The art of peace: Interrogating community devised arts based peacebuilding

"I fear we [peacebuilders] see ourselves to be - and have therefore become - more technicians than artists. By virtue of this shift of perception our approaches have become too cookie-cutter-like, too reliant on what proper technique suggests as a frame of reference, and as a result our processes are too rigid and fragile." J.P. Lederach, Peace Scholar.
International interventions aimed at building peace in conflict and post-conflict societies have a rather negative track-record in achieving their objectives. One of the main explanations for this is the apparent inability of international actors to reach out and connect with local communities and leaders who are key in transforming societies and enabling a lasting peace.
In recent years, arts based approaches to peacebuilding have gained traction as an emerging area of research and practice typified by the work of Cynthia Cohen at Brandeis University and programmes delivered by NGOs Search for Common Ground and In Place of War and countless community projects. Despite these advances, arts based approaches to peacebuilding as an area of study and practice remains under researched. In particular, there is a deficit in understanding the impact community devised and led arts projects can have on peace formation at various stages of conflict amongst diverse actors. Thus, this project investigates the potential of grassroots led and devised arts projects in undertaking a key role in how peace emerges within a country and stresses the agency of local people to change their society. We aim to determine how arts can positively contribute to peace; this project builds a community of practice between academics, artists, practitioners and policy-actors to explore the transformative power of the creative arts in the context of conflict and peace. Creating an evidence-base around the impact of arts can shape new policies and NGO programming to improve the life of people in conflict-affected societies.
To this end, we will develop a methodology to assess the impact of arts-based peace projects and their legacies. The project's starting point is the simple notion that the nexus of aesthetic, cultural, and social engagement can be powerful and offers an 'undercommons' upon which to build peace. The project distinguishes between contexts of 'war', 'diffuse war', 'transitions from war to peace' and 'post-war' contexts to investigate the role that performative arts can play in each of these conflict stages. We will rely on the case studies of Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to analyse the complex interplay of the arts and war.
Comparing and contrasting these case studies in terms of where the arts are situated, who runs the arts projects and how they work best as a partner of peace formation, the project asks:
1. What role can grassroots arts play in different types and stages of war?
2. Based on these insights, under what conditions can the creative arts and peace formation processes be best integrated with each other?
3. How can we understand the extent to which creative arts projects help external or internal norms of peace to be adopted on a broader social level, or do they highlight local norms?
The project will be run by the University of Manchester, Durham University, and In Place of War with the support of several local researchers and artists, combining insights from the field of academia with local arts practitioners on the ground. Project leads will form a partnership with local organisations and actors in each of the case countries to conduct the research and devise a toolkit for grassroots and NGO practitioners on the one hand, but also to co-produce art productions on the other. The latter include exhibitions, an audio archive, community performances and web-based content, all of which will be accessible to the communities in the countries themselves as well as to UK audiences.

Impact Summary:

This research aims to add to knowledge about how arts projects can support peacebuilding efforts. Given the limited existing research on community arts-based peacebuilding projects, it is anticipated that our findings will provide a framework to enhance policy and practice. This knowledge will be made available to academic audiences so they can integrate it into further research and teaching, and in the accompaniment and advice they provide to policy and programming. It will also be used in direct advocacy and advice to policy and programming in the case countries and more broadly. Finally, the research will inform the development of practical tools for grassroots/NGO organisations so they can better measure and articulate the impact of their work. We propose that the possibility of achieving these objectives outlined in the impact summary rests on three pillars:

- Involving local grassroots stakeholders in the research provides an opportunity for analysis, reflection and learning through our participatory research approach;
- Bringing together coalitions of different stakeholders and organisations working for change at the local level;
- Evidence-based recommendations on policy and programme implementation to internationally supported arts programmes.

The project will therefore be of particular benefit to:
- Artists, civil society and local or national authorities in each case study country. These groups will benefit from new insights into peacebuilding from their own country and practice in other countries and the development of new tools to understanding arts based peacebuilding. Furthermore, these actors will also be given a platform to share their practice and artistic work to a wide international audience.
- NGOs and community groups engaged in arts-based peacebuilding projects, who will be able to use our findings to better understand the nexus between arts with a view to incorporating and implementing arts programmes in their peacebuilding work. Moreover, the project allows them to learn and interact with a wide network of stakeholders from the peacebuilding sector from diverse international settings. Finally, the development of new tools to measure and articulate the impact of the work will improve their practice.
- Policymakers in the UK, and internationally, who are keen to improve their understanding of the contribution of the arts to social change and to address issues of conflict in the UK and abroad. These include Government departments such as the Home Office, the British Council, Ministry of Justice, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Stabilization Unit, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development.
Public audiences interested in narratives of art and conflict will be given the opportunity to explore the dynamics of conflict, peace and artistic expression from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and discover new artistic work from these places.