Blog of the John Hume and Tip O'Neill Chair in Peace
The HumeO’Neill Chair with Eliz McArdle from Ulster University and on behalf of the Peace Summit Partnership submitted a response to the Draft Programme for Government for Northern Ireland 2024. The response focused on contemporary peacebuilding issues for young people in Northern Ireland. It can be downloaded here.
The response was launched with the Peace Summit Partnership response at Stormont on 4 November 2024.
Continuing our work on the issue of betrayal in peacebuilding Wilhem Verwoerd, Alistair Little and Brandon Hamber have published a new article in the Peacebuilding journal entitled “Beyond intragroup betrayal during intergroup relational peacebuilding”.
The article is open access and can be downloaded here.
This article addresses a neglected human cost of relational peacebuilding, identified in an earlier article on ‘peace as betrayal’. The focus here is how relational peacebuilders can respond to painful accusations of betrayal by family-type group members evoked by working with the ‘other side’. Continuing to draw on the reflections of experienced peace practitioners from South Africa, the Israel-Palestine region and the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, a contrasting distinction is made between two routes: a ‘clarification’ route that explains why working with ‘them’ is not a betrayal of ‘us’ vs a ‘counter-critique’ response that attempts to turn the traitor tables on the accusers. An evaluative discussion of the counter-critique route explores the pitfalls of political abuse, avoidance of shared responsibility and underestimating ‘thin’ relations (Margalit), as well as the complementary potential of the clarification and the counter-critique routes beyond peace as betrayal.
The John and Pat Hume Foundation and Community Dialogue, in partnership with the Glencree Centre for Peace & Reconciliation, Youth Action NI, Holywell Trust, Ulster University and Integrated Education Fund today launched the Peace Summit 2023. Twenty-five years on from the Good Friday Agreement the summit has took stock of the status of the peace process. The Chair played an integral role in working with the partners in drafting the Consultation Report launched on 3 March 2023. The partners are keen to hear your views on the peace process in Northern Ireland 25 years on. Read the document and reply to b.hamber@ulster.ac.uk.
A new article has been published by Wilhem Verwoerd, Alistair Little and Brandon Hamber that builds on our work on relational peacebuilding. It is entitled “Peace as Betrayal: On the Human Cost of Relational Peacebuilding in Transitional Contexts” and was published in the International Journal of Transitional Justice. Visit the journal website, or download the accepted version here.
This article explores the micro-dynamics of intragroup betrayal and self-betrayal that can be evoked by relational peacebuilding between groups. The painful accusation of betrayal by close, family-type group members and internally feeling like a betrayer as a result of working with the ‘other side’ is presented as an underestimated human cost of relational peacebuilding. This understanding emerged from an international ‘Beyond Dehumanisation’ research project, which included experienced peace practitioners from South Africa, the Israel-Palestine region and the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. The emerging diagnostic framework is supported by (and provides empirical support for) theories of betrayal that stress how deeply relational betrayal is. The resonance with Margalit’s theory of betrayal as the ‘undermining of thick relations’ is especially strong. ‘Peace as betrayal’ suggests the need for more practical support for peacebuilders and can also be applied more widely to render resistance to transitional justice processes more visible.
Brandon Hamber; Denis Martinez; Marlies Stappers; David Taylor; and Thomas Unger have published “Youth, Peace and Security: Psychosocial Support and Societal Transformation“.
This paper explores the key issue of mental health and psycho-social services (MHPSS), from a youth-specific perspective. Drawing on the assertions and recommendations of the YPS Progress Study, and coupled with the increasing attention to MHPSS within the sustaining peace agenda, this policy brief pays special attention to the role of youth-specific psycho-social services as a vital dimension of transformative youth resilience, essential to both addressing the consequences and prevention of violent conflict.
This is a report commissioned by Interpeace for their Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy and practice series.
Watch a Video Summary of the Report
“Voices from the Margins: Young men and post-conflict masculinities in Northern Ireland” by Brandon Hamber and Conor Murray is now available online.
The report points to the gap (noted in the YPS Progress Study’s recommendations) on masculinity and masculine identities as part of the gendered approach to implementing the YPS agenda. This policy brief focuses attention on supporting the development of alternative and positive masculine identities. While the paper draws on lived experiences in Northern Ireland, it derives lessons and recommendations, captures stories, and offers a narrative with wider relevance for other contexts.
The report was commissioned by Interpeace for their Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy and practice series.
Watch a Video Summary of the Report
The Chair, Professor Brandon Hamber, with Professor Ingrid Palmary has just a published in a new article in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal.
Hamber, Brandon and Palmary, Ingrid (2021). A Dance of Shadows and Fires: Conceptual and Practical Challenges of Intergenerational Healing after Mass Atrocity. Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 15 (3), 100-120 [Download].
Abstract
The legacy of mass atrocity – including colonialism, slavery or specific manifestations such as apartheid – continue long after their demise. Applying a temporal inter-generational lens adds complications. We argue that mass atrocity creates for subsequent generations a deep psychological rupture akin to witnessing past atrocities. This creates a moral liability in the present. Healing is a process dependent on the authenticity (evident in discourse and action) with which we address contemporary problems. A further overriding task is to open social and political space for divergent voices. Acknowledgement of mass atrocity requires more than one-off events or institutional responses (the grand apology, the truth commission). Rather acknowledgement has to become a lived social, cultural and political reality. Without this acknowledgement, healing, either collectively or individually, is stymied. Healing after mass atrocity is as much about political action (addressing inequalities and racism) as an act of re-imaging created through constant and contested re-writing.
[Download]
