Relational and Essential: Theorizing Difference for Peacebuilding

ABSTRACT

Engagements with difference in peacebuilding are characterized by interrelated patterns of identitiarian and de-essentializing thought that tend to crystalize or minimize difference. In response, this article theorizes difference as simultaneously relational and essential, and thus as a phenomenon that continually re-forms in the world and is crucial to life itself. A relational-essential approach is sketched by drawing upon ideas from conflict resolution and feminism, and illustrated through a micro-case of peacebuilding intervention in Aboriginal Australia. This way of theorizing difference promises pathways beyond European-derived forms of thinking and into exchange with the world and diverse peoples.

KEYWORDS:

• Relationality
• conflict
• Aboriginal Australia
• identity
• difference
• peace

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the editors of this special issue and to the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Morgan Brigg is Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. His work examines the politics of cultural difference in conflict resolution, governance, peacebuilding, and international development by facilitating an exchange between western and indigenous political systems and philosophies.