ABSTRACT
Insecurity, division, conflict and violence underlie the political landscape in much of the Asia-Pacific region, affecting the daily realities for many people.1
Even when violent conflict subsides, insecurities continue and peace remains elusive. Official peace processes can be lengthy and are disrupted by changing political players and the influence of the international community who alter the direction of political decision-making. In such contexts of insecurity and underlying violence, the strength of informal peacebuilding groups within civil society makes a substantial difference to disrupting political deadlocks and providing alternatives to ongoing conflicts. However, understandings of peacebuilding and the overall role of mediation in furthering peace varies. This chapter seeks to outline some guiding principles on what is involved in an expansionary concept of peacebuilding. It does this through highlighting practical examples of women ‘peaceworkers’ who, in their everyday work as mothers, community workers, trauma counsellors, health workers, teachers, informal mediators and grass roots activists, work to build peace in everyday, ordinary settings. In this chapter, we have four main themes. First, we outline the United
Nations’ (UN) understandings of peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. We draw on these understandings to illustrate the inadequacy of typical views of peacebuilding that are restricted to the post-conflict reconstruction stage. Second, we argue that peacebuilding involves broad, demanding, formal and informal processes of building peace pre-conflict, during conflict and to further long-term sustainable peace. We defend this argument by offering a substantive, rich understanding of peacebuilding that addresses root causes of conflict and injustices that provoke discord. Third, we explore the important role of mediation in peacebuilding. Our understanding of mediation challenges orthodox notions of distanced neutrality to posit an engaged form of mediation that transforms the nature of relationships. Our fourth theme highlights the peacebuilding and mediation that women do as peaceworkers in everyday, ordinary, informal settings. Rather than having a separate section for this theme, we weave throughout this chapter practical examples of women’s activities that highlight the rich ways of transforming mediation and building peace.
