and risks creating new, or exacerbating existing, conflicts in already fragile contexts. It highlights less explored areas of CVA and outlines a multidimensional research agenda that emphasises its potential social and socioeconomic consequences.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The social meaning of money: multidimensional implications of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance

Tschunkert

Schläpfer³

2022

Disasters

Self Cite

“…As Mitchell (2011Mitchell ( , p. 1627 argues, "engaging in the practices of everyday life leads to a special kind of knowledge, one concerned primarily with human needs and their fulfilment." The everyday is also a site where power, inequality, and social norms as well as also agencies, resistance and the contradictions of everyday life are particularly visible (Distler et al 2018). It highlights local manifestations of global processes and can often contradict state portrayed messages of progress and development in conflict-affected societies.…”

Section: Including the Everyday As A Site Of Economic Analysis In Con...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first section outlines definitions of war and peace economies, their contribution to the literature and how they link to the analysis of the economic everyday. It then refines the conceptualisition of peace economy formation, a framing that allows scholars to understand the interplay between formal and informal processes, actors and levels of society and how they contribute to changing economic practices in post-conflict situations (Distler et al 2018). To achieve the second objective, it proceeds to discuss why we should study macroeconomic (peacebuilding) reforms, economic peacebuilding mechanisms such as trade integration, or private sector involvement "from below" as well as top-down by outlining some of their consequences in the post-Yugoslav space, mainly Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic local turn in peace and conflict studies: economic peacebuilding interventions and the everyday

2022

New Political Economy

Self Cite

This article calls for a better integration of economic and socio-economic aspects of peacemaking efforts into critical peace and conflict scholarship and can be read as a corrective to the predominance of top-down and state-centric lenses in the examination of post-war economic recovery. As of yet, academic debates surrounding peace interventions have not adequately integrated the economic with the political, in particular at the level of the everyday. Most theories in International Relations that engage with the connection between economics and politics during and after conflictas well as the original notions of liberal peaceare based on the idea that international trade and market liberalisation reduce the chances of war between states. This neglects the substate level, and does not pay attention to the quality of peace that results. Considering the shift to intra-state conflicts, this article discusses the epistemological consequences of neglecting the economic everyday in conflictaffected societies and its implications for peacemaking, for both international and domestic actors. Shifting the level of analysis to the sub-state level and using an intersectional and inter-disciplinary approach broadens our understanding of peace and peacemaking, and how different segments of the populations experience them.

“…What these "turns" have in common is a change of focus from the macro and international to the micro, local and everyday level of society to gain additional insights alongside traditional approaches. They have enabled the everyday to become a serious area of investigation and source of knowledge for International Relations scholars focused on diverse areas of peace and conflict (Mac Ginty 2014;Distler et al 2018;Selimovic 2019).…”

Section: The Value Of Integrating Graffiti Into Ir and Peace And Conf...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading socio-political and spatial dynamics through graffiti in conflict-affected societies

Arthur

Lepp

et al. 2020

Third World Quarterly

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This paper argues that graffiti can provide a form of socio-political commentary at the local level, and is a valuable, yet often overlooked, resource for scholars and policy makers in conflict-affected societies. Graffiti, in its many forms, can provide rich insight into societies, cultures, social issues, trends, political discourse, and spatial and territorial identities and claims. Thus, this, paper suggest that graffiti is a valuable source of knowledge in societies undergoing social and political transformation to hear the voices of those often left out from the official discourses. Despite advances in the field of arts and International Relations and the focus on the local and the everyday, peace and conflict scholarship and policy still lack systematic engagement with artsbased contributions and how to read them. The paper attempts to address this gap by outlining four core dimensions to consider when attempting to interpret and decode graffiti: the spatial, temporal, political economy, and representative dimensions. This can also be viewed as an inquiry into the where, when, who and what. These four elements make up an analytical guide and enable scholars to better understand graffiti, and its political meaning and messaging.