 We're just we're just waiting for the virtual room to fill up. It seems to be a few people just filtering through We're almost there Great. Well, welcome everyone to this conflict security and development research group talk I'm Kieran Mitten a reader in conflict security development at King's And I am very pleased to welcome back someone who's spoken Before our department and good friend of the course. Well, we consider my friend. I don't know if it's mutual Roger McGinty Director of the Durham Global Security Institute and professor in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University Roger is going to talk to us about his recent book his new book Everyday Peace Which is not available. I've been informed on the King's catalogue But hopefully soon we'll be but we're going to share a link as well if you're interested in grabbing a copy of the book There are there are various talks Roger could have given to us today and there was there was another topic that sounded fascinating Which I hope perhaps in future Roger you can come speak to us about But we thought this topic of your book in particular is really relevant To our department and certainly to our main CSD course It's an area that a lot of people will be fascinated by and interested in and some will have experience of having worked in peace building or development on the ground And might have some experiences that I think you've talked about or certainly want to learn about them So thank you very much for joining us today from from Northern Ireland And the the way this is going to work Roger will speak around about 30 to 40 minutes And then we will go to questions If you have a question The best way to do this is for you to type the question into the q&a box So please type into the q&a box not to the chat And then I will do my best to Go through those questions and put them directly to Roger And we might not be able to get through all of them, but I'll I'll try and group them together if there's similar questions so Roger over to you Thank you very much Karen and Thank you very much to kings For the invitation and thank you very much everyone who is attending. I see Lots of names I I recognize amongst the the attendees former students people I Have Had the pleasure of working with people I've bumped into at conferences People I would love to bump into at conferences If if we can get back there Um, so thank you and welcome What I'm going to do really is talk about a number of ideas that are rattling around in my head at the moment And I'd really welcome your feedback on those. I'd really welcome A you pointing out where I could join the dots Um, some of these ideas have been rattling around in my head for a long time And some of them are are reasonably recent ideas and and knowing some of the people in in the room I'm aware of of their expertise both theoretical and conceptual but also their their case study knowledge As well and essentially this this is a book talk and I'm I'm I'm plugging my book and I Imagine my horror when I check the king's Library catalogue yesterday and and found the book was an e version of the book was was not available But Kieran assures me that that he will Remedy that okay, so I'm going to show a power point a very simple power point and I will talk I guess so If we If you can remember the The book cover It's off a dandy line growing through cracks in a concrete pavement and for a long time I I've Been playing with this quotation from the psychogeographer Ian Sinclair who talked about the tough fecundity of the margins And he's talking in his case. He's talking about the wild flowers that grow in the motorway Verge Along the side of the motorway or rather beautiful weeds that grow and colonize waste ground and that's What I reckon is conflict disruption is A way in which the norm of conflict is disrupted By something that takes an opportunity That sees us a moment Hence the cover of my my book is this dandy line growing A dandy line is is usually considered a weed and it's growing On the margins and and thriving on the margins so what I'm interested in is peace mercy solidarity that crops up in unlikely places in unexpected spaces And I see conflict disruption as those small acts stances or forms of communication that can be pro-peace and pro-social In a context that is usually described as divided or at conflict And we're familiar with terms like conflict resolution conflict transformation conflict management But I'm interested in conflict disruption What disrupts conflict and allows something else to happen And sometimes that's something else could be worse than what went before But sometimes that's something else could be better could actually interrupt disrupt the conflict allow for pro-social pro-peace activities to happen So I'm interested in these transgressions against the dominant narrative of conflict I'm interested in the micro sociological the intimate the interpersonal things that happen on the ground between people the small acts of kindness of toleration that happen in the street in the village on public transport in deeply divided societies in which conflict is bubbling underneath or in situations in which conflict has ceased or the main conflict has ceased what communities have to work out how they can interact Now what I'm talking about generally does not change the strategic outcome But it can save lives, it can improve lives, it can lead to a change in life's chances and life circumstances and the first main point I would like to make is that conflict is not totalizing but it often seems as though it is totalizing And we're familiar with this picture. It's from a shipyard in Germany in the 1930s and everyone here is giving a Nazi salute except this man who is in a sea of people giving the salute and he's the holdout. He's not convinced yet the image that we have very often of society's undergoing conflict is that the conflict is totalizing and of course conflict actors make it invest a lot of effort into saying that conflict is totalizing that the entire population is mobilized that the entire population buys into the narrative that everyone is loyal to the cause and of course the language that we use reinforces this notion of the totality of conflict the all-encompassing nature of conflict you know how we use terms like the Palestinians the Israelis as though they are all the same there is no variation or even the war as though it is a almost a homogenous temporal period of all-out conflict yet within that there might be spaces of calm or relative calm and that's what I'm interested in in terms of conflict disruption I'm interested in these spaces opportunities for resistance for alternatives for descent from the apparently homogeneous totalizing notion that conflict is all-consuming all-encompassing homogeneous okay and another point I'd like to make is to encourage us to think about power and agency and we're aware of orthodox views of power and agency the orthodox view of power is a rather narrow version of power but it's widely accepted and that is power over a coercive power making someone do something they would rather not it's a disciplining form of power and we see this through men with guns we see this through the violent disciplining of people we can see some dreadful pictures coming out of Afghanistan of the of the Taliban enforcing their will through whipping people through coercing people but also there are more subtle forms of discipline and we're implicated in all of those you know and they surround us these forms of discipline and we buy into them whether we want to or not so you know we can barely move without CCTV following us and of course that disciplines us that we won't take particular actions that we won't do particular things and with this there is moral pressure to conform there is an unspoken a disciplining effect so we're aware of this coercive power and we buy into it we're aware that the state can do all sorts of things to us it can jail us it can fine us it can strip us of all sorts of opportunities and rights but once that sort of power gets a lot of attention I want to remind us of other forms of power more emancipatory liberated forms of power that are open to us that we often overlook these are rather than power over it would be good if we think of power to power with power from and we need to take these alternative types of power seriously we need to think about them on the same level as we think about men with guns who often look pathetic and ridiculous I often think so we need to think of compassion and mercy and solidarity not as somehow volunteeristic acts we need to think of them as power as forms of power and agency that people decide to use and I think if we think of this as a form of power it's actually quite liberating it it allows the so-called powerless to see themselves as having power and of course these forms of power are subtle you know think about the power of most Iraqis and most Afghans over the past 20 years I mean most of them were not in full support of the regimes in their capital cities and at the same time most of them were not members of resistance organizations most of them were getting on with life raising kids working getting educated looking after elders trying to have fun if they could but they did one important thing and it was a form of power they waited they waited in the long grass first the Iraqis waited until Western powers left and so did many Afghans as well and there was a wonderful line from one of the Taliban negotiators who said when Western powers were withdrawing from Kabul he said you have watches we have time and I think it's it's worth thinking about that in terms of power in terms of ontology in terms of how we see life and how we live life that if we can think of many of the actions that we have as a form of power then it helps us put that orthodox power into perspective also important when I think about conflict disruption is timing and opportunity the ability of individuals and communities to read the room to have the emotional intelligence to have the psychological awareness to see what will work what is feasible and what's not feasible thus you know there are particular times for example I'm thinking about violence that was in Beirut last week there are particular times when you can seize the moment to talk to and pursue a friendship and interests with someone from the other identity group and there are times when you don't when it's best to keep hunkered down it's best to stay off the streets it's best not to seize that moment so crucial to conflict disruption is the ability to seize those moments the ability to read those situations and work out what's feasible and not feasible and very often that requires that localized grounded contextual knowledge something that outsiders very often struggle to have and then also very important I think in terms of conflict disruption is the ability to see peace and conflict as a system I mean we're used to having peace space and space conflict as two separate words but to me it makes sense to ram these together because they constitute this very large very complex dynamic system and there's great work emerging out there from Cedric de Conning from Gerard Miller and many others that's seeing conflict peace and conflict as a system so we could see I would suggest peace and conflict as an integrated multi-scaler system that's connected even the micro sociological that I'm interested in the things that happen in the queue in the bake for the bakery on the public transport system in the stairwell in the apartment block in a city like Moston that those micro interactions are still part of this wider system that constitutes the micro and the macro and everything in between that constitutes the tactical and the strategic and everything in between and conflict disruption happens on the margins it happens when judged safe often it's inconsistent just because someone takes a prisoner on the battlefield rather than engage in a summary execution does not mean that that person who took the prisoner who made that snap decision it doesn't mean they're a traitor it doesn't mean that they have lost all of their beliefs linked to the conflict human beings are wonderfully inconsistent what I believe now I might change my mind by dinnertime I might change my mind tomorrow certainly the 20 year old Roger had very different beliefs and interests and views than the one now so these minor acts are all part of the wider system that top-down international relations sees but these minor acts are co-constitutive of that system they are formative of that system and it's worth having this systemic view okay so let me move on to the notion of conflict disruption and we're familiar with the notion of disruption from markets you may have heard of the Austrian economist Schumpeter and his ideas of creative disruption of how a new player a new product can come along into the market and upset that market and we're very familiar with that Netflix and other streaming services are disrupting the traditional broadcasters EasyJet and other so-called low-cost airlines are disrupting what are called legacy airlines and we're familiar with this how new entrants to the market do things differently they offer new services at different prices they offer new products they exploit new markets and in doing so they change the market it's not a case that they're bolt-ons to the existing market they change the entire market its dynamic, its structure so we're used to new in the commercial world we're used to new market entrants who sees the moment who change the market and then examples of this conflict disruption and when going through these examples it's useful to think about scale so is this happening at the micro level the macro level is it happening in the stairwell of an apartment block on public transport or is it happening at an elite political level it's also worth thinking about the location and reminding ourselves of how much of our studies are focused on capital cities but also focused on locations rather than networks and I think we need to reorientate how we look at peace and conflict to prioritise networks static places and also it's worth thinking about the potential of these stances, acts and forms of communication to disrupt conflict so examples of conflict disruption well, things like taking prisoners on the battlefield rather than executing someone and there are lots of examples that need autobiographies for example from World War I in which snap decisions were made rather to take a prisoner and that prisoner usually had a very miserable time in prison but after the war if they were fortunate they went on to live very full lives and that could have been ended by dispatching that prisoner by shooting that prisoner which is extraordinarily common in both World Wars I and II much more common than official narratives of those wars suggest but that relied on some level of sociality that the person taking the prisoner realised this is another human being I don't agree with them politically I'm not trained to regard them as the enemy but I can see that we're fellow human beings and also there may have been an element of reciprocity there if we take prisoners rather than shoot them then if I find myself at gunpoint later on in this war then I might be lucky enough to be taken prisoner we can also think of remarkable friendships across identity boundaries friendships that have survived political and security pressure and there are lots of those lots of these that deserve our attention really profound lasting friendships that act as exemplars to others in the community friendships that managed to survive when other communities when the rest of the community is perhaps retreating back into its single identity bunker or we can think of intergroup marriage in deeply divided societies marriage between people who identify differently in terms of ethnicity or language in the former Yugoslavia in Lebanon, Northern Ireland many other places other things that disrupt conflict whistleblowing on authoritarianism or militarism that might show for example that there is a lot of coercion behind the scenes that not everyone buys into the the notion of a united nation back channel feelers between enemies in which they're working out the extent to which the other side could be persuaded to investigate negotiation rather than conflict also we can think of localised ceasefires there were very many of these in Syria which were in a sense unofficial many of them were humanitarian short lived but reciprocal and important in disrupting this notion of all out conflict this notion that conflict is totalising that everyone on one side speaks and thinks with the one mind other examples of conflict disruption include the family in deeply divided society when you think about it the family is the most important political unit on the planet and it's a pity that political science and international relations is so resistant to that idea the family is where most of us gain our moral compass where most of us get formative political ideas and it's where many of us are radicalised and militarised but it's also a sight in some families where there is restraint where that stern auntie or uncle chides the children and makes them think twice about joining that gang or joining that militia or joining that march conflict disruption comes in the form of tolerance or promotion of alternative narratives and explanations and sometimes that can be incredibly brave if you're growing up in a deeply divided society in which you're educated separately you play separately you engage in culture separately you shop separately in which every conversation is an echo chamber for someone to say well there might be a different way of thinking about this it's actually a huge act of resistance of dissent it requires a lot of bravery there could be tolerance of non-singular identities there could be a shared interest that transcends the main societal fault-climb so for example if you go to Belfast on a Saturday afternoon Belfast is a deeply divided city in which the vast majority of people live in mainly Catholic areas or mainly Protestant areas the vast vast majority of school kids go to all Catholic schools or all Protestant schools this is the main fault-line in society yet if you go to Belfast City Hall or the area around it on a Saturday afternoon you'll see hundreds of skater kids kids with skateboards who are both Catholic and Protestant and whose main interest is not at least for those hours identifying as Catholic, Nationalist or Protestant Unionist their main interest is trying to flirt with other boys and girls and making a nuisance of themselves with pedestrians and traffic so we can see this in many other places where some sort of cultural outlet following a particular type of music or a particular cultural genre transcends the main fault-line we can see no shoot zones in US cities Baltimore for example in which there's round about one murder a day linked to gang violence or narcotics related crime in which local community members often ex-gang members set up no shoot zones we've seen zones of peace in many Latin American and Central American countries in for example, Mexico or Colombia in which villagers post notices saying if you want to come into this village don't bring your gun and that's a really brave thing to say to a guerrilla to a paramilitary to a member of the state armed forces or we can see in some societies integrated education for kids who are from different identity backgrounds are educated together and lots of brave unexpected gestures by political leaders and many others so for example, when South Africa very shortly after the fall of apartheid hosted the rugby world cup Nelson Mandela was there and he wore a spring box jersey the spring box the South African rugby team have been associated very much with white South Africa and he was making a statement that everyone is part of this South Africa okay, let me wrap up in a few minutes you can read a bit more about conflict disruption here it's in the journal of intervention and peace building fundamentally this is a book talk so please do email Karen as course convener and get them to purchase the e-version of the book but what are the takeaways from this the first is I think we really need to see peace and conflict and we need to see how the conflict is contributing a system and then to identify moments within that system in which the conflict narrative the logic the totalizing nature of the conflict can be disrupted even very slightly and that might encourage a recalibration of the conflict but it could go right so for example one thing that could be done would be to treat for the international community and I'm thinking maybe of conflict actors in Yemen for the UN and other interested parties to treat the conflict actors with much less respect rather than the monthly visit by a UN special representative in which there is much politeness and much formality treat these conflict actors with the respect that they deserve which isn't very much and undercut their identity rather than reinforce their identity knock them off their feet and there are lots of examples I think for the international community and conflict interested actors actually can change the narrative can change the logic because conflict disruption under the right circumstances can lead to something else something more than an interruption it can disrupt and that might lead to conflict management or transformation and much of this is based on optimism and hope much of this is based on me hoping that good things would happen but I think it's important that we create space that we puncture the totalizing myth of conflict that we expose the myth of the homogeneous unity of conflict within conflict groups and pay recognition to these small acts of kindness, of mercy of humility of solidarity of sociality of reciprocity that we can find in what I call everyday peace so I'm going to stop sharing there and I really look forward to discussion just a Q&A I'd be really interested to hear what you think as well Thanks Roger really interesting stuff particularly interesting what you were saying about the family unit and the neglect of that and a lot of conflict studies, political science studies and I think there will be I think in a couple of comments already there are some interesting questions raised should also say I have requested the book again from the library so don't only email me Roger's involved in a bit of everyday conflict provocation there I think the first question I want to take Daniel's asked a question which essentially is getting at the the nature of an armed group in a conflict and he's asking whether or not it matters whether ordinary people can disrupt conflict if the armed group is benign and maybe that gives opportunity for what happens in a more aggressive or more aggressive antagonistic is that an important factor and perhaps we'll start there and then there's a couple of words we'll come to in a moment Hello Daniel yes it is important and we can think of very many situations in which it would be foolhardy for people to dissent from the notion that everyone is supportive of an armed group these groups can be extraordinarily violent much of their activity is not based on facing the enemy instead it's directed towards disciplining the in-group and thus to put your head above the parapet quite literally suggest that there is another way might be very dangerous but at the same time the people who are very best placed to disrupt to spot the opportunities for challenging the notion that the armed group represents everyone the people who are best placed to do that are precisely the support base are precisely the community and one thing that communities are very good at spotting is how those groups and individuals who claim to represent them are either too far ahead in making concessions or too far behind in not realising that things have changed and people realise how things have changed through their everyday life through what they recognise oh, it's safe to shop there now it's safe to use that bus route oh I was able to walk there and do you know what other people are walking there so I think I'll be able to do that or I'll advise my friends to do that it wasn't as bad as I thought and and the streetscape is not as intimidating as it used to be so I think it really does come down to this issue of the emotional intelligence of so-called ordinary people who have amazing extraordinary skills of diplomacy their ability to read a situation and to make decisions on the basis of that we hear a lot about this term conflict sensitive we have to be conflict sensitive researchers the most conflict sensitive people are those living in deeply divided societies or societies coming out of conflict because they very often realise what's feasible and what's not feasible what's safe and what's not safe a really good question thank you thanks Laura Martin as asked this question I'm just going to read this one out your talk has made me think about the notion of signals in divided societies namely those small things that signal otherness within a society like Northern Ireland an outsider might not necessarily recognise whether a name or a piece of jewellery in thinking through these signals only those societies really or truly know them could this be considered disruptive and even uniting great question Laura hello and congratulations on your job as well yes it very much gets back to the last point and the ability of others the ability of people living through the conflict to read those signals many of which are very subtle many of which are so subtle that outsiders don't see them and one thing that is very noticeable are those signals in a way those single identity signals I'm currently in Northern Ireland where it's very easy not very easy but often easy to read the sectarian identity of people by what they wear you know by the football tops that they're wearing etc and there are times that you just wouldn't wear that if you had any sense of any self-awareness because it wouldn't be safe for you to go into particular places but then there are the signals that are transgressive of that the signals that you're open to the other side the signals that you've actually moved beyond the conflict and those could be you know as subtle as the newspaper you choose to buy and you could be seen walking from the shop with it they could be as subtle as the radio station that you're listening to all of these tiny little micro-signals then come together and pattern society and make up the narrative and if you think about society it's full of signalling and a hell of a lot of noise but it's interesting it's just got me thinking Laura and thank you for doing that if you think about a society and the dominant signalling you know from you know I'm thinking about say Beirut and the dominant signalling from and for Shia and the dominant signalling from and for Sunni and for all of the other groups as well you know each has their bandwidth but what about that signalling that is saying to hell with that like you know is there some sort of common signalling some sort of music that transcends that some sort of issue that transcends that in Beirut some years ago it was the rubbish crisis the crisis that none of the political parties and the government could not take the refuge of the rubbish away and that made citizens of all political hues and identities very cross indeed and for a moment people did come together and that was very overt signalling but what an interesting idea and I'll think a bit more about that Laura thank you I have a couple of questions here I think it will just be two questions but three that are being posted so first of all Chris Wilson was saying from personal experience working with people in Ethiopia and South Sudan it can be very difficult to motivate groups of people to engage in conflict disruption conflict disrupting activities obviously seem pointless in the face of huge conflict so then he says how would you encourage a group who felt this way and I think it also links with Florence's question about whether or not there is a conflict disruption particularly thinking about interests that transcend societal faults or promoting intergroup networks so it seems to be a bit of a question about is this something organic is this something that can be instigated externally or even internally I think they are really good questions and they are coming from good places as well because if a conflict can be disrupted why wouldn't you say if the outcome would be saving and improving lives but as both Chris and Florence point out this could be dangerous very dangerous indeed my first answer would be not to intervene would be that it is very often local people can spot those opportunities much better than outsiders they can spot what is safe to do and what is not safe to do they can spot what they can get away with and what might bring disciplining actions or words from their own side if I think about acts of conflict disruption which are usually extraordinarily subtle forms of dissent such as a former lending someone from the outgroup their labour or some tools these things happen organically usually they are part of the rhythm of the society and it is difficult for that to be projectised and turned into a programme and from my reading of these situations very often conflict disruption particularly at the local level is affected by individuals rather than by organisations and I am struck by the effectiveness of the level beneath civil society organisations in other words charismatic individuals in a community who through their actions and their words are change makers their social entrepreneurs they don't have a white 4x4 and they don't have a CSO instead they are a CSO in themselves and they do things like establishing a boxing club that kids from different communities can come to you know have a good word to say about the other side so to the extent that outsiders would want to help my suggestion and I know it is really difficult and unhelpful if you are working for a foreign ministry or something is to back individuals rather than organisations to me those are the real change makers at the local level who through their micro-actions are actually affecting the greatest change and often are way ahead of political leaders and open up that space then that low level political leaders realise is free and possibly can move into so unfortunately it is not a simple answer it is one based on backing individuals and recognising that most of these changes are actually very organic we have I will give you two questions the first is from anonymous commenter thank you for your talk what challenges have you faced in measuring or documenting observing these micro-dynamics and then from Kyla thanks so much for the fascinating presentation you used the lovely example of Nelson Mandela wearing the spring walk as an unexpected and uniting gesture could you talk a bit more about how you see conflict disruption in terms of transitional justice does it have a greater role to play and if so what would conflict disruption in transitional justice settings look like that is difficult that's a really good question the first one on measuring and observing is an opportunity for me to plug the everyday peace indicators which you can check out at everydaypeaceindicators.org and for 10 years or so I've been working with a magnificent scholar in the United States Pamina Farshaw and we've been measuring these micro-changes in communities in numerous locations in communities in South Africa, Zimbabwe South Sudan, Uganda Colombia many other places and rather and excitingly we're starting doing it in a couple of cities in the United States cities that have seen citizen police violence off late so that is one way the other way it's very much in the book that Kieran has ordered for the KSEL library I'm assured is I spent a long time reading World War I and World War II diaries and autobiographies and I would say two things the first is it is absolutely stunning how peace and conflict studies actually pays very little attention to anything that happened before 1989 and when I was reading these memoirs and autobiographies they were actually packed with lessons observations of these micro-dynamics of giving food to prisoners, giving water to prisoners to statements like I hate the Nazis but I can recognize that not every German is a Nazi all sorts of things so I would recommend us actually looking at memoirs diaries, autobiographies to see these micro sociological instances of conflict disruption and of course there are lots of blogs etc coming out of more contemporary conflicts the question on how can we see conflict disruption in transitional justice again I go back to these micro sociological events that are really happening in the village in the apartment block in the cafe in a town in a village where people of different groups are living and I guess the questioner could correct me if I'm wrong but I think a lot of the focus on transitional justice is on formal activities is on judicial processes, is on right sizing and reforming the judiciary my main focus is on the very critical and the almost intimate and interpersonal but I think there we have lots of opportunities for forgiveness for moving on, for contrition for what my first employer and mentor and sadly missed a wonderful scholar John Dorby called the weak smile and the hard swallow in which I know that the guy down the street was responsible for some bad stuff that killed or injured my brother I don't like him, I'm never going to be as besty but I can reconcile with living in the same street with him so in a sense I think a lot of truly organic, highly localised transitional and transformational justice goes on in communities it doesn't involve formal acts of reconciliation or judicial processes or amnesty in a sense people issue an amnesty by getting on with life shopping in the same corner store as them it doesn't involve the big statement the grand gesture it's those micro-actions so I in a way I think it's micro-level transitional and transformational justice in action rather than the sort of large capital transitional justice Thanks, just to remind you if you have questions put them in the Q&A box rather than the chat, that would be super a couple of questions I think they're kind of linked along the same lines, Laura Mitchell following on Laura Martin's comments was asking I was saying are you, is what you're getting at really about disruptive practices perhaps not exclusively but practices which disrupt or undermine conflict and polarising pressures so I'm asking a question you mentioned the rubbish crisis in Lebanon people lending labour or tools would you say that basic necessity is the strongest driver of these behaviours so I guess it's about the nature of the behaviours or the practices you're talking about and in another case in particular is it something to do with when it just becomes a basic necessity that you tend to get this time those are good questions to Laura I'm talking about practices and actions and stances I think it would be very good for peace and conflict to pay more attention to the notion of stance as well as action you know actions very often we can see them and they're easier to identify and to study but also it's worth paying attention to a stance to a set of beliefs and how that translates into how you live, who you welcome into your house who you socialise with the language that you use and fundamentally as the sociologist John Brewer has made clear everyday peace and disruption is a logic as well it's a mode of thinking in terms of whether this manifests itself more easily in times of necessity or when people need to access or meet basic needs I think a little but actually I think what makes this more these forms of conflict disruption more noteworthy is that people don't have to think this way they don't have to take these actions there is a volunteeristic nature to them there is a sense of putting your head above the parapet of standing against the tide there could be an element of bravery in this so I think the driver actually it would be sociality the recognition that other people who identify differently from me are human as well there may be an element of self-interest in terms of reciprocity I do something for you in the hope and expectation that you will return the favour and also there may be an element of solidarity standing with the other because you recognise there is righteousness in their cause or in their being I'm thinking of all of those people who for example stand with refugees and migrants who go out of their way to help whether it's giving free legal advice or shelter or material assistance etc there certainly could be an element of basic need but I think this actually goes a little beyond that There's an excellent question here from Kathleen Jennings I'm going to read it out in full the point about conflict not being totalising is an important corrective to those macro or broad brush perspectives on conflict at the same time and echoing the question we had before about symbols and signals in conflict disruption but at the micro or everyday level there seems to be a strong connection between conflict and identity if the football kit you wear or the store you shop in or the school you go to etc it's not just connected to but it's constitutive of your identity and your place in the world and these are necessarily understood in positive or expressively in relation to that conflict then how isn't this also a totalising experience where everyday conflict itself is constitutive if you could pronounce that word Roger that would really do me a favour of identity Hello Kathleen very good to hear from you and you know since you're in Norway the islands that we're always welcome humanitarian aid from advanced nations like Norway it's a really good question and I think it gets back to this issue that that human beings are not designed to have one identity we're not designed to be consistent we update like software over time we as I say we're not consistent we are awkward we don't say what people expect us to say we don't act in ways that people expect us to act we have the capacity sometimes if the situation allows to subvert, to resist to provide alternative narratives so I think the answer to your question and it's one for discussion is very much about the dynamic non singular nature and how okay I accept that in conflict societies and indeed many societies that lots of people are content and encouraged and conditioned to display a single identity the dominant identity you know we're all whatever behind the cause and we all our passports and believe that we share something some identity but I think that conflict disruption is able to take opportunities from those who realize that identity is not singular that there is space for divergence and difference and very often I think this is an age and stage thing and often it's linked to a certain level of maturity and experience where people realize that you know what the other side aren't that bad they're not all demons with cloven hooves they're not all the same you know there's yet another political leader saying exactly the same thing and pretending to speak on behalf of me and at some stage in life I think it's a bit sick of that and you know I realize that after living through the 15th election in which the base has been sectarianized and the same divisive slogans are employed that perhaps there are alternative ways of thinking and they observe that well hang on that guy down the road seems quite decent you know although he's politically on the other side you know helped me out when I needed to change attire on my car he helped me out when I was in need so I think the answer lies in the wonderful inconsistency of our identity Excellent a couple of questions I will bring together one came early on in your talk actually which was about prisons of war but it was anonymous comment just asking is it worth also considering the peaceful acts of those who choose to be captured as well as those who did the capturing so I assume talking perhaps about the second world war as an example rather than continuing to participate in the slaughter they were often celebrated alongside others with the black poppy and then Carla asked a question just generally about agency which I think is related there just wondering if you could say a little bit more about it in the context of that discussion if you have anything to add about how important agency is she says I'm very interested in what you mentioned regarding agency I wonder if you could say a bit more about it Yeah it's a good point on the on the sort of voluntary being taken prisoner and I had really thought that much about it and it doesn't come up hugely in the autobiographies yeah because very often in the autobiographies you know people very often they're written in a way that is obviously it's a bit like social media no one posts a picture of themselves third in the queue at Tesco it's too dull and it's pathetic you know we all have these amazing achievements so a lot of the autobiographies if someone is taken prisoner they've fought to the last round you know they've have a bayonet in their mouth etc etc and in the case of the German ones very often it's a case of the those who survived were too busy trying to make their way west in March and April 1945 you know and very often they would say you know they are about anti-nazis etc they never bought into it all of course they would say that but usually their main aim isn't to foreshorten the war it's understandably to save their skins but certainly there are a lot of acts of acts of non-violence in war so for example things like localised ceasefires of not shelling the trenches of the other side of firing over of firing long or firing short on the understanding that the other side will do the same so they're engaging in the performativity of violence to try to satisfy their generals who are safely in the chateau 15 miles behind the front line but they are trying to engage in reciprocal acts of non-violence say more about agency well if you're a KCL student I'm assured that Kieran has ordered the e-copy of the book and by the end of the week you'll be able to read chapter 3 which is on power and agency but I think the key point I would make is that it's very useful for us to see those small subtle acts of agency that happen at the level of the individual, the family the community not these big ticket look at me actions by political leaders and also to look at many of these tiny pro-social pro-peace actions as forms of power so in the book I call it everyday peace power in a way I think peace and conflict studies has to take power away from the realists in international relations and to see power all around us or agency all around us and to see it in more emancipatory and liberated ways Thank you very much there's a question here from Catherine McCulloch about today Northern Ireland is often termed as being in a supposedly post-conflict situation can you see a way of using the conflict disruption concept as a way of investigating what's going on in societies that pass them from everyday violence to peace I want to tack on a broader question perhaps for the benefit of our students and all of us really obviously we'll all be reading your book Roger as soon as it's in the King's Library catalogue or for those that want to buy a copy online and I'm sure in your conclusions it very neatly sets out the key takeaways but what is it ideally that you would like us to take from this is it about correcting or thinking about something in the way we view and understand things paying more attention to these processes these things that perhaps are left out of the existing studies or is it also, is there a practical element to this is also about thinking about what should be done or not done so maybe it's anti-intervention or it's trying to avoid certain interventions it would be helpful to hear what you have to say on that Yes Hello Catherine Catherine is at the other side of the town, small town in Northern Ireland I'm currently in, we've had awful weather today haven't we the I think the basis of the question is very important and we can think about this in terms of many societies you know in the Balkans and elsewhere and that is when does a post-conflict society stop being a post-conflict society and become a society and very often the language that we use you know my use of the term post-conflict if I talk about if I refer to Maastar as post-conflict Maastar I'm actually reinforcing the conflictness of Maastar so I think the language that we all use in peace and conflict studies is unfortunately part of the conflict system and often reinforces that in terms of using conflict disruption as a way of investigating how these societies are transitioning hopefully away from violence and division then I think we can see you know conflict disruption all around us we can see those actors, those individuals those groups, those communities that are iconoclastic that are acting against the single identity type that are taking those small steps that are constitutive of a different way of thinking so I think you know we can involve ourselves in conflict disruption spotting or identifying who the disruptors are or what those acts of disruption might be unfortunately it's one of those things that is easier to spot in hindsight rather than somehow how predict and of course with all actions, all social actions there can be unintended or unanticipated outcomes so acts of disruption might actually encourage conflict actors to redouble their conflict efforts to discipline the in-group to make an example of someone who who has been overly friendly with people from the other side and Rachel's question is a very good one and echoes questions that we've had earlier which is one that pointy headed academics like myself get a lot which is nice conceptualization but what do I who work in the real world what am I meant to do with this or make of it so it's a very good question and one that I take seriously I think first of all I think what the notion of conflict disruption might help with is how we think about conflict to think about it in a much less linear way to think about it as a system a peace and conflict system so it's all integrated and also to think about those particular moments in which disruption can happen I think if we have a term for it we can identify it better and we can identify disruptors and as I said before and this is I guess particularly because I'm interested in the micro sociological in the very local, the hyper local we can identify those individuals who are the disruptors we can identify those individuals who see peace as a verb as well as being a noun who can through their own social entrepreneurship disrupt the narrative who can think in different ways who talk in different ways so I think it really is about identifying individuals at the micro level and backing in a sense backing winners I think I don't know your background Rachel but I suspect you're probably extraordinarily well versed in conflict management and you probably have lots of on the ground experience but I don't think we're in the territory of setting up a conflict disruption institute in a deeply divided society or a conflict disruption unit or whatever instead we're thinking about a very responsive form of conflict transformation response that is focused at the hyper local level that is experimental that backs individuals rather than organisations and also approaches approaches conflict sideways on rather than directly so you know for example you know sets up or encourages the setting up of that darts group that humans darts league rather than identifying this as a peace and reconciliation initiative just get on with the cultural providing those spaces that can be populated by those who are best placed to spot the opportunities for those beautiful weeds to grow Excellent thank you very much that might be a good place for us to finish what was a question quite early on which I neglected to come to I don't know if you wanted to comment on it Roger it was about the perspective of homogeneity that you talked about being false the idea that societies of homogenous whether that linked to collective punishment I think you maybe kind of covered it as you spoke I mean certainly in situations where we can see collective punishment being meted out to communities it is indiscriminate the very notion of collective punishment answers the question it does not differentiate between younger old the zealot and the moderate and that's why I think we need to be careful with the language we use about the other to make sure that you know for example not all Afghans are the same sometimes in the past week have we heard the category Afghans Afghanistan is not Afghanistan does not exist as a country as a nation state it is an imaginary just as every country on the planet is an imaginary you know the United Kingdom is ferociously disunited the notion that it can be represented by one individual or one rather short set of pithy phrases is based on an imaginary so I think it's worth paying quite a lot of attention to the language that we use and how that can actually reinforce the conflicts that we're all interested in reducing Excellent thank you very much Roger I think we'll leave it there so thanks everyone for your questions really great questions and the book will also be available for King students and for everyone else we'll put a link in the chat you can find out more about the book there as well Roger thanks so much for speaking to us and we will hopefully hear from you again in the not too distant future at King's and keep an eye out for all your comment applications and stuff see you soon Thank you very much and thank you everyone for attending and I can see lots of people I know Tiffany, Shumpei Ranook sorry I'm name checking but in the olden days I would have a coffee with all of you Laura, Kathleen Dylan, hello Dylan Catherine lots of others so thank you very much for attending and I hope to meet you in person soon Just to add the recording will be made available on the Walls for this YouTube so if you loved it so much you just have to watch it again and you want to share it with others it will be on the Walls for this YouTube channel so keep an eye out there Great and thank you very much Kieran for sharing