Raising Silent Voices: Harnessing local knowledge for communities' protection from violence in Myanmar

生活在暴力冲突中的平民，就像每一个经历过冲突的人一样，知道谁卷入了冲突，知道历史是什么使冲突变得更糟，还是减轻了对他们的影响。他们拥有冲突之外的人所不具备的知识。国际机构和非政府组织的主要和平与冲突干预策略始于评估冲突局势，使用基于西方对冲突轨迹、社区恢复力和和平建设的理解的模型，并与局外人的理解。虽然当地居民可能参与其中，但他们的知识很少为干预和支持策略提供信息。这项研究将显示将当地的、有争议的知识置于干预战略中心的重要性，赋予当地人民权力和能力，并可能使干预更有效。该研究以缅甸克伦族和孟族地区的当地冲突知识为案例，培训当地研究人员使用讲故事、艺术和工艺方法，使当地人能够以文化上适当的方式表达和分享他们的知识，通过这种方式，他们分享他们对冲突、暴力和和平战略的理解。他们所产生的内容将被映射到当地合作伙伴现有的冲突分析中，以分析主题和差距。当地的合作伙伴是非暴力和平部队，这是一个非政府组织，为世界各地的当地社区提供非武装的平民维和和平民保护。他们自2012年以来一直在缅甸，这项研究的结果将使他们能够更好地捕捉和利用当地关于冲突、暴力与和平的知识，为未来的项目选择提供信息。这项国际性和创新性的研究将对当地人民产生影响，使他们的声音更响亮、更清晰，对非暴力和平部队干预产生影响，可能使其更有效，并对冲突分析的学术和政策方法产生影响，“地方”，以及用于理解冲突与和平的知识类型。它跨越了和平与冲突研究和艺术学科，增加了方法和我们教授冲突知识的方式。

Civilians living amidst violent conflict, like everyone experiencing conflict, know who is involved, the history what it makes it worse or lessens the impact on them. They have knowledge that those outside the conflict do not possess. The dominant peace and conflict intervention strategies of international agencies and NGOs begin with assessing the conflict situation using models based on western understanding of conflict trajectories, community resilience and peacebuilding, with an outsiders understanding. Although local people may be involved, their knowledge is rarely informing intervention and support strategies. This research will show the importance of placing local, contested, knowledge in the centre of intervention strategies, empowering and enabling local people and potentially making interventions more effective.The research takes a case study of local conflict knowledge in Karen and Mon areas of Myanmar, training local researchers to use storytelling, arts and craft approaches to enable local people to represent and share their knowledge in culturally appropriate ways, through which they share their understanding of the conflicts, violence and peace strategies. The content of what they produce will be mapped onto the existing conflict analysis of the local partner in order to analyse the themes and gaps.The local partner is Nonviolent Peaceforce, an NGO who provide unarmed civilian peacekeeping and protection of civilians to local communities around the world. They have been in Myanmar since 2012 and the results of this research will enable them to be more able to capture and use local knowledge about the conflicts, violence and peace to inform future project choices.This international and innovative research will impact on local people by making their voices louder and clearer, on Nonviolent Peaceforce interventions by potentially making them more effective, and on academic and policy approaches to conflict analysis, 'the local', and the types of knowledge used in understanding conflict and peace. It crosses peace and conflict studies and arts disciplines, adding methodologically and to the way we teach about conflict knowledge.