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  • Author or Editor: Anthony Ware x
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Community development approaches to peacebuilding usually focus on strengthening social cohesion, finding common ground, bringing groups together and negotiation. However, this is not always immediately safe or possible after serious intercommunal violence. The idea of ‘everyday peace’ has recently emerged in the literature, to describe the ways in which ordinary individuals and groups navigate everyday life in deeply divided societies, to avoid or minimise both awkward situations and conflict triggers. At one end of the spectrum, everyday peace may create a safe space in which things appear normal, despite the conflict, allowing people to get on with life. At this level, everyday peace could be seen as the first peace, with inter-group contact after violence, or the last peace in the sense of being the last remaining bridging social capital before total rupture. In this chapter, the authors explore the concepts of the everyday and of everyday peace in detail, highlighting its relevance to community development practice, particularly that which adopts appreciative inquiry and awareness-raising approaches (Elliott, 1999; Bushe, 2011).

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In this chapter, the authors explore and build on this theory to discuss their attempts to operationalise it into community development practice in Rakhine State, Myanmar – a region that has seen significant intercommunal and armed conflict in recent years, resulting in two-thirds of the Rohingya population being driven into Bangladesh in an act of ethnic cleansing. This chapter explores ways in which the principles and typologies of ‘everyday peace’ are being translated into community development practice by Vicki-Ann and Anthony Ware and evaluated by Leanne Kelly, in a programme working to strengthen peace formation between villages of Rohingya Muslim remaining in Myanmar and their Rakhine Buddhist neighbours. The authors draw from both their academic perspective and their grounded experience of the practice put in place during this programme of work. The case study demonstrates the conclusion that community development approaches can offer a strong foundation on which to scaffold an everyday peace framework that, in turn, supports the building of inclusive relationships and more peaceful coexistence.

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