Who is a true witness? With the publication of Giorgio Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: The witness and the archive (1999), the scope of witnessing has become a deeply contested field. Is the true witness the one who does not survive, the Muselmann? Departing from Agamben, this research project argues that those who bear witness do so to convey the conditions that they lived through and survived or are enduring at present, thereby rejecting the burden of inauthenticity that their story is positioned at the expense of those who have been forced out of sight. They testify through speech or silences, mourning privately and publicly, remembering by memorialising or chronicling their journey from down to the nethermost on the spectrum of bare life, retrospectively or in an ongoing context of atrocity. Focusing on Kashmir, through field research from 2013-2015, to bring to light the structures of militarisation and acquiescence, this research brings to the fore personal narratives of people exposed to everyday violence to engage with the dominant scholarship in order to redefine the scope of witnessing. It explores the multiplicities of witnesses and the acts of bearing witness through three figures, namely, the mother of the disappeared, the local medical worker and the gravedigger of the unmarked mass graves in Kashmir, to point out the heterogeneities of bearing witness. The three figures suggest a spectrum of witnessing to a body: its absence, its reduction and its final departure, and at the same time, they bear witness to their own conditions of disposability. In so doing, there is a shift from an individual act, as advanced by Agamben, to the formation of collective forms of witnessing through a connection with the body, subsequent attachments and practices like public grieving. Departing from the understanding that the act of bearing witness is performed only when a violent event is over, this research will widen the scope by including the voices from an ongoing violent conflict in Kashmir to suggest the precarious existence in a camp and the possibilities of witnessing. This research project attempts to understand the techniques of witnessing by the actors in conflict as forms of truth telling and as a reflexive relationship through which people respond to their marginalisation by the state. Penalisation of public mourning in Kashmir suggests 'the courage of truth' and its relation with politics. With those propositions in mind to broaden the scope and shift the perspective, this research argues that bearing witness is a vital task to foreground one's grieving self and intervene in the production of the truth of unacknowledged violence.

The aim of the study was to examine how adult education can be part of an international response in societies recovering from conflict, which can stabilize rather than de-stabilize, thus enhancing security. The guiding hypothesis was that there has been a failure to recognize the contribution adult education can make in building a secure society, resulting in policy vacuums and under-funding of the sector. The three countries studied were Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq. The study relied primarily on documentary research, but also on opportunistic data collection during periods of work in each of the three countries. By identifying common themes and practices in each specific scenario, it has been possible to determine the links between adult education and security. The findings supported the guiding hypothesis and affirmed that adult education can play a key role in stabilizing a post-conflict society. The resultant understanding of the links between adult education and societal development underpin a new framework for adult education in such societies, which balances short-term security issues with community values and the longer term requirements of society, reducing the potential for future conflict. An analytical tool and a checklist for adult education practitioners were developed as part of that framework. These could potentially inform decision making within the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom government and the British military.

Over the past 50 years, research has focussed on the effects of viewing violence in the media. However, another form of aggression exists, one that is much more subtle and harder to recognize. Indirect (and relational) aggression are manipulative and often covert forms of aggression where the aggressor uses a variety of techniques including gossiping, spreading rumours, and back-biting to hurt another person. This thesis consists of 5 studies, which examined indirect aggression in the media. Study 1 examined the perception of these forms of aggression in adolescents' social environment. These frequencieswere compared with Study 2, a content analysis of indirect aggression on television. It was found that individuals view nearly 10 times more indirect aggression on television than they do in their social environment. Indirect aggression was portrayed on television to be more rewarded, justified, and realistic than physical or verbal aggression. The effect of viewing indirect aggression in the media on subsequent indirectly aggressive behaviourwas measured in Study 3. Participants who viewed indirect or direct aggression were more aggressive to an arrogant confederate than participants who viewed no-aggression. Study 4 examined perceptions of indirect aggression on television when portrayed by a male or a female actor. Confirming existing stereotypes, participants rated the male indirect aggressor as being more justified and more rewarded than participants who viewed a female actor. The longer-term relationship between indirect aggression viewed at home and aggressive behaviour later on was examined in Study 5. This revealed that the amount of indirect aggression viewed on television predicted indirectly aggtessive behaviour in school, even when partialling out other contributing factors. Combined, these studies provide the first systematic evidence that indirect aggression not only ekists in the media, but that it has a negative influence on viewers. Suggestions for parents, schools, and media producers are proposed to help curtail the spread the development of indirect and relational aggression in children.

This thesis examines conflicts and congruities between memories of past political violence, and the implications these have for attempts to enable ‘justice’ and ‘reconciliation’ in Cambodia. The project takes the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as a starting point that seeks to stabilise a narrow account of past political violence. The ECCC is important as a point of departure because it is the main institutional site through which Cambodia is confronting past political violence. Tasked with prosecuting crimes perpetrated by Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, the ECCC promotes a restricted reading of political violence in Cambodia, attempting to silence some pasts whilst calling attention to others. At the same time, the work of the ECCC situates the past as a field of intervention that can yield particular ameliorative social and political outcomes: providing a sense of justice, establishing the truth of political violence in Cambodia, deterring the future perpetration of atrocity, and enabling reconciliation. Memory is integral to these ends as the key target of civic renewal. Based on eight months of fieldwork in 2008/9 conducted at multiple sites in Cambodia, the project critically reflects on the ECCC’s attempt to generate a unified and consensual account of political violence in Cambodia. Three key findings are evidenced. Firstly, whilst the ECCC attempts to frame and stabilise a preferred account of political violence through a judicial process that reconstructs memory through disclosure and concealment, this process itself is contested by the subjects it animates (its ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’). Moreover, I argue that the work of the ECCC actually catalyses multiple, often conflicted claims over what justice and reconciliation mean as socio-political strategies. The ECCC continues to generate unintended and unexpected results in the way that it platforms, recues and generates demands of the past. Secondly, the research findings evidence diverse and competing regimes of memory in Cambodia that call into question the possibilities of the ECCC in reconstructing a unified, shared public memory of political violence in Cambodia, and providing a sense of justice and reconciliation on that basis. These are frequently encountered exactly at the propagation of the ECCC preferred reading of past political violence, gesturing to the way that conflicting memory occurs – or is foregrounded – in resistance to power. Thirdly, the research findings evidence competing rationales for remembering and forgetting political violence in varied ways (for example, material priorities, tourism, and attendant commercial interests). Moreover, the thesis documents ambivalence among some Cambodians toward memorials and museums and the pasts that they call attention to. In this sense, the project shows how these ambivalences are dislocated from and eschew the moral authority of the rationales grounding the ECCC’s work (providing a sense of justice and facilitating reconciliation in the name of continued memories of political violence).

This study focused on presenting an analysis of the concept of marginalisation of former fighters after the Liberian civil conflict and how the web of connections such as status, identity and networks were central to any proposed establishment of a debate. The study had two aims. The first aim was to give a voice to the ex-soldiers who became neglected after the war, allowing them to tell their own stories of marginalisation before, during and after the conflict. The second aim was to help establish a debate on the notion of marginalisation that existed before the war and impacted the soldiers after the war. Within this, the study aimed to assess how the evolution of identity of individuals from youth to neglected veterans had occurred and to further the knowledge of the empirical literature in this regard. A secondary aim was to evaluate the success of reintegration of the ex-soldiers into Liberian society post-conflict and how far marginalisation hindered this attempt. To achieve these aims, the study focused on the use of a qualitative research methodology as the central research component. As well as considering the view of the empirical literature, the researcher wished to provide an account of marginalisation from those that had experienced it first-hand. Therefore, the study dispensed with the use of quantitative surveys and instead carried out personal conversations face to face that would reveal the former fighters’ feelings and attitudes in a more rounded and richer way. This methodological approach aimed to give a voice to the ex-soldiers and whether or not they perceive themselves as part of society. Using these interviews, the thesis aimed to analyse the influence of internal and external factors that caused the former fighters to perceive themselves as being either included, excluded or marginalised within Liberian society. The interviews, combined with the results of the review of the empirical literature, enabled the researcher to draw a number of salient points regarding the concept of marginalisation. The study found that the creation of the feeling of marginalisation for former fighters was composed of a variety of psycho-social factors. These included detachment from family, marginalised primary identities, the development of war-connected networks and a resilient sense of belonging, all of which combined to create a distinct group identity of the neglected veteran that currently exists in Liberian society. This has been because the former fighters have been unable to homogenise their status and identity with the rest of the population. This has stemmed from their perception of the failure of the reintegration process to eliminate the gap between former fighters and civilians and has led to serious problems within Liberian society. The study concludes that Liberian youth developed a war-family identity (collective group identity) and gained a strong sense of belonging. The actions of DDR led to this disintegration of the war family and triggered a series of reactions psychologically and socially. Moreover, reintegration attempts have proved unsuccessful due to the lack of education and skills held by the former fighters. Attempts to be accepted into society has not led to real integration. This has increased the perception of former fighters that they are now neglected veterans. Recommendations for further study are also provided in this work.

The world is currently afflicted by unstable and undemocratic political systems which are frequently a product of failed political transitions. At the point of transition, states are often presented with the unique opportunity to address past human rights violations and restore divided societies, through the implementation of thorough and effective transitional justice processes; truth commissions remain one of the most influential tools in orchestrating these practices. However, as recent history demonstrates, when implemented incorrectly, the transitional justice processes facilitated by truth commission enquiries can not only be ineffective but also damaging. To account for these inadequacies, this thesis seeks to address three key issues: a common misunderstanding of the core concepts promoted by truth commission investigations, the need to notate and comprehend the positive and negative outcomes of past commission enquiries and the current lack of 'case-specific' guidance for future truth commission architects. With reference to these studies, the thesis will then seek to develop a three-pronged truth commission guidance framework to account for the three modes of political change through which transitional states can pass and recommend the establishment of a 'Truth Commission Advisory Body' to oversee and assist the process. These frameworks will then be applied to the case study of Zimbabwe, which is considered to be a candidate for political transition in the near future. The current proliferation of truth commission investigations reflects the common belief that they are the best response when confronting a transitional state's troubled past; this belief can only be vindicated by a substantial increase in the positive and lasting effects of future commission endeavours. Ultimately, this will only be achieved by an increased understanding of these complex processes and the provision of more extensive guidance to those seeking to foster them; this thesis represents a step closer to this eventuality.

This thesis seeks to contribute to the understanding of conflict intervention in protracted violent conflicts by studying the activities of civil society actors in regard to the conflicts in what was Yugoslavia until 1991. A very broad understanding of ‘intervention’ is used for this purpose that includes all kinds of activities that relate to the conflicts. Based on a survey of activities in the period between 1990 and 2002, a framework for categorising and describing these interventions is applied according to basic functions in four ‘grand strategies’ of ‘peace-making’, ‘peace-keeping’, ‘peacebuilding’, and ‘information, support, protest and advocacy’, with a total list of about 230 instruments of conflict intervention identified. The study concludes that civil society actors played three different basic roles: They complemented the work of state actors, they were the avant-garde for approaches, strategies and methods that later became ‘mainstream’ in conflict intervention, and in some cases, they were able to control or correct actions by governments through advocacy or direct action. The development of instruments of civil conflict transformation received a massive boost through this engagement in the 1990s. The study supports the position taken recently by some researchers making comparative studies of cases of conflict intervention regarding the limited role played by dialogue and reconciliation work in regard to dealing with the overall conflicts: In spite of ‘reconciliation’ and inter-ethnic cooperation being at the core of the vast majority of all projects and programmes undertaken in the area, indicators of real impact regarding an overall positive change in society and prevention of future violence seem to be rather weak. The study further observes that there was a social movement developed relating to former Yugoslavia in many Western countries that in a hitherto unknown way combined traditional methods of protest and advocacy with concrete work in the field.

Within animal societies, individuals often differ greatly in their level of investment in cooperative activities. Individuals are predicted to show high cooperative investment if high levels of relatedness lead to large indirect fitness benefits, or if differences in individual characteristics such as age, sex, rank, or body condition increase the direct fitness benefits of helping. However, individual differences often persist after these differences are controlled for; a residual variation that remains unexplained. Understanding the proximate mechanisms underlying variation in behaviour can give novel insights into the selection pressures shaping behavioural differences. This suggests that a research focus onto the proximate mechanisms underpinning cooperative behaviours is needed to further our understanding of why individuals behave differently within social groups. In this thesis, I address this shortfall in understanding by investigating hormonal variation alongside individual differences in cooperative investment in the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo). Banded mongooses are a highly social carnivore with two highly conspicuous forms of cooperative offspring care that are easily measurable and show large inter-individual variation. In chapter 3, I demonstrate a negative carry-over effect of investment in offspring care in consecutive breeding attempts. I show that this carry-over effect is mediated by variation in glucocorticoid concentrations, which may be attributable to the energetic costs of helping. Glucocorticoids predict investment in offspring care, suggesting that this mechanism may drive inter-individual variation in cooperative investment. In chapter 4, I find evidence for a testosterone mediated trade-off between offspring care and mating effort, which suggests that inter-individual differences may also be driven by variation in the costs of helping attributable to missed mating opportunities. In chapter 5, I use simulated territorial intrusions to show that there is unlikely to be a trade-off between offspring care and territory defence in banded mongoose societies. However, carers and non-carers show a differential physiological response to territorial intrusion, suggesting that there may be a more subtle behavioural trade-off that occurs post-intrusion. In chapter 6, I find evidence for consistent individual differences in both cooperative and competitive behaviours, which suggests that individual differences in adult behaviour may be determined by early-life effects. Individual differences in cooperative investment are positively correlated, suggesting that individuals are not specialised to different cooperative activities, but are consistently either helpful or selfish. Together, these results give insights into the selection pressures shaping individual differences and highlight endocrine research as a valuable tool in understanding the evolution of cooperative societies.

Over the past decades concern, legislation and research related to the phenomenon of child soldiers has increased in both scope and depth. Much is known about the experiences that children undergo, their recruitment both voluntary and forced by non-state armed groups, their training and deployment and the abuse that they are both forced to endure and forced to commit against others. This thesis builds upon this knowledge by exploring in a systematic and comparative way, not previously undertaken, how the type of conflict impacts on child soldiering. Three conflicts, each with a non-state entity which used child soldiers were comparatively assessed. One a criminal enterprise rooted in the extraction of resources, one ethno-nationalist in origin and revolving around claims and counter-claims to sovereignty over a particular territory and one a left-wing insurgency which aimed to reconfigure the social, economic and political structures of the state. Each had unique aspects but there were also some similarities. To allow for a fuller understanding of these differences and similarities it was useful to think of the conflicts as ranging along a spectrum. The spectrum that was used was that of new war/old war which allowed the conflicts to be situated according to their characteristics but which also enabled, through use of the moving continuum, the conflicts to be seen over the course of the time period in which they were conducted, as they moved along the spectrum in response to changes in the conflict. To explore how each conflict affected child soldier's experiences the research included interviews with relevant experts, the collection of quantative and qualitative data and an extensive overview of the literature. A comparative assesment of how support for the group, access to resources, the groups' use of violence, the manipulation of culture by the groups for their own ends and whether children had space to act on their initiative underpinned by the triangulation of the information collected enabled robust conclusions to be drawn. The findings showed that the hypothesis that the type of conflict impacts on children's recruitment, deployment and abuse within non-state armed groups holds true. A study of the aforementioned factors highlight that the type of conflict the groups were involved with acted to restrain, or not, the actions of the group towards children in each of the three areas, recruitment, deployment and abuse. Yet the findings showed great complexity, in some important ways the groups' behaviour showed similarities. These were related in part to the trajectory ofthe conflicts and in part to similarities between the groups in terms of motivation and support, factors that at times mitigated group behaviour and at others times allowed groups to act in extreme ways.

After 171 years of British colonial rule, Hong Kong has developed its distinct identity, with a laissez-faire economy, freedom of the individual, and the rule of law, in contrast with the historical experience of mainland China. Combined with the tragic experience of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, this led the people of Hong Kong to the fear of reintegration, creating a mindset of ‘binary opposition’ among the people of Hong Kong. The contested identities destabilise mutual trust and encourage local resistance against the ‘encroachment’ from China. This thesis looks beyond the identity of binary opposition and argues that to resist China’s re-absorption is not necessary to take the form of antagonism. The mode of hybridity is not only a useful strategy to resist national assimilation, but also creates the necessary space for the possibility of cultural reconciliation. Christian churches, part of the ambiguous colonial tradition and recent opposition, could become such a space for reconciliation if they can learn from the Biblical experience as well as contextual theologies in other parts of Asia.