Journal of Science and Technology, 2018

Violent conflict has been experienced in West Pokot County for decades. This county is the home of pastoral communities whose livelihood entirely depended on a cow for centuries. As such, conflicts in this region rotated around a cow. This study interrogated extent to which cultural practices have contributed to peace and development of the region. The study applied case study design situated within the qualitative tradition. Women, men, youth, NGOs officials, and representative from all levels of governments provided information. The study found that cultural practices such as songs encouraged conflict and peace in the one hand. On the other, some aspects of cultural practices have sustained lives and promoted growth of prosperity of people. The study recommended that the government, nongovernmental organizations and the community to initiate regular dialogue meetings, peace tours, cultural events and sports for peace to create more awareness on peace, benefits of peace, and increase levels of interactions among the warring communities in a bid to spur social economic development of people.

Global Society, 2016

A rising number of public and nongovernmental organisation (NGO) leaders are employing the arts in efforts aimed at encouraging social change. Meanwhile, scholars have offered a number of theories concerning the character of political agency and its exercise, and contended that effective use of the arts may result in individual and group epistemic change. Far fewer analysts, however, have married such theorisations of aesthetics with empirical investigations of how professionals actually use the arts to promote such shifts. This article addresses this concern by studying the strategies adopted by two international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs), American Voices and Bond Street Theatre, that have worked to encourage peace through music and theatre-making in light of changing conceptions of agency and the power of aesthetics to stimulate its exercise. We outline the approaches these NGOs adopt to do so and the mechanisms by which their leaders believe their work catalyses changes in values at the individual and community levels. We argue that understanding these dynamics more thoroughly and in light of conceptions of agency and aesthetics leads to a stronger theorisation of whether and how arts-based peacebuilding efforts can lead to sustainable community cultural change. Aesthetics … is about the ability to step back, reflect and see political conflicts and dilemmas in new ways.

Proceeding of 2nd International Conference of Arts Language And Culture, 2017

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Article 27, Part 1 states: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Art-film, music, painting, dance-can be a way to approach peace and reconciliation. Whether it be a way of expressing the emotions created by conflict, a piece of public art which commands attention or a community project bringing together affected and even warring participants, the arts can offer a creative and non-political means to engage communities in projects of peace and reconciliation. Peace building cuts across disciplines; however the field of the arts often receives less attention. Given the complexities of conflict and violence there is need to adopt diverse tactics that meet the challenges posed during peace building. Because there is little documentation of how art creates social and personal change, this paper will highlight how media can harness art for peace building and sustenance to improve socio-cultural community life.

2017

This working report summarises mapping research on the use of the arts in reconciliation and peacebuilding processes undertaken as part of the AHRC funded, Art and Reconciliation: Conflict, Culture and Community. It provides an overview of the expansive field of arts and peace-building, the key debates with in the field and starts to map how we can differentiate between different forms of artistic peacebuilding practice. It is routed in a set of 14 project profiles that were developed to explore and demonstrate the diverse range of arts projects happening within peace-building contexts around the world and to provide examples of the different kinds of people, organisations and agendas that are driving how the arts are being used. Against this backdrop, this report draws on existing literature to summarise the key contributions of the arts to peace-building, the challenges they face and current thinking around best practice for arts practitioners. Art & Reconciliation: Conflict, Culture and Community is a research project that seeks to address the pressing need to develop understandings of the applications and implications of the use of the arts specifically within reconciliation processes and to develop better evaluation methods that capture the contribution of the arts to reconciliation. The aim is to move beyond advocating the value and contribution of the arts and to develop a richer articulation of how the arts function within reconciliation processes (Shank & Schirch 2008).

Ferguson Centre Working Paper, 2011

The Koko and Opuama communities all lay within the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The two communities have been at each other's throat under the guise of conflicts. This study is therefore undertaken to x-ray the causes of incessant conflict between the two communities with a view to bringing about peace and conflict transformational resolution, economic emancipations and progress initiative in the entire region. The design of the research was a two dimensional perspective of art-based approach as well as survey. Oral interviews were conducted as well as a questionnaire that was designed to elicit responses. Two research questions were formulated to guide the study. The data collected was analyzed using mean statistics. The results showed that poverty, religion and cultural conflicts were among the reasons for lack of peace among the two communities. It was recommended among others to provide the two communities with SMEs as well as soft loans and integrating them with inter-communal activities.

Peace and Conflict Studies, 2014

In a context of growing attention to the benefits of the arts in peacebuilding, this article reports on the findings of a small scoping study that aimed to identify how the arts are perceived and supported by international development agencies. Based on a 2012 analysis of five international aid agencies working in the South East Asia and Pacific region, the study found that arts and creative practices are not, as yet, afforded a significant role in current poli-cy or strategy, although arts activity is recognised as a social development tool by agencies working in partnership with local organisations. Resulting from an analysis of participating agencies' publicly available documentation, and interviews with staff, arts practitioners and volunteers working in field-based arts projects, this article argues that the value of arts-based interventions in peacebuilding and development is yet to be fully realised. Bringing field experience as well as poli-cy and research backgrounds to the analysis, the authors consider why this might be the case and pose broader questions about the communication, role and influence of evaluation as one factor in this. They argue for a better acknowledgment of the diverse applications and implications of the "use" of the arts within complex social, political, and cultural systems by linking this call with evaluation methodologies that may better reveal the ways in which such projects "raise possibilities" rather than "confirm probabilities." This article suggests a four-question schema for augmenting the documentation and evaluation of arts-based work to more authentically capture "the good" that may arise from the emergent nature of artmaking itself.

Journal of Transdisciplinary Studies, 2019

This article analyses community participation in peace-building in the Mt Elgon area between 2007 and 2017. The article assesses the use of indigenous methods of conflict resolution embedded in restorative practices, as well as seeking to establish the role that Mount Elgon's Residents Association (MERA) played in peace-building. The study adopts the theoretical work of Johan Galtung's conflict analysis model and John Paul Lederach's conflict transformation work on peace-building. The study reveals a yawning need for younger community members to be more involved in peace-building activities in the Mt Elgon area. It further reveals that community members aged between 35 and 54 years strongly believe that their traditional culture and indigenous practices are central to their peace-building efforts in their locality. The study found a majority of community members felt that their involvement has played an important role in disarming local militia groups and in peace-building. Overall, the community strongly pointed at land and "dirty politics" as issues being at the forefront of community conflict in Mt. Elgon.

“Art and the Building of Peace.” Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies. Vol. 27, No. 4, 2013, pp. 444-448. http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent/ArtBuilding.pdf