Peace as Process

Peace research reframes authority, promoting dialogue as peace's true value and transformative perception.

Peace as a political value is the fundamental strain of this book. As the book argues through its essays, peace studies originate not only from desire, concern and care, but also from a critical perspective that interrogates all received ideas and actions about conflict and war. Such a critical perspective stems from three principles. First, it is informed by an awareness of human rights and justice. Second, it concerns itself with effecting changes in perceptions. And third, it intends to enlarge our awareness of a social reality where strength is employed to maintain or enhance power at the expense of the weak.

It is only contesting all values of authority by valorizing dialogue, that peace acquires its own value. Basing itself on essays of differential nature, method, perspective and strain, the volume attempts to convey the idea that peace studies cannot be monolithic, and that critical peace studies will have to eschew the absolute polarities of realism and ethics.

Ranabir Samaddar is presently the director of the peace studies programme at the South Asia Forum for Human Rights. Helmut Reifeld is representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in India.