People perceive social conflict and conflict issues in different ways. My research is directed at understanding how leaders from some of Winnipeg’s Community-Based Organizations (CBOs; faith and ethno-cultural NGOs) perceive and experience social conflict and to explore their contributions toward peace-building and conflict transformation. Historically, Winnipeg has been home to a plethora of faith-based, ethno-cultural community organizations, and NGOs whose mission is to provide crucial basic and spiritual needs to people. Their contribution to the nurturing of both the spiritual and social needs of their communities is also remarkable. This qualitative research is based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation as research instruments to observe social events related to conflict and peace-building. Critical ethnographic and grounded theory approaches inform the methodology while drawing necessary inferences from relevant quantitative data. From this research, several key findings become evident: 1) CBO leaders have a high level of personal motivation and employ a wide range of tools, such as the social capital of their organizations, to intervene in social conflict issues for the purpose of peace-building; 2) of the three types of CBO (faith, ethno-cultural and NGOs), the Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) are the most networked and involved in transforming social conflicts and contributing toward peace-building in Winnipeg; 3) some respondents seemed to indicate that not all projects are contributing equally in addressing social conflict issues; 4) social conflict issues appear to be rooted in an unjust social structure and a number of socio-economic-political and cultural policies; 5) research participants cited five complex, interrelated conflict issues in Winnipeg; 6) a grounded theoretical concept (Perception-Expectation-Frustration) was generated to explain social conflict; and 7) these everyday leaders are using a plethora of strategies as everyday peace-builders who are engaged global citizens, and citizen diplomats to create oases of peace in a society where people are struggling with social inequality, discrimination, and poverty in order to address people's immediate needs, promote awareness, and influence policy. In sum, the meso level CBO leaders perceive social conflict holistically and some of their peace-building projects may be contributing substantially towards a long-term process of social conflict transformation in Winnipeg. / February 2017

This qualitative, interpretative, interview study is conducted with six young female Kosovar-Albanian and Serbian participants from a peacebuilding, dialogue and training program called Young Women’s Peace Academy. It aims at answering what made the young women who participated so “successful” in breaking antagonism, in spite of the tensions that exist in the post-conflict society they live in. More specifically it is looking at how ethnicity, gender and age interact in the process of peacebuilding to fine-grain theory.

Traditionally in the West, the pursuit of a secular society has kept a spiritual dimension fiom the study and application of most peacebuilding processes. By excluding a spiritual dimension, however, a tremendous resource for building peace is often lost. This thesis argues that spirituality can assist in encouraging connection and understanding between participants within a peacebuilding process. It also argues that religious/spiritual organizations and their leadership can play an important role in creating the conditions to support peace, through their organizational structure and position in society. Moreover, they can often find ways to prevent and transform conflict through the application of lessons, systems, insights and values from their own traditions, which may be more appropriate to their situation than importing outside solutions. The case study methodology used in this thesis incorporates the experiences that the author had while interning with various NGO's in Burma. The case study itself offers a specific example of why a spiritual framework for peacebuilding is needed. Through this example, an illustration of why this in that current conflict, is achieved. o t h e d e x t s are also discwed. type of framework is suitable, and how it might assist General lessons and insights that are applicable to n

Can international peacebuilding efforts in war-torn societies have positive influence on democratic outcomes at the grassroots level? Does any such influence occur through military channels (e.g., security provision) or civilian channels (e.g., democratic education)? How do different local settings respond to various activities carried out by outside interveners? A key objective of contemporary peacebuilding interventions is to transform war-torn societies into stable, liberal democratic polities, based on the premise that democracy is the best way to achieve stable and self-sustaining peace because democracies are more respectful toward their citizens and peaceful toward their neighbors (Barnett 2006). Toward this end, in addition to providing security, international interveners typically undertake a wide range of activities to democratize existing structures both at the macro-level and micro-level. There are important variations in local settings in which peacebuilding activities tend to be carried out. Surprisingly, there have been few systematic efforts to investigate whether and how differences in local settings shape the performance and outcomes of peacebuilding interventions, in particular to ascertain the effectiveness of efforts to promote democratic norms and liberal values at the grassroots level. This dissertation attempts to fill this gap--theoretically and empirically. It draws on social science theories to outline specific hypotheses about when and how various activities carried out by outside actors may be effective in promoting liberal democratic outcomes in different local settings. These hypotheses are tested empirically through a nine-month field experiment carried out in 142 villages in postwar Liberia, in partnership with a United Nations peacekeeping mission and two local civil society organizations. Empirical findings reveal that the effects of outside interventions on democratic outcomes at the grassroots level critically depend on context types, but the saliency of local contexts is more pronounced for some outcome areas (e.g., political participation) than others (e.g., social cohesion). Theoretical and policy implications of these results will be discussed.

Along with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on women, peace and security, women’s participation in peace processes has become an increasingly popular research topic in the 2000s. However, while several authors have written on the topic, there seems to be a lack of empirical data to support the argumentation regarding women’s participation in peace negotiations and its impact on agreements and post-conflict societies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out an analysis on the recent research processes that concern women’s participation in formal peace negotiations and its impact, and assess this research in terms of its validity. As the primary data used for this study consisted of scientific publications, content analysis and discourse analysis proved to be appropriate methods to collect and categorise the data. After this process the data were analysed with the help of an analytical framework based on the criteria for validity in scientific research, which was composed of four different elements credibility, transferability, reliability and verifiability. The findings regarding the validity of the research processes concerning women’s participation in peace negotiations and its impact indicated that the research lacks validity to a great extent in all four areas depicted in the analytical framework. The main issues with the past research arose within the connections made between the methods, sources and findings. In addition, it was concluded that there are indications that the scientific discourse on women’s participation is heavily influenced by the UNSC resolutions on women, peace and security, creating more advocacy research with political agenda rather than scientific studies aiming at objectivity. In other words, there are great opportunities to be taken in different areas of research to create more validity on the argumentation and thus, to generate data to support relevant mechanisms for more sustainable peace-building in regards of women’s participation in peace negotiations.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (Dept. of Sociology/Anthropology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 279-292). Also available via the World Wide Web.

"Beyond the Ethnonational Divide: Identity Politics and Women in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine" is a comparative analysis of the conflict resolution processes and peace-building strategies employed in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine, focusing on the experiences of women’s feminist peace movements. I draw on feminist thought in the international relations and comparative politics literatures, as well as the critical identity politics literatures developed outside these fields, to demonstrate the value of broadening our understanding of social identity in conflict. In particular, I apply a post-positivist realist approach to identity to evaluate the extent to which women’s feminist peace communities develop untested ideas related to conflict resolution and peace-building in these cases. I argue that the dominant ethnonational conflict resolution literature, developed largely within the comparative politics field, advances an ‘elite accommodation’ strategy for resolving conflict that grants the most militant and sometimes violent ethnonational leaders the authority to speak for the body public during transformative constitutional moments. I propose that conflict resolution schemes that privilege ethnonational elite political figures and treat the interests of all actors in intrastate conflict as fundamentally derived from ethnonational interests do not produce a stable post-conflict period of peace and governance, they fail to secure human rights, equality guarantees and justice provisions for all communities in a post-conflict period, and they fail to capitalize on the local, participant knowledge and alternate visions of conflict resolution and peace that are developed in “subaltern” identity-based communities. In my view, when we consider the genesis and development of the feminist peace movements in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland, we can see how a politics based on solidarity and alliances, across ethnic, national, gender, class and sexuality divides, is informed by the endogenous conditions of conflict and also the exogenous development of transnational feminist theory and praxis. The negotiation of identity in women’s feminist peace communities has been complex and, at times, difficult. However, it has also led to the development of novel ideas related to peace, inclusion, human rights and justice that have been sidelined, to varying degrees, in the conflict resolution processes in both cases. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2009-01-23 11:47:13.061

Peace processes require an opening to self and others — a willingness to confront what is and to vision beyond present challenges to a brighter future. This type of engagement is crucial for the peaceful development of healthy, functioning societies — societies such as Ukraine, a country thrust without preparation from regional Soviet status to independent country searching for democracy. Eighteen years post-Independence the Ukrainian parliament continues to flounder unsupported by citizens. Active participation in civic affairs required for democracy is unfamiliar for most Ukrainian citizens, having internalized centuries of divisive oppression under a series of authoritarian regimes. Democracy-building and peace-building require participant agency and voice; rising out of oppression, people often need support to speak about and transform their lived experiences. This study, cognizant of the centrality of gender analysis in any context, explored the roles women’s shared narrative, dialogue, and group-visioning play in the support of personal empowerment and bridge building between diverse communities. The study invited women from the European Union-focused Western region of Lviv, Ukraine and the more Soviet/Russian-identified Eastern region of Crimea, first to share their personal stories with the researcher and second, to meet in their regional groups to vision for themselves, their families, and Ukraine. The third phase of this study invited these diverse regional groups to meet in a neutral space, reflexively exploring their parallel processes, while in phase four participants reviewed their experiences of the study. Despite initial beliefs that they have little in common, women in both regions said study participation changed them. They found telling their stories “from beginning to end” allowed them to reflect upon their own values and strengths, and having connected with themselves and their roots, they were then able to reach out to others. Rather than looking for differences, participants sought ways to express a shared vision for an inclusive, functional, peace-building future for themselves, their families, and Ukraine as a whole.

Peace processes require an opening to self and others — a willingness to confront what is and to vision beyond present challenges to a brighter future. This type of engagement is crucial for the peaceful development of healthy, functioning societies — societies such as Ukraine, a country thrust without preparation from regional Soviet status to independent country searching for democracy. Eighteen years post-Independence the Ukrainian parliament continues to flounder unsupported by citizens. Active participation in civic affairs required for democracy is unfamiliar for most Ukrainian citizens, having internalized centuries of divisive oppression under a series of authoritarian regimes. Democracy-building and peace-building require participant agency and voice; rising out of oppression, people often need support to speak about and transform their lived experiences. This study, cognizant of the centrality of gender analysis in any context, explored the roles women’s shared narrative, dialogue, and group-visioning play in the support of personal empowerment and bridge building between diverse communities. The study invited women from the European Union-focused Western region of Lviv, Ukraine and the more Soviet/Russian-identified Eastern region of Crimea, first to share their personal stories with the researcher and second, to meet in their regional groups to vision for themselves, their families, and Ukraine. The third phase of this study invited these diverse regional groups to meet in a neutral space, reflexively exploring their parallel processes, while in phase four participants reviewed their experiences of the study. Despite initial beliefs that they have little in common, women in both regions said study participation changed them. They found telling their stories “from beginning to end” allowed them to reflect upon their own values and strengths, and having connected with themselves and their roots, they were then able to reach out to others. Rather than looking for differences, participants sought ways to express a shared vision for an inclusive, functional, peace-building future for themselves, their families, and Ukraine as a whole.