URPEACE · The peace-building agency of stigmatized civilian actors in European cities dealing with the consequences of terrorist violence

The peace-building agency of stigmatized civilian actors in European cities dealing with the consequences of terrorist violence

Problem/issue being addressed Peace and Conflict Studies have so far shown very little interest in paroxysmal violence in non-war cities and even less in European non-war cities. Research on the peacebuilding potential of local actors dealing with violence in Western cities is even rarer. This study seeks to address this lack of interest. Important for society This project is important for society because it responds to the call of critical security scholars for more attention to the experiences of insecurity of the marginalized populations, who are often targeted in security discourse and policy. They raise the question “whose security?” do we speak of when we speak of security. The project shifts the focus from the abstract concept of security to the embodied emotion of fear. The fears of those that are feared, as well as their capacity to and involvement in making peace has to this point been ignored by scholars and professionals in this field. URPEACE considers the bottom-up approaches of marginalized people to mitigate and transform security challenges and -policies, and has used these as starting point to understand everyday acts of peacebuilding by non-state actors. Overall objectives This study aims to contribute to knowledge about peace-building agency of civilian actors in marginalized social-housing neighbourhoods that deal with the consequences of terrorist violence in European cities. While the bulk of peace and conflict studies literature has provided insight in the dynamics of violence rather than peace, this study uses a spatial approach to peace to analyse existing and new data on dealing with violence and peacebuilding. The study breaks with the tendency of peace and conflict studies to focus on the Global South, state processes and armed conflict and makes it very relevant for studying initiatives in European cities that deal with the aftermaths of paroxysmal violence. For its conceptual framework of urban peacebuilding it uses inductive and deductive research methods, by bringing together the literature review on urban peace and peace-making in European cities and the results of field research in these three European cities (Grenoble, Basel region and Brčko). Conclusions Studying violence and peacebuilding in non-war contexts, such as in European cities, unsettles Western, spatial ideas of peace ‘here’ and conflict ‘there’, and is a prerequisite for making the knowledge from peacebuilding mostly from the Global South and East relevant in western contexts. The study URPEACE provides empirical and theoretical arguments why Peace and Conflict Studies should widen its scope of empirical sites to include non-war violence in the city.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union