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Theory is the fourth cornerstone of the science business. With the aid of appropriate logical framework of techniques, that is, methodology, scientists use theories to link the philosophical foundations, comprising ontology and epistemology, to empirical data, thereby completing and validating their investigations as scientific enterprises. The paper examines the nature, origins and role of theory and stresses its centrality to empirical and analytical works in Peace and Conflict Research (PCR) as an applied (social science) research. It lists twenty-five theories in PCR and classified them using the core distinction issues in Peace and Conflict Studies and the traditional classifications based on agency and structural and political economy. The paper also presents and discusses the tension between theory verification and theory generation in Peace and Conflict Research. It makes a case for theory generation PCR of African peace and conflict dynamics by African peace and conflict researchers.

We highlight how efforts to collect systematic data on conflict have helped foster progress in peace and conflict research. The Journal of Peace Research has played a key role in these developments, and has become a leading outlet for the new wave of disaggregated conflict data. We survey progress in the development of conflict data and how this interacts with theory development and progress in research, drawing specifically on examples from the move towards a greater focus on disaggregation and agency in conflict research. We focus on disaggregation in three specific dimensions, namely the resolution of conflict data, agency in conflict data, and the specific strategies used in conflict, and we also discuss new efforts to study conflict processes beyond the use of violence. We look ahead to new challenges in conflict research and how data developments and the emergence of 'big data' push us to think harder about types of conflict, agency, and the 'right' level of aggregation for querying data and evaluating specific theories. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

This article deals with violences of culture and cultures ofviolence. After reviewing the specificity of anthropological viewsof violence, we propose a processual reconceptualisation of this,reflect on the forms and possible consequences of ethnographicresearch and representation in this field, and end by outlining thefuture of an anthropology of violence that can also be an anthropologyof peace. An epilogue on 11 March serves to relocate thistheoretical sketch in the context of global terrorism. ; Peace and Conflict Studies has its origins in the moral reflection of leading politicians, such as Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, and David Lloyd George, on the massive human and social costs of World War I. An estimated eight million soldiers died in combat, while another two million went missing. The awareness that humankind should never again engage in this type of industrial warfare led to the foundation of the League of Nations in 1919 and the simultaneous development of Peace Studies as the multidisciplinary study of peace by social and political scientists, in contrast to the fi eld of War Studies, which was dominated by military scholars. Almost a century later, this book is a fi rst effort at putting together the different perspectives of scholars working in the last few years within the EDEN European network, with the intention of exploring transversal themes, analytical frameworks and methodological dilemmas, as well as to suggest and develop potentially productive common grounds. Papers range from the critical analysis of international law implementation, to the defence of new global concepts of security, to historical, ethnographic and culturalist perspectives on different kinds of confl icts and violences. That is, they move back and forth from international institutions and globalised legal and political frameworks, to the military industry, to everyday life and culturally-bound experiences and emotions. They have been organized in such way as to 'rollercoast' the reader around the different theoretical and methodological points of view available in the network. ; Peer reviewed

We highlight how efforts to collect systematic data on conflict have helped foster progress in peace and conflict research. The Journal of Peace Research has played a key role in these developments, and has become a leading outlet for the new wave of disaggregated conflict data. We survey progress in the development of conflict data and how this interacts with theory development and progress in research, drawing specifically on examples from the move towards a greater focus on disaggregation and agency in conflict research. We focus on disaggregation in three specific dimensions, namely the resolution of conflict data, agency in conflict data, and the specific strategies used in conflict, and we also discuss new efforts to study conflict processes beyond the use of violence. We look ahead to new challenges in conflict research and how data developments and the emergence of 'big data' push us to think harder about types of conflict, agency, and the 'right' level of aggregation for querying data and evaluating specific theories.

There have been repeated calls to build endogenous and alternative theories and analyses forged in the crucible of the epistemological, social - political, cultural, and economic conditions of African realities. Against this background, the chapter discuss es the grounded theory rese arch as an appropriate research strategy to fulfill the need for building theories grounded in the African experiences and realities. It encourage s African peace and conflict researchers to get on board in building useful theories to explain the onset, dyn amics, and resolution of conflict and conditions or strategies for sustainable peace on the continent. It presents grounded theory as a viable research method in peace and conflict research and demystifies theory building as an exclusive right of super - ecc entric academics from the northern hemisphere. The chapter will serve as a resource for would - be grounded theory researchers. It distinguish es between theory testing and theory building research approaches in the social sciences. It presents a brief histor y of grounded theory, its aims and utility, its features and step - by - step application as a strategy for research and data analysis