Benedikt Korf – författare

The period between 2001 and 2006 saw the rise and fall of an internationally supported effort to bring a protracted violent conflict in Sri Lanka to a peaceful resolution. A ceasefire agreement, signed in February 2002, was followed by six rounds of peace talks, but growing political violence, disagreements over core issues and a fragmentation of the constituencies of the key parties led to an eventual breakdown. In the wake of the failed peace process a new government pursued a highly effective ‘war for peace’ leading to the military defeat of the LTTE on the battlefields of the north east in May 2009. This book brings together a unique range of perspectives on this problematic and ultimately unsuccessful peace process.The contributions are based upon extensive field research and written by leading Sri Lankan and international researchers and practitioners. The framework of ‘liberal peacebuilding’ provides an analytical starting point for exploring the complex and unpredictable interactions between international and domestic players during the war-peace-war period. The lessons drawn from the Sri Lankan case have important implications in the context of wider debates on the ‘liberal peace’ and post conflict peacebuilding – particularly as these debates have largely been shaped by the ‘high profile’ cases such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This book is of interest not only to Sri Lanka specialists but also to the wider policy/practitioner audience, and is a useful contribution to South Asian studies.

The period between 2001 and 2006 saw the rise and fall of an internationally supported effort to bring a protracted violent conflict in Sri Lanka to a peaceful resolution. A ceasefire agreement, signed in February 2002, was followed by six rounds of peace talks, but growing political violence, disagreements over core issues and a fragmentation of the constituencies of the key parties led to an eventual breakdown. In the wake of the failed peace process a new government pursued a highly effective ‘war for peace’ leading to the military defeat of the LTTE on the battlefields of the north east in May 2009. This book brings together a unique range of perspectives on this problematic and ultimately unsuccessful peace process.The contributions are based upon extensive field research and written by leading Sri Lankan and international researchers and practitioners. The framework of ‘liberal peacebuilding’ provides an analytical starting point for exploring the complex and unpredictable interactions between international and domestic players during the war-peace-war period. The lessons drawn from the Sri Lankan case have important implications in the context of wider debates on the ‘liberal peace’ and post conflict peacebuilding – particularly as these debates have largely been shaped by the ‘high profile’ cases such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. This book is of interest not only to Sri Lanka specialists but also to the wider policy/practitioner audience, and is a useful contribution to South Asian studies.

Is religion best seen as only a cause of war, or is it a source of comfort for those caught up in conflict? In Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque six senior figures in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Development Studies set out to answer this question. Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka's most religiously diverse and politically troubled region during the country's civil war (1983-2009), it provides a series of new and provocative arguments about the promise of a religiously based civil society, and the strengths and weaknesses of religious organisations and religious leaders in conflict mediation. The authors argue that for people trapped in long and violent conflicts, religion ultimately plays a contradictory role, and that its institutions are themselves profoundly affected by war - producing a complex picture in which Catholic priests engage with Buddhist monks and new Muslim leaders, and where Hindu temples and Pentecostal churches offer the promise of healing.

Is religion best seen as only a cause of war, or is it a source of comfort for those caught up in conflict? In Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque six senior figures in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Development Studies set out to answer this question. Based on fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka's most religiously diverse and politically troubled region during the country's civil war (1983-2009), it provides a series of new and provocative arguments about the promise of a religiously based civil society, and the strengths and weaknesses of religious organisations and religious leaders in conflict mediation. The authors argue that for people trapped in long and violent conflicts, religion ultimately plays a contradictory role, and that its institutions are themselves profoundly affected by war - producing a complex picture in which Catholic priests engage with Buddhist monks and new Muslim leaders, and where Hindu temples and Pentecostal churches offer the promise of healing.

Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licenceDrawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches, this volume investigates both the theoretical foundations and the practical challenges of 'reversing the gaze' as a strategy for re-orienting global knowledge production.It brings together reflections on the theoretical and methodological implications of applying social-scientific concepts, typically developed to explain social and institutional phenomena in non-European settings, to the study of analogous empirical dynamics within Europe. In doing so, the contributions confront the potential pitfalls of this approach and grapple with the persistent epistemic, conceptual and normative frictions that inevitably shape such undertakings.Ultimately, the volume advances new conceptual and methodological pathways that offer practical visions for global knowledge production, attentive to the epistemic, moral and political issues at stake in contemporary debates.