Draws together analyses of new approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution in a politically turbulent region and offers students and researchers an in-depth and theoretically guided empirical analyses of post-Western and decolonial approaches to peacebuilding in Eurasia.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Drawing on decolonial perspectives on peace, statehood and development, this illuminating book examines post-liberal statebuilding in Central Asia. It argues that, despite its emancipatory appearance, post-liberal statebuilding is best understood as a set of social ordering mechanisms that lead to new forms of exclusion, marginalization and violence. Using ethnographic fieldwork in Southern Kyrgyzstan, the volume offers a detailed examination of community security and peacebuilding discourses and practices. Through its analysis, the book highlights the problem with assumptions about liberal democracy, modern statehood and capitalist development as the standard template for post-conflict countries, which is widespread and rarely reflected upon.

"The Oxford Handbook of Peace History uniquely explores the distinctive dynamics of peacemaking across time and place, and analyzing how past and present societies have created diverse cultures of peace and applied strategies for peaceful change. The analysis draws upon the expertise of many well-respected and distinguished scholars from disciplines such as anthropology, economics, history, international relations, journalism, peace studies, sociology, and theology. This work is divided into six parts. The first three sections address the chronological sweep of peace history from the Ancient Egyptians to the present while the last three cover biographical profiles of peace advocates, key issues in peace history, and the future of peace history. A central theme throughout is that the quest for peace is far more than the absence of war or the pursuit of social justice ideals. Students and scholars, alike, will appreciate that this work examines the field of peace history from an international perspective and expands analysis beyond traditional Eurocentric frameworks. This volume also goes far beyond previously published handbooks and anthologies in answering what are the strengths and limits of peace history as a discipline, and what can it offer for the future. It also has the unique features of a state-of-the-field introduction with a detailed treatment of peace history historiography and a chapter written by a noted archivist in the field that provides a comprehensive list of peace research resources. It is a work ably suited applicable for classrooms and scholarly bookshelves"--

This book challenges the understanding of ‘difference’ in the field of peacebuilding and offers new ways to consider diversity in the context of international interventions. International peacebuilding as a practice and academic field has always been embroiled in the ‘problem’ of difference. For mainstream scholars and policy-makers, local views, histories, and cultural codes are often seen as an obstacle on the way to peace. For critical scholars, international interventions have failed because of the very superficial attention given to the needs, values, and experience of the people in post-conflict societies. Yet the current proposals of hybrid peace and emancipation seem to reproduce Eurocentric lenses and problematic binaries. Differently inspired by feminist, post-structuralist, and new materialist perspectives, the authors assembled in this volume give sustained attention to the theorisation and practice of difference. Taken together, these contributions show that differences are always multidimensional, non-essential, and are reflections of broader power and gender inequalities. This book thus makes a major contribution to the field of critical peacebuilding by revisiting the ‘problem’ of difference. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

Collaborations responds to the growing pressure on the humanities and social sciences to justify their impact and utility after cuts in public spending, and the introduction of neoliberal values into academia. Arguing ‘in defense of’ anthropology, the editors demonstrate the continued importance of the discipline and reveal how it contributes towards solving major problems in contemporary society. They also illustrate how anthropology can not only survive but thrive under these conditions. Moreover, Collaborations shows that collaboration with other disciplines is the key to anthropology’s long-term sustainability and survival, and explores the challenges that interdisciplinary work presents. The book is divided into two parts: Anthropology and Academia, and Anthropology in Practice. The first part features examples from anthropologists working in academic settings which range from the life, behavioural and social sciences to the humanities, arts and business. The second part highlights detailed ethnographic contributions on topics such as peace negotiations, asylum seekers, prostitution and autism. Collaborations is an important read for students, scholars and professional and applied anthropologists as it explores how anthropology can remain relevant in the contemporary world and how to prevent it from becoming an increasingly isolated and marginalized discipline.

With increasing urban population density, conflicts in cities erupt more frequently and violently. Cities have become hotspots for armed combat, highlighting the urgency of understanding the impact of local communities and urban factors on the development of violent conflict. Joldon Kutmanaliev presents a novel approach to analyzing communal violence and armed conflicts in urban zones. Drawing from fieldwork in cities of southern Kyrgyzstan, he explains local-level variations in violence across neighbourhoods during the most intense and violent episode of urban communal violence in Central Asia – the clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in June 2010. Kutmanaliev explains why armed violence affects some urban neighbourhoods but not others, why local communities react differently to the same existential threat, how they deal with a deteriorating security environment and interethnic fears, and how different types of urban planning and urban landscapes influence the spread of violence. Importantly, the book identifies key factors that help local communities and their leaders to negotiate non-aggression pacts and control local constituencies, and therefore successfully prevent violence. Intercommunal Warfare and Ethnic Peacemaking explains communal war and ethnic peacemaking on the level of neighbourhood communities – a perspective that is largely absent in previous studies.

Central Asia is a diverse and complex region of the world often characterized in the West as exotic, remote, and difficult to understand. Central Asia: Contexts for Understanding offers the most comprehensive introduction to the region available for students and general readers alike. Combining thematic chapters with detailed case studies, readers will learn to appreciate the richly interconnected aspects of life in Central Asia. These wide-ranging, easy-to-understand contributions from many of the leading scholars in the field provide the context needed to understand Central Asia and presents a launching point for further reading and research.