Let Us Talk

Key to the comprehensive approach [to peacebuilding] is a view of peace as a process undertaken both at higher political levels as well as local communities. In the course of the past two decades increasingly more attention, research, and legitimacy have emerged related to the community level activities that would not easily have been included in the purview of international relations and realist schools of thought. Not surprisingly, important theoretical and practical advancements in the field of peacebuilding have originated from communities most directly affected by deep-rooted conflict. Given the significant number of protracted armed conflicts in many regions of Africa over the last two decades, the contributions to the practice of grassroots peacebuilding have been unprecedented from this continent and have profoundly shaped the wider field. In this chapter we will highlight a few of these contributions by looking at case studies primarily from Somalia and Liberia. We will first describe particular processes and then propose ways in which these represent practical, context-based initiatives with theoretical salience and contribution…