Everyday Peace

This book is an important contribution to the peace and conflict literature, particularly in its effort to ‘break through the concrete floor’. It is useful for academics in conceptualizing what peace means as well as for practitioners in recognizing early signs of everyday peace. * Louise Ridden, Aberystwyth University, International Peacekeeping *This book is not an idealistic exercise but rather an invaluable and timely exploration of the often overlooked power inherent in local acts of peace…this book commands the reader to focus on the ‘local’ in peacebuilding with a precision that guarantees that, moving forward, the everyday cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. * Samantha Gamez, International Affairs *Everyday Peace is part of a small but important body of literature showing that war is never so totalizing, and that at moments in the passage of a conflict when outsiders see only polarization and stalemate, individuals are doing the vital work of suturing and rebuilding, within sites—the family, the neighborhood—in which power is seldom thought to lie. * Francis Wade, The Nation, The Nation *Hyper-local peace is just as important as diplomatic, high-level peace, but woefully understudied. Roger MacGinty’s fabulous book is likely to become the reference book on everyday peace. It is an innovative, hopeful, and optimistic read, as well as a compelling and sophisticated demonstration that so-called ordinary people have the power to disrupt conflict and forge peace. * Séverine Autesserre, author of Peaceland and The Frontlines of Peace *Mac Ginty’s reflective and empathetic, beautifully written study of ‘everyday peace’ offers a wealth of experience, wisdom, and evidence. It captures and extensively documents the phenomena of micro-acts of co-existence, long ignored, in the most difficult of circumstances during war. It theorises their impact in disrupting entrenched patterns and norms of violence and conflict, a platform upon which larger scale peace systems and reconciliation may develop. This book cements and extends one of the most significant foundations of—and recent discoveries in—the study of modern peacemaking after war. * Oliver Richmond, Professor of International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies, the University of Manchester *Peace is as indispensable as it is elusive, yet as this critically important new book demonstrates, everyday peace can be found in the unlikeliest of places, from the living room to the global battlefield. Combining conceptual sophistication with a keen and sensitive eye for peace practices wherever they may be, Mac Ginty shows how the supposedly ordinary can do the extraordinary by disrupting conflict and creating new and pragmatic possibilities for peace. Setting a compelling new way of seeing and understanding one of the oldest of problems, this book is an essential read for anyone interested in how peace can be built out of war, one that challenges us to rethink old canons and embrace new possibilities. * Alex J. Bellamy, Professor of Peace & Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland *

Roger Mac Ginty is Professor at the School of Government and International Affairs, and Director of the Durham Global Security Institute, both at Durham University. He edits the journal Peacebuilding and co-directs the Everyday Peace Indicators project. His research is on the interface between bottom-up and top-down approaches to peace.