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Is peacebuilding a phase? – Analyzing the peacebuilding in El Salvador 30 years after the civil war

Even if the messiness of peacebuilding has been recognized for some time, peacebuilding has still been viewed as quite linear, meaning there’s a transition from war to peace and that peacebuilding is a phase. Recently, other voices have been raised claiming we need a paradigm shift and to stop seeing peacebuilding as linear and instead see it as a never-ending constantly adapting practice. The question then arises, if it is possible to distinguish that peacebuilding connected to a specific conflict ends at some point and if society adapts to conduct peacebuilding for new tensions within society. That is what this thesis aims to find out, and it does so by mapping the activities of the civil society in a post-conflict country, as civil society constitutes an excellent indicator of what kind of peacebuilding is being done. The case studied is El Salvador, which ended a 12-year-long civil war with a peace agreement in 1992. The activities are mapped with the help of a framework for analyzing civil society peacebuilding. The study concludes that much of the peacebuilding activities connected to the civil war seem to have ended, except for when it comes to the rights of people who became disabled by the civil war, as well as trauma treatment activities addressing trauma from the civil war. Civil society also shows certain adaptation to the gang violence, by addressing it with trauma treatment activities and activities aiming at building a culture of peace.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-197357
Date January 2022
CreatorsOlsson, Gabriella
PublisherUmeå universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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