Understanding peace, conflict and security through alternative narratives

Abstract

We do not need alternatives so much as we need an alternative thinking of alternatives” (Santos, 2014: 70). In recent years, critical peace and security studies have called into question the conflict resolution approaches, peacebuilding initiatives and security strategies driven by major international organisations. Critical views consider that these types of approaches tend to be built from a top-down perspective, with little participation of local actors in contexts affected by armed violence, and often derive from standardized and depoliticized strategies that do not take into account the complex nature of conflict (Mac Ginty and Firchow, 2016). One of the main pro-blems raised by the critical literature on conflict, peace and security is epistemo-logical: the contexts in which international stakeholders intervene are usually understood on the basis of the worldviews and values of Western actors, leading to narratives that impose a certain understanding of the root causes of conflict, and hence a certain type of “solution” (Duffield, 2001; Richmond, 2005).