Strengthening everyday peace formation after ethnic cleansing: operationalising a framework in Myanmar’s Rohingya conflict

Figures & data

Table 1. Types of social practice that constitute everyday peace.

Avoidance: Contentious or sensitive topics, talk of historic issues High-risk people, places, situations, offensive displays Escapism into other activities Not drawing attention to oneself

Watching/reading: Ethnically informed identification and social ordering Sensitised alertness, to avoid/engage without provocation Constantly judging motives, morals, attitudes and feelings of others

Ambiguity: Discarding or concealing signifiers of identity Non-observance, ‘not seeing’ Dissembling in speech and actions

Shielding: Keeping more volatile and aggressive people away from confrontations More peaceful dealing with confrontations themselves Using overt displays of anger and hostility, to ensure peaceful outcomes

Civility: Interactions in shared public spaces, especially transactional economic engagements Ritualised politeness, attention to the etiquette of status Acts of tolerance Shifting blame to outsiders, some within own group, or the system

Reciprocity: Neighbourliness and sociality based on exchange of gifts, assistance Expectation of delayed reciprocity, mutual indebtedness Active maintenance, nonresolution of exchange tension Type of exchange normally reserved for kin

Solidarity: Intercommunal networking around everyday issues Groups engaged in cooperation and accommodation ‘Imagined community’, even if rhetorical or discursive, narratives of communal harmony

Compromise: Sustained dialogue, negotiation, conflict resolution Renunciation, submission, surrender, compromise or acceptance as acts of agency Justice conceded or suspended for status quo Peace contingent on concealing patterns of inequality and uneven power