Peacebuilding in a post-conflict traumatized society.

Abstract

This book constitutes a handbook for peacebuilding in a traumatized postconflict society. It begins with an investigation of how peace can be built in a deeply divided society laden with post-war trauma. Ho-Won Jeong (a professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University) specifies the major objectives and difficulties related to achieving sustainable peace.Two chapters analyze diverse security challenges that need to be met and that represent preconditions for political stability and development. The author focuses on integrated, long-term reconstruction plans realized by means of institutional reforms at every stage of peacebuilding. This really is, therefore, a handbook that explains, step by step, how to achieve sustainable peace.The opening of chapter 4 indicates that a transition period is crucial and that, for the peace process to succeed, a government's intentions needs to be expressed, during this period, within a spirit of good will and cooperation. Organizing a negotiated process for a future political order is difficult when security and political order are lacking. It is also very important to remember that general principles of political stability and military balance need to be combined with a keen awareness of regional dynamics. Jeong furthermore believes that by the provision and publicity of valid and favorably

Postcolonial history education: Issues, tensions and opportunities

“…Linked to, but expanding beyond, the discipline of history, the 1980s saw the birth of subaltern studies as a further stage in postcolonial critique especially in South Asia (Prakash, 1994). Securing recognition of minority narratives, as has been seen in the cases of India and Sri Lanka (Pandian, 2008;Wijegoonawardana, 2012), continues to be a struggle. New histories in the late twentieth century tended to break up the previous hegemonic narratives of political and military history: 'great men', 'discovery' of new lands, 'pioneering settlement' and the complacency of contented dominion and linear stories of progress and reform.…”