Peacebuilding Across the Disciplines
“The Institute challenges us to understand and define our roles as peacebuilders.”
Board of Directors: 2007
When an institution is created to provide individuals with an opportunity to study peacebuilding and to acquire practical skills and experience in this field, it typically results in more questions than answers. Peacebuilding is a complex, multifaceted process of change, where the emphasis is on addressing the root causes of conflict within a given context, involving both conflict transformation and prevention. In the long-run, peace is more than the absence of war, violence or conflict; its sustainability requires the creation of free communities uninhibited by structural inequalities.
Peacebuilding is practiced not only at an international level in war zones or in countries that are in the post-conflict process, but also at a local level, in our own communities. To be a successful process, peacebuilding requires a coordinated effort of a variety of actors, representing the various components that make up a community, be this at a local or global level.
The task of the Institute is to identify and work with these actors, many of whom do not identify themselves as traditional peacebuilders, but who are vital to the peacebuilding process. Our work is to stretch the imaginations of these actors, and the imaginations of those in the field of peacebuilding, to see how we can all connect, no matter what our academic discipline or walk of life, to work at bringing about change. Because each community is unique, it requires that the peacebuilding process be a fluid one, with no one recipe that is applied to all situations, and therefore the Institute will continue to learn alongside its students, community members, practitioners and academics on the challenges and techniques of the field.
To learn more about the Institute, please click here – http://www.indianapolispeaceinstitute.org
