The Cultural Dimension of Peace

Birgit Bruchler has written an excellent monograph on the potential of culture for reconciliation . The book covers new ground in the ongoing debate over scope conditions for sustainable peacebuilding. It is a rich source of material for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand how the revival of cultural traditions can foster a normalisation of social relations at an everyday level of interaction in post-conflict settings. (Sabine Mannitz, Peacebuilding, May, 2017) Bruchlers nuanced and sophisticated analysis provides new insights into the evolving relations between Islam, Christianity, and adat in contemporary postconflict Moluccan society. She explains the success of the revival of adat in peace and reconciliation processes but clearly identifies the limitations of this approach in a democratised and decentralised Indonesia. (Richard Chauvel, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 2017) This book provides the reader with straightforward narratives and analyses that will appeal to both specialists and a wider audience who wish to investigate decentralization, democratization, local politics, and peacebuilding in post-New Order Indonesia and will attract both specialists and a broader audience within anthropology, peace and conflict studies, and other social sciences. this book will deservedly pave the way for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of a new anthropology of peace. (Yanwar Pribadi, Aseasuk News, Issue 60, 2016)

Birgit Bruchler is Senior Lecturer for Anthropology at the School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

1. The Emerging Cultural Turn in Peace Research 2. Decentralization, Revitalization and Reconciliation in Indonesia 3. Conflict and Peacebuilding in Maluku 4. Reconciliation and the Revival of Tradition 5. The Reinvention of Traditional Leadership 6. Indigenous People, Migrants and Refugees: A Clash of Individual and Cultural Human Rights 7. Concluding Reflections: Toward a New Anthropology of Peace