Lives Amid Violence - by Mareike Schomerus (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development in conflict contexts have generally been disappointing and their preventative potential thus questionable. Lives Amid Violence argues that this is because practitioners adhere to a mental model that emphasises linearity, certainty, and causality, assuming that violence is best addressed through work plans that deliver state-building, stabilisation and services. Based on ten years of multi-method research from, in, and on conflict-affected countries, this book challenges this approach. Drawing on a significant collaborative body of scholarship, this work puts forward original and generalizable conclusions about how lives amid violence persist, offering an invitation to abandon restricting mental models and to embrace creative ways of thinking and working. These include paying attention to the long-term effects of conflict on individual behaviour and decision-making, the social realities of economic life, the role service delivery plays in negotiations between citizens and states, and to creating meaningful relationships. Transformation also requires reflection and therefore the book concludes with constructive suggestions on how to practice these insights to better support those whose lives are shaped by violence"--

Book Synopsis

Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development in conflict contexts have generally been disappointing and their preventative potential thus questionable. Available Open Access, Lives Amid Violence argues that this is because practitioners adhere to a mental model that emphasises linearity, certainty, and causality, assuming that violence is best addressed through work plans that deliver state-building, stabilisation and services. Based on ten years of multi-method research from, in, and on conflict-affected countries, this book challenges this approach.

Drawing on a significant collaborative body of scholarship, this work puts forward original and generalizable conclusions about how lives amid violence persist, offering an invitation to abandon restricting mental models and to embrace creative ways of thinking and working. These include paying attention to the long-term effects of conflict on individual behaviour and decision-making, the social realities of economic life, the role service delivery plays in negotiations between citizens and states, and to creating meaningful relationships. Transformation also requires reflection and therefore the book concludes with constructive suggestions on how to practice these insights to better support those whose lives are shaped by violence.

The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Review Quotes

Lives Amid Violence is a profoundly important book - one that brilliantly and compassionately disrupts decades of conventional wisdom. Anyone who studies, or cares about, the survival and well-being of people who live in the midst of violent conflict will benefit from its remarkable breadth, attention to ethical nuance, and political wisdom.
Michael L. Ross, UCLA, USA

The critical importance of this books is captured in its main question: 'how humans live in the shadow of violence'. This substantial question is taken further by several other questions that are framing the analysis: how do we, as researchers and policy actors, know? Do we have the relevant conceptual and cognitive apparatus to deal with many of the policy challenges and failures people experience in their lives. These questions are providing much needed critical evaluation of international development policies used in post-conflict contexts. The central contribution of this critical-context analytical approach is the way it is centred on those people who are at the receiving end of these policies in different contexts, and whether their experience-based knowledge is part of the international policy thinking.
This is a must-read for those who are interested in the intersections of conflict/violence, international development policy and people's wellbeing. The book is based on significant research knowledge and policy experiences within multiple development policy contexts. It provides theoretically informed critical analysis of development policy practice in different and differentiated conflict/post conflict contexts.
Hakan Seckinelgin, Associate Professor/Reader in International Social Policy, LSE', UK

This ground-breaking book, drawing on eight years of in-depth research by the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC), is a clarion call for doing away with technocratic approaches to supporting the lives and livelihoods of people affected by conflict, and recognizing that development work is intensely political and must be shaped by local realities.
Sara Pantuliano, Chief Executive at ODI, UK

About the Author

Mareike Schomerus, (PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science) is Vice President at the Busara Center in Nairobi. Her research asks questions about international development, about violence, and about how best to acquire a deeper understanding of the invisible factors that shape today's complex challenges and violent conflicts. Her writing is published in academic journals, reports, mass media, and in various books. In addition to her previous roles as Director of Programme Politics and Governance at ODI in London and Research Director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, also at ODI, she has advised numerous international development and peacebuilding organizations.