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In Resilient Communities, Jana Krause focuses on civilian agency and mobilization 'from below' and explains violence and non-violence in communal wars. Drawing on extensive field research on ethno-religious conflicts in Ambon/Maluku Province in eastern Indonesia and Jos/Plateau State in central Nigeria, this book shows how civilians responded to local conflict dynamics very differently, evading, supporting, or collectively resisting armed groups. Combining evidence collected from more than 200 interviews with residents, community leaders, and former fighters, local scholarly work (in Indonesian), and local newspaper-based event data analysis, this book explains civilian mobilization, militia formation, and conflict escalation. The book's comparison of vulnerable mixed communities and (un)successful prevention efforts demonstrates how under courageous leadership resilient communities can emerge that adapt to changing conflict zones and collectively prevent killings. By developing the concepts of communal war and social resilience, Krause extends our understanding of local violence, (non-)escalation, and implications for prevention.

This article examines the ethics of using ethnographic methods in contemporary conflict zones. Ethnographic research is an embodied research practice of immersion within a field site whereby researchers use ethnographic sensibility to study how people make sense of their world. Feminist, conflict and peacebuilding scholars who research vulnerable populations and local dynamics especially value ethnographic approaches for their emphasis on contextual understanding, human agency, egalitarian research relationships and researcher empathy. While immersion leads to knowledge that can hardly be replaced by using more formal approaches, it also elicits ethical dilemmas. These arise not only from the specific research context but also from who the researcher is and how they may navigate violent and often misogynous settings. I argue that many dilemmas may and perhaps should not be overcome by researcher skill and perseverance. Instead, ethical challenges may lead researchers to adopt limited and/or uneven immersion in their field site, not as failed or flawed ethnography but as an ethical research strategy that incorporates ethnographic sensibility to a varying extent. Examining why researchers may opt for limited and uneven immersion is important because in conflict research, stereotypes of the intrepid (male) researcher with a neutral gaze still tend to mute open discussions of how gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, class and other background factors inevitably shape immersion. This article seeks to contribute to creating discursive space for these conversations, which are vital for researchers to analyse, reflect and write from the position of a 'vulnerable observer' and incorporate greater transparency in the discussion of research findings.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that sexual violence varies significantly across cases of election violence and communal conflicts but systematic research is scarce. Post-election violence is particularly likely if electoral mobilization further polarizes longstanding communal conflicts and political elites do not instruct security forces to intervene decisively. I comparatively analyse two prominent cases of post-election violence in Kenya (2007/8) and Nigeria (2008) that exhibit stark variation in sexual violence. Patrimonial networks and norms of violent masculinity that increase the probability of (gang) rape were present in both cases and do not explain variation. Civil war research has identified three explanations for the variation in sexual violence: situational constraints; ordered sexual violence or restraint; and bottom-up dynamics of sexual violence or restraint. I examine these for the context of post-election violence. I argue that the type of communal conflict triggered by electoral mobilization explains variation in sexual violence. In Kenya, pogroms of a majority group against a minority allowed for the time and space to perpetrate widespread sexual violence while in Nigeria, dyadic clashes between similarly strong groups offered less opportunity but produced a significantly higher death toll. These findings have important implications for preventing election violence. They demonstrate that civilian vulnerability is gendered and that high levels of sexual violence do not necessarily correspond to high levels of lethal violence. Ignoring sexual violence means underestimating the real intensity of conflict and its impact on the political process.

Die Verfasserin setzt sich mit der Problematik der Instrumentalisierung des Religiösen auseinander. Anhand unterschiedlicher gewalttätiger Auseinandersetzungen in Nigeria (Sharia-Konflikt) und in Indonesien (Maluku-Konflikt) zeigt sie, dass Begriffszuschreibungen wie "religiöser Konflikt" der Komplexität des Gesamtphänomens kaum gerecht werden. Eher verdecken sie die vielschichtigen Ursachen und Hintergründe der Konstruktion eines Narrativs und damit seine Mehrdimensionalität. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden Befürchtungen, Religionen könnten in der Transitionsphase konflikteskalierend wirken und damit Demokratisierungsprozesse destabilisieren, differenziert gesehen. (ICE2)

AbstractCivilian ceasefire and civilian protection monitoring are often seen as innovative peacekeeping and protection mechanisms in conflict zones difficult to access for international actors. However, the literature on civilian monitoring and its impact is sparse. In many conflicts, civilians organize to protect themselves. Research into civilian agency and protection has shown that civilian capacity to self-protect and conflict conditions determine whether protective civilian agency can be effective. We analyze whether civilian protection monitoring can positively impact the protection of civilians, focusing on Myanmar, where donors have funded civilian ceasefire monitoring efforts that are inclusive of a strong civilian protection component. We argue that despite failed ceasefires in Myanmar, the nurturing of civilian monitoring networks, that is, supporting civilian capacity, had a positive—albeit limited—impact on civilian protection. Monitors adapted knowledge from international ceasefire monitoring trainings to their reality on the ground and implemented civilian protection monitoring. Yet, conflict conditions seriously limited protection monitoring and posed grave security challenges to monitors and communities. We conclude that in conflict situations where armed actors show little sensitivity to civilian preferences and commitment to respecting human rights, the need for civilian protection is high while the protective potential of civilian monitoring is limited as long as armed groups' incentives to better protect civilians remain weak.

There is an emerging consensus that women's participation in peace negotiations contributes to the quality and durability of peace after civil war. However, to date, this proposition has remained empirically untested. Moreover, how women's participation may contribute to durable peace has not been systematically explored. This article uses a mixed method design to examine this proposition. Our statistical analysis demonstrates a robust correlation between peace agreements signed by female delegates and durable peace. We further find that agreements signed by women show a significantly higher number of peace agreement provisions aimed at political reform, and higher implementation rates for provisions. We argue that linkages between women signatories and women civil society groups explain the observed positive impact of women's direct participation in peace negotiations. Collaboration and knowledge building among diverse women groups contributes to better content of peace agreements and higher implementation rates of agreement provisions. We substantiate this argument with qualitative case study evidence and demonstrate how collaboration between female delegates and women civil society groups positively impacts peace processes. Our findings support the assumption that women's participation in peace negotiations increases the durability and the quality of peace.