* Serves as a guide to using ritual acts in peacebuilding efforts * Abundant with examples of symbolic acts that aided the peace process Conflict is dramatic. In theater, literature, story telling, and news reporting, it is a powerful mechanism that draws attention, heightens the senses and evokes emotion. Schirch argues that peacebuilding has the potential to do just the same. Examples of peacebuilding often center on the serious, rational negotiations and formal problem-solving efforts in conflict situations. Schirch argues, though, that what truly bonds adversaries and helps achieve peace are the symbolic, non-verbal ritual acts--shaking hands, sharing a meal, showing a photograph of a loved one. Yet these are often overlooked as deliberate components of peace negotiations. Ritual and Symbol in Peacebuilding underscores the importance of incorporating symbolic tools, including ritual, into traditional approaches to conflict. Ritual assists in solving complex, deep-rooted conflicts, and helps to confirm and transform worldviews, identities, and relationships. With theories and language to explain the symbolic dimensions of conflict, this text will be useful to scholars and practitioners active in the diverse field of peacebuilding.
So we'd all like a more peaceful world—no wars, no poverty, no more racism, no community disputes, no office tensions, no marital skirmishes. Lisa Schirch sets forth paths to such realities. In fact, she points a way to more than the absence of conflict. She foresees just peace—a sustainable state of affairs because it is a peace which insists on justice. Chapters include: Defining Strategic Peacebuilding Values for Peacebuilding An Overview of Peacebuilding Processes Waging Conflict Nonviolently Reducing Direct Violence Transforming Relationships And more! Schirch singles out four critical actions that must be undertaken if peace is to take root at any level): ) waging conflict nonviolently, reducing direct violence, transforming relationships; and building capacity. From Schirch's 15 years of experience as a peacebuilding consultant in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. “This Little Book is an attempt to bring together the various fields and activities related to peacebuilding to integrate them into one conceptual framework. At the core of this framework is the idea of strategic peacebuilding, an interdisciplinary, coordinated approach to building a sustainable justpeace—a peace with justice. Strategic peacebuilding requires clear goals. While the concept of justpeace is growing in popularity, few writings lay out the vision and practice of justpeace. One aim of this book is to promote the concept of justpeace as an overall goal or vision for peacebuilding. A title in The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series.
The fields of conflict analysis, management, resolution, prevention and transformation continue to expand beyond NGOs into university departments, religious organizations, media professionals and governments. In the years since 2001, governments around the world are developing conflict assessment frameworks to complement their other needs assessment and intelligence gathering processes. This handbook assists planners from a variety of different sectors to design better programs to support peace and security. The handbook contains 1) conflict assessment exercises; 2) self-assessment exercises; and 3) peacebuilding planning frameworks. Conflict assessment exercises help to map the factors increasing conflict and the factors supporting peace. Self-assessment exercises help narrow priorities and assess abilities of those planning peacebuilding. Peacebuilding frameworks offer a range of program options. Through its synthesis of a wide range of conceptual frameworks into a convenient and logical framework useful for practitioners such as NGOs developing projects, journalists wanting to write conflict-sensitive stories, or government/military agencies designing large scale efforts, this handbook is an essential scholarly and practical tool for the study and implementation of peacebuilding efforts.
There are several divisive issues that separate Christian from Christian in the current century. One issue is the church’s management of clergy sexual abuses of children, teens and adults. A second is the issue of sexual gender orientation and church membership. Contemporary Christian denominations often intermingle the divisive issue of clergy and religious leader sexual abusiveness with the equally divisive issue of sexual gender orientation. In this book Professors Krall and Schirch disentangle and discuss these two issues. They discuss their personal and their professional opinions about ways in which religious and spiritual teaching communities can avoid the institutional perils of abusive clericalism and divisive denominational management practices. Throughout the book, they apply Anabaptist-Mennonite principles of peace-making in situations of sexual violation. Case studies are provided. A feminist hermeneutic is applied. Each letter-essay is auto-ethnographic in style: the professional and the personal are deliberately blurred inside a framework of narrative and story. Each essay is deeply rooted in its author’s academic interests and in her personal life history. This book can be a text in graduate and undergraduate classrooms. It can also be used in denominational self-study programs.
The word "dialogue" suffers from over-use, yet its practice is as transforming and as freshly hopeful as ever. Authors Schirch and Campt demonstrate dialogue's life and possibilities in this clear and absorbing manual: "Dialogue allows people in conflict to listen to each other, affirm their common ground, and explore their differences in a safe environment." Schirch has worked throughout the Southern hemisphere in peacebuilding projects. Campt has focused on racial and class reconciliation in American cities.
There are several divisive issues that separate Christian from Christian in the current century. One issue is the church’s management of clergy sexual abuses of children, teens and adults. A second is the issue of sexual gender orientation and church membership. Contemporary Christian denominations often intermingle the divisive issue of clergy and religious leader sexual abusiveness with the equally divisive issue of sexual gender orientation. In this book Professors Krall and Schirch disentangle and discuss these two issues. They discuss their personal and their professional opinions about ways in which religious and spiritual teaching communities can avoid the institutional perils of abusive clericalism and divisive denominational management practices. Throughout the book, they apply Anabaptist-Mennonite principles of peace-making in situations of sexual violation. Case studies are provided. A feminist hermeneutic is applied. Each letter-essay is auto-ethnographic in style: the professional and the personal are deliberately blurred inside a framework of narrative and story. Each essay is deeply rooted in its author’s academic interests and in her personal life history. This book can be a text in graduate and undergraduate classrooms. It can also be used in denominational self-study programs.
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