ABSTRACT
Peace studies in recent decades not only refer to the political structure or to the management of the state but also designate the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups participating in the peace processes may have led them to experience conflict. This approach has been engaged to guide an anthropological investigation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Peace Accord 1997 in Bangladesh. While most academic discourses on the CHT Peace Accord 1997 in Bangladesh have largely contributed to constructing peace and conflict as ‘political processes,’ this chapter closely examines the performativity in the accounts of the Jumma people, the reiteration and citation of existing discourses, and the new possibilities that emerge. Even after a political agreement was achieved between conflicting parties in CHT, violence has continued. This chapter investigated this situation using an anthropological fieldwork approach. By locating the dynamics of conflict in the post-accord period at the village level, this research work emphasized the fact that the CHT Peace Accord may have contributed to reducing the armed struggle, but at the same time, it created many problems in the implementation and clause-making processes. The peace accord has been submerged by ideas and practices which have done very little to meet the demands of the Jumma people in their struggle for recognition of their self-identity and cultural rights, a form of connection that is discordant to discourses of peacebuilding and sustainability.
