locally-led peacebuilding

The majority of John Paul's peacebuilding initiatives came through accompanying people and communities working at the grassroots level. This has led to a key lesson and ethical stance: Believe in the unique knowledge of local communities about their own context and in their capacity to engage and innovate.

Locally-led peacebuilding centers the knowledge, skill, and vision of community-based individuals and organizations as the foundation of networks and processes that create durable change. In John Paul’s writing and practice, this approach been referred to under various names: elicitive, bottom-up, grassroots, and now more commonly locally-led. The content in this section includes stories, reflections, and insights gathered through John Paul's accompaniment of local peacebuilding leaders and processes across diverse areas of protracted conflict.

 

 

The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War: Surprising ideas from everyday people who shifted the cycles of violence

A collection of stories, reflections, and wisdom offering insight into the challenge of facing down toxic polarization layered with violence and the surprising ways everyday people found to shift harmful patterns of violence that had lasted decades. 

From the Ground Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding

A collection of essays that chronicles, analyzes, and evaluates the Mennonite contribution to the new cultural paradigm in conflict resolution and peacebuilding theory and practice.

Into the Eye of the Storm: A Handbook of International Peacebuilding

A gathering of contributions from international peacebuilding and conflict resolution professionals offering a wide array of guidelines, pragmatic approaches, and models of constructive, culturally appropriate ways to approach to conflict.

Adam Curle: Radical Peacemaker

A book capturing Adam Curle's core contributions in an accessible, edited form, so that the breadth of his work can be introduced to new students.

Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring and Learning Toolkit

A toolkit intended to improve peacebuilders’ ability to be reflective practitioners which involves enhancing peacebuilders’ capacity to design and impact transformative change, and track and improve upon those changes over time in unpredictable conflict contexts.

The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace

A book weaving thoughts and insights about the nature, challenges, and possibilities of constructive social change.

Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures

An exploration of prescriptive and elicitive methods of training and conflict work across cultures that places emphasis on the resources emergent from the context and setting of a given conflict. 

Beyond Prescription: Perspectives on Conflict, Culture, and Training

A manuscript written for the Inter-racial and Cross-cultural Conflict Resolution Project at Conrad Grebel College's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.