ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces and overviews the book, and its primary focus on centering the people involved in peacemaking. The chapter presents the concepts of interactive conflict resolution, drawing from Ronald J. Fisher's work, peacemaking, drawing from Boutros Boutros Gali and Johan Galtung, and introduces the concept of interactive peacemaking as a people-centered approach. The chapter explains the rationale for learning from practitioner experience of peacemaking processes. The chapter presents examples of peacemaking by and for local people. After presenting existing examples of such people-centered peacemaking, the chapter argues that what exists (people-centered peacemaking) is possible. Learning from the experience of peacemaking helps build the theory of peacemaking. The chapter concludes by summarizing each of the following chapters, offering an overview of the book.
