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Research shows that war affects various groups of survivors differently, yet the severe consequences faced by war widows are often overlooked. Combining insights from fieldwork in Sri Lanka with secondary sources, we conclude that the time is ripe for the daunting challenges of war widows to be brought into the limelight. We argue that widowhood after war is conditioned both by the post-war context and society’s gendered constructions. The social expectations that follow pose ­exceptional trials in everyday life for war widows globally. As an important case and illustrative example, we analyse Sri Lanka: a decade ago emerging from civil war; today, in dire need of economic and political transformation. We demonstrate how war widows are caught in the crossfire of demographic change, post-war insecurities, economic hardship, and gender discriminating norms and traditions. This unseen group of survivors play a critical role for the prospects for economic, social and political development in the transition from war to peace, in Sri Lanka and beyond. We conclude by calling for a concerted effort wherein research and policy come together to outline a new research and policy agenda with the aim of lessening the burden of war widows.

Truth telling processes, initiatives to prosecute war-time perpetrators, and ex-combatant reintegration are examples of common peacebuilding practices after war. Yet, little is known of how women are affected by peacebuilding initiatives such as these, or how they perceive these initiatives for peace. For many women, peace after war does not bring peace to everyday life; research shows that domestic violence increases during and after war. In addition, some peacebuilding measures have been found to increase risk and insecurity, not least for women. To better understand the interconnections between gender and post-conflict attitudes to peacebuilding, we asked 2,041 women and men in Sri Lanka and Nepal of their views on post-war peace initiatives. In line with our expectations, we find that women are more skeptical than men towards peacebuilding measures that involve increased risk in everyday life, such as truth-telling and coexisting with former adversaries and warring groups reintegrating in local communities. There are no gender differences pertaining to peacebuilding initiatives that take place far away at the national level, for example, concerning accountability or, in the case of Nepal, the peace agreement. Our findings suggest that international peacebuilding practice is blind to the everyday insecurities of women after war. That a basic gendered lens is missing from most peacebuilding designs is both alarming and deeply troubling, but identifying this critical aspect provides the opportunity for imperative change. By shedding light on the challenges women face after war, we hope this article contributes to finding ways to mitigate unknown and unintended side-effects of peacebuilding efforts, and thereby to the development of better, evidence-based peacebuilding practice–of benefit to both men and women.

As medicine strives to find cures to illness, peace researchers strive to find cures for war-broken societies. To this end, we depend on learning from people who have survived political violence, in sensitive conflict settings. There is increasing awareness of the imperative of ethical reflection before, during and after ‘fieldwork’. However, the rocky road of doing the actual fieldwork in conflict settings is seldom part of our polished articles. The messiness, the ethical dilemmas, our hesitations, mistakes, regrets remain hidden. We argue this needs to change. We believe it is time for conflict-research to join the novel self-reflexive footsteps of neuroscience and psychology, and build a research culture of reflection and honesty, which includes the sharing of mistakes. If not, we will inevitably continue making the same mistakes over and over again. Reflexive honesty will make our research sustainable ethically, scientifically, and financially. Our aim with this article is to open such a conversation by sharing some recent experiences of fieldwork in Nepal: what went well, what we did wrong, and what we learned in this process. Hopefully, by sharing our lessons learned we can together, in time, make conflict research safer, richer, and more meaningful – for everyone involved.

Throughout history, those who have participated in political violence have predominantly been male young adults. At the same time, we know that most young men will not use violence for political protest. So what distinguishes those who do from those who do not? In this article, we link psychological research on the intergenerational effects of violence in the family to violence in the political arena. We ask to what extent experiences of violence as a child are associated with participation in political violence as an adult. Our overarching argument is that family-of-origin violence may not only have serious negative, intergenerational effects on health and well-being but also on future spirals of violence for the individual. Family-of-origin violence may also lead to an increased risk of using violence for political purposes due to the diffusion of violence norms, whereby violence is seen as a just and appropriate response to conflict. We test this claim using micro-level data from the Survey on Gender, Politics, and Violence in Thailand, conducted in 2012-2013. For our analyses, we zoom in on men from a specific cluster sample of the survey: 200 political activist interviewees—100 Red Shirts and 100 Yellow Shirts. The results support our claim. We find that experiences of family violence as a child increase the risk of participating in political violence as an adult among male political activists in Thailand. Our study suggests one imperative policy implication: Violence prevention measures at the individual level—against corporal punishment of children or violence against women—may have critical implications also for decreasing the risk for and prevalence of political violence and armed conflict in society.

After war, does truth telling lead to more peaceful attitudes between former enemies? This book is the first to study the over-time effect of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process on people’s attitudes towards peace. Focusing on the Solomon Islands TRC process, one of the least known or studied TRC processes in the world, and using surveys, focus groups and in depth interviews, the book reveals some critical issues for peacebuilding. For example, while support of the TRC was consistently quite strong over the two years of the study, there was a sharp decline in trust in the process as well as a significant increase in distrust and suspicion towards ex-combatants over the two-year period. The book shows that the ex-combatants did not feel safe to tell the truth in the TRC and had therefore decided beforehand what to say in the hearings. A systematic telling of untruths thereby took place, severely undermining relationships and peacebuilding in the country. The book weaves the findings from the Solomon Islands with experiences of other post-conflict truth telling process around the world, and suggests practical guidelines for future TRC processes after war.

Who participates in political violence? In this study, we investigate the issue at the micro-level, comparing individuals who have used violence in political uprising with those who have not. We develop our argument from the observation that men are strongly overrepresented in political violence, although most men do not participate. Literature on masculinities emphasizes the role of honor and its links to different forms of violence, such as domestic abuse, criminal violence, and violent attitudes. Building on this literature, we discern two separate but related aspects of honor: honor as male societal privilege and control over female sexuality, i.e., patriarchal values, and honor as ideals of masculine toughness, i.e., the perceived necessity for men to be fierce and respond to affronts with violence or threats of violence in order to preserve status. We argue that patriarchal values combined with ideals of masculine toughness together constitute honor ideology, which contributes in turn to the explanation of who participates in political violence. We present new and unique individual-level survey data on these issues, collected in Thailand. We find that honor ideology strongly and robustly predicts a higher likelihood of participating in political violence among male political activists. A number of previous studies find a macro-level relationship between gender equality and peacefulness in a society. This study provides evidence for one micro-level mechanism linking gender equality and political violence at the macro-level. Based on these results, we conclude that honor ideology endorsement is a driver of violence in political conflicts.

While some studies suggest that women hold more peaceful attitudes than man, few studies have explored this question in the context of post-conflict countries. We argue that women, in this context, may in fact hold more negative views regarding attitudes of relevance for peacebuilding, for three reasons. First, the ways in which women are negatively affected by armed conflict are generally not sufficiently prioritized in the post-conflict period. Second, women and men are often subjected to different types of violence during armed conflict and the types of violence affecting women may to a larger extent carry stigma. Third, women are more likely to develop PTSD after traumatic events. These three factors all lead us to expect women to hold more negative towards peacebuilding. We explore these interconnections using data from a survey fielded in three post-conflict countries: Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland. Our preliminary analysis indicates support for our proposition, as women, for instance, are less positive than men towards truth-telling initiatives, less willing to allow refugees and ex-combatants return to their homes, and less likely to support amnesties.

This report presents results from a research project that studied the links between the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)and the country’s peace building process.The aim of the research was to study the effects of the TRC process on people’s attitudes towards issues that are important for peace, for example trust, coexistence, the TRC, and ex-combatants. A total of around 1,900 Solomon Islanders participated in the research, insurveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews in 2011 and 2013. The project was conducted with support from the Solomon Islands TRC, Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, and Ministry of Peace, Unity and Reconciliation. The New Zealand Tearfund and the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund funded the project. The fieldwork was conducted in collaboration with Pasifiki Ltd, Honiara. In this report, the main results of the study are summarised. Hopefully, the findings may be of use to Solomon Islands Ministries, Churches, NGOs and others working with peace building in the Solomon Islands.