Conflict Transformation

While highly valued and desired, peace appears as a rather elusive and fleeting concept in human history. My high school history text books were a stage for the retelling of war stories depicted as the driving force of change. Times of peace appeared as brief interludes between the acts of the main performance. Peacemaking activities were usually just as narrowly conceived. Typically, peacemaking in world history evolves around “negotiation” and even more narrowly is reduced to cease-fire talks. This paper will take a different perspective. I wish to articulate a broader process for peacemaking that permits us to reframe old activities in new ways. I will outline a holistic and ongoing view of peacemaking and then suggest the crucial junctures where the protagonists in particular situations intersect with the regional and extra-regional NGO communities in the transformation of conflict toward more humane and peaceful outcomes…