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Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
This edited book offers original insights into communities’ nonviolent strategies to keep themselves and others safe amidst armed violence.
Drawing on a unique breadth of original research across eleven countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, it analyses the practice of community-led unarmed civilian protection and its embeddedness in local cultures and resistance struggles. By synthesizing findings across different contexts, the book enables a deeper understanding and appreciation of ordinary people’s agency and inventiveness in creating safer spaces that enable alternative forms of security and work towards social transformation.
International and interdisciplinary in scope, this book will aid those researching civilian protection, peace, conflict, and security, and international support a variety of disciplines.
Beatriz E. Arias López, Professor of Collective Mental Health, University of Antioquia, Colombia.
Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Professor of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, UK.
Rachel Julian, Professor of Peace Studies, Leeds Beckett University, UK.
Nerve V. Macaspac, Associate Professor of Information Studies, City University of New York, USA.
Rosemary Okello-Orlale, Director at Africa Media Hub, Strathmore Business School, Kenya.
1. Introduction: Unarmed Community Self-Protection as Alternative Security and World-Making – Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Beatriz Elena Arias López, Rachel Julian and Nerve V. Macaspac
Part 1: How to Study Unarmed Community Self-Protection
2. Researching Community-Led Unarmed Civilian Protection: The Creating Safer Space Model – Rachel Julian, Nerve V. Macaspac and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara
3. Towards Fulfilling the Promise of Participatory Approaches: Reflections from Researching Community-Based Protection Amid Conflict – Juan Mario Díaz-Arévalo, Natalia Campo, Kati Hinman, Kyaw Kyaw, Elliot Lodge and Simon Rushton
4. Capturing Experiences: Arts-Based and Creative Methods in the Study of Community-Led Unarmed Civilian Protection – Kiven James Kewir, Rebecca Lorins, Lora Forsythe and Aliyu Barau
Part 2: Community-Led Practices of Unarmed Civilian Protection
5. Spontaneity, Creativity, and Resourcefulness in Unarmed Community Self-Protection – Gordon Crawford and Mark Owen
6. Harnessing Vulnerabilities for Unarmed Community Self-Protection – Sakah Bernard Nsaidzedze, Gordon Crawford, Laura Jiménez Ospina and Timothy Salomon
7. Between Whistles and WhatsApp: Community Early Warning and Early Response – Nancy Annan and Chas Morrison
8. Unarmed Civilian Protection and Community Self-Protection in Authoritarian Contexts – Anchana Heemmina, Fareeda Panjor, Gordon Crawford and Sakah Bernard Nsaidzedze
Part 3: Cultural Sources of Unarmed Community Self-Protection and Care
9. Ubuntu, Minga, Faza’a: The Role of Collectivism in Communities’ Unarmed Civilian Protection – Nancy Annan, Adrian Alzate Garcia, Mahmoud Soliman and Marwan Darweish
10. Invisible Shields: Spirituality and Rituals as Community Self-Protection – Piergiuseppe Parisi, Chas Morrison, Ana Deida Secue, Haji Elias Hillary and Diria Vicky Thomas
11. The Protective and Caring Power of Community-Based Art Practice – Beatriz Elena Arias López, Laura Jiménez Ospina and José Fernando Serrano Amaya
Part 4: Unarmed Community Self-Protection, Nonviolent Resistance, and Solidarity
12. “Staying on Our Land”: The Centrality of Land, the Natural Environment, and Identity in Unarmed Community Self-Protection – Arfiansyah, Mateo Valderrama Arboleda, Kati Hinman, Mahmoud Soliman and Marwan Darweish
13. Resisting Global Capital: Resource Exploitation, Violence, and the Convergence of Community Resistance and Self-Protection – Laura Jiménez Ospina, Beatriz Elena Arias López, Hernán Darío Pineda Gómez, Jesús Flórez López and Adriel Ruiz Galván
14. In Solidarity: The Role of Extended Networks and Local Agency in Unarmed Civilian Protection and Accompaniment – Kati Hinman, Elliot Lodge, Stephen Gasteyer and Kyaw Kyaw
15. Conclusions: Unarmed Community Self-Protection and the Debates on Localization and Abolition – Nerve V. Macaspac, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Rachel Julian