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ABSTRACT
‘Do No Harm’ or ‘conflict-sensitivity’ has been mainstreamed into the planning and implementation of development-humanitarian interventions in conflict-affected situations. An umbrella term encompassing a range of frameworks and tools, all approaches involve analysing conflict dynamics in order to minimise negative impacts and maximise support for positive change. Most, however, treat conflict analysis as largely technical, requiring external expertise, and while all espouse participation, it is not inherently embedded in any. This paper explores the practice and ideals of conflict-sensitivity, and promising, more participatory advances in the ‘critical peacebuilding’/‘local turn’ literatures, to argue the case for more genuinely participatory, grassroots conflict analysis to augment existing analysis underpinning the planning and implementation of development-humanitarian agency projects. Concluding that none yet offer tools to facilitate participation of marginalised poor, often functionally non-literate locals, into the actual analysis of conflict, it then presents and reflects upon the trial of a new, highly participatory conflict analysis approach, developed by the authors to complement a specific, highly participatory development programme in Myanmar.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Ware, ‘An Assessment’; Ware, ‘Asset-Based Community Development’; Ware & Ware, ‘Critical Consciousness-Raising’; and Ware et al., ‘Everyday Peace After Ethnic Cleansing.’
2. Findings from that analysis about the Rohingya conflict to be reported separately.
3. Terminology is not always consistent, however, this term has been widely promoted by the CSC and others. See CSC, Conflict Sensitive Approaches.
4. Uvin, The Influence of Aid; and Anderson, Do No Harm.
5. Uvin, Aiding Violence; and De Waal, Famine Crimes.
6. Goodhand & Atkinson, Conflict and Aid; and Goodhand, Aiding Peace?
7. Goodhand, ‘Aiding violence or building peace?’
8. Brown et al., Conflict Sensitivity Consortium Benchmarking; Le Billon, Political Economy of War; and Slim, ‘International Humanitarianism’s Engagement.’
9. Kaldor, New and Old Wars; Collier & Bannon, Natural Resources and Violent Conflict; and Stewart, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict.
10. Anderson, Do No Harm; and Smilie, Relief and Development.
11. e.g. Goodhand, Aiding Peace?; and Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace.
12. CSC, Conflict Sensitive Approaches.
13. Ong, Orality and Literacy.
14. Anderson, Do No Harm.
15. Bush, A Measure of Peace.
16. OECD, Helping Prevent Violent Conflict.
17. DFID, Conducting Conflict Assessments.
18. Gullette & Rosenberg, Not Just Another Box to Tick.
19. Slim, Humanitarian Ethics.
20. Burton, Conflict: Resolution and Prevention; and Fisher, Interactive Conflict Resolution.
21. Lederach, Preparing for Peace; and Schirch, Ritual and Symbol.
22. E.g. Garred & Goddard, Do No Harm in Mindanao, 20.
23. CDA, Conflict Analysis Framework.
24. CDA, Do No Harm Workshop.
25. Bush, Measure.
26. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment.
27. Peacebuilding Centre, PCIA Handbook.
28. Bush, Measure, 30.
29. Ibid, 18. See also Haider, Conflict Sensitivity.
30. e.g. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment, 10; and Peacebuilding Centre, PCIA Handbook.
31. Paffenholz & Reychler, Aid for Peace; and Bush, Aid for Peace.
32. Bush, Aid for Peace, 14.
33. e.g. Goodhand, Aiding Peace?; Mac Ginty, No War, No Peace; and Mac Ginty & Richmond, The Fallacy.
34. as, for example, noted by DNH proponent Garred, ‘Conflict-Sensitive Expressions of Faith.’
35. Garred, Making Sense of Turbulent Contexts.
36. Ibid. 6–8.
37. Burton, Conflict & Communication; Burton ‘Resolution of Conflict’; and Burton, Conflict, 202–210.
38. Ibid., 198.
39. Burton, ‘Resolution of Conflict,’ 14–15.
40. e.g. Vayrynen, Culture and International Conflict Resolution.
41. Ibid., 120.
42. Saunders, Public Peace Process, 214.
43. e.g. Julian et al., ‘From Expert to Experiential Knowledge’; Millar, G. (ed), Ethnographic Peace Research (especially Collins & Watson, ‘The Impetus’ and Close, ‘Researching Peace Peacefully); and Lottholz, ‘Critiquing Anthropological Imagination.’
44. CDA, Initial Findings; CDA. Perceptions of Aid; CDA, How to Make Aid More Effective; and Anderson et al., Time to Listen.
45. CDA, Initial Findings, 1.
46. CDA, How to Make Aid More Effective, 1.
47. CDA, Perceptions of Aid, 7.
48. Goldwyn & Chigas, Monitoring and Evaluating. 8.
49. Burns, ‘Facilitating Systemic Conflict Transformation’; and Gray, Community-Led Peacebuilding.
50. Gray, Community-Led Peacebuilding, 5.
51. Hiscock, From Conflict Analysis to Peacebuilding Impact; and Saferworld, People’s Peacemaking Perspectives project.
52. Weatherbed & Lewer, Training of Trainers Manual.
53. Mac Ginty & Firchow, ‘Top-Down and Bottom-Up Narratives’; and Mac Ginty, ‘Indicators+’.
54. Ibid., 308–9.
55. Mac Ginty & Firchow, ‘Top-Down and Bottom-Up Narratives.’
56. Miller (ed.). Ethnographic Peace Research.
57. Ibid., 1.
58. See also Lottholz, Critiquing Anthropological Imagination.
59. Collins & Watson, ‘The Impetus.’
60. Ware, ‘An Assessment’; Ware, ‘Asset-Based’; Ware & Ware, ‘Critical Consciousness-Raising’; and Ware et al., ‘Everyday Peace After.’
61. Ware & Laoutides, Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’ Conflict.
62. term employed by Hickey & Mohan, ‘Relocating Participation.’
63. Ware, ‘An Assessment’; Ware, ‘Asset-Based’; and Ware, ‘Awareness-Raising.’
64. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
65. Fals-Borda, ‘The Application of PAR.’
66. Fals-Borda, Action and Knowledge.
67. Chambers, ‘Origins and Practice’; ‘PRA: Analysis’; ‘PRA: Challenges’; and Rural Development.
68. Chambers, ‘PRA: Analysis of Experience.’
69. Ibid., 1256.
70. Ibid., 1257.
71. Williams, G. ‘Evaluating Participatory Development,’ 558.
72. Mohan & Stokke, ‘Participatory Development’; and Kapoor, ‘Devil’s in the Theory.’
73. Guijt & Shah, The Myth of Community.
74. Cooke & Kothari, Participation: The new tyranny?; also Cleaver, ‘Institutions, Agency and Limitations’; Mohan, ‘Beyond Participation’; and Kothari, ‘Power, Knowledge and Social Control.’
75. e.g. El-Mahdi, Empowered Participation or Political Manipulation?
76. Mosse, ‘People’s Knowledge, Participation and Patronage.’
77. Ibid.
78. Archer & Cottingham, Reflect Mother Manual; and Archer & Newman, Communication & Power.
79. Ware, ‘Awareness-Raising’; Ware & Ware, ‘Critical Consciousness-Raising’. See also: Ferretti, ‘Fellows.’
80. see note 13 above.
81. OHCHR, Interviews.
82. Ware & Laoutides, Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’ Conflict, xv.
83. Ware et al., ‘Everyday Peace After.’
84. Chabal, The End of Conceit.
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Notes on contributors
Anthony Ware
Anthony Ware is an Associate Professor of International and Community Development, at Deakin University, Melbourne. He was director of the Australia Myanmar Institute 2013-2017. His research focusses on development interventions in conflict-affected situations, especially in Myanmar. He is particularly interested in Myanmar’s Rohingya conflict, everyday peace and conflict-sensitivity.
Costas Laoutides
Costas Laoutides is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Deakin University, Australia. His area of expertise is ethno-political conflict and its resolution. He is the co-author of Myanmar’s Rohingya Conflict (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2018, with Anthony Ware) and the sole-author of Self-Determination and Collective Responsibility in Secessionist Struggle (Routledge).