Young People and Peacebuilding Keynote

From DiverseYouthNI Instagram

It was fantastic to deliver the keynote address on "Young People and Peacebuilding" at the INSPIRE NOW! 2.0 Conference, a flagship, youth-led event that brought together young people from across these islands. 

My focus was on the positive contributions young people can make to peace, drawing on the insights from UN Resolution 2250. I emphasised the significance of inclusion and participation, the need for creative approaches to peacebuilding, and the importance of enhancing critical thinking while encouraging young people to challenge the status quo. 

It is always inspiring to hear the voices of young people and understand their priorities, particularly from those who have recently moved to Northern Ireland. Their passion for social change was truly infectious.

Bonfires for Peace? What Northern Ireland can learn from Sierra Leone

In the heart of Sierra Leone, community bonfires are transforming societies, while in Northern Ireland, similar traditions can deepen divisions.

In Sierra Leone, the organisation Fambul Tok (“Family Talk” in Krio) uses traditional bonfire ceremonies for community healing. Initially, meetings around the bonfire focused on addressing grievances from the brutal civil war (1991–2002), such as dealing with stolen property, exile of community members, or even more serious issues, such as integrating former child soldiers or even murder. These carefully planned and facilitated gatherings, sometimes taking months to prepare, provided spaces for confession, apology, and forgiveness.

But today, as I learned during a recent visit, these bonfire ceremonies have evolved. As the war recedes into history, these ceremonies now address contemporary local conflicts, from disputes over development priorities to family and community disagreements that threaten community cohesion. Fambul Tok sees such dispute resolution as essential to a healthy community and economic progress.

The irony isn’t lost on those of us living in Northern Ireland, where bonfires serve as annual flashpoints of tension. While we can’t directly compare the societies, Sierra Leone’s experience offers two crucial insights for Northern Ireland.

Bonfire Ceremony in Sierra Leone, photo by Libby Hoffman

 

First, it shows that bonfires need not be instruments of division. While we cannot simply transplant their model into our different historical context, it challenges us to reimagine how traditions might evolve. Perhaps we need to carefully reconsider Northern Ireland’s bonfires within the framework of a long-term peace plan not as symbols of division but as potential touchstones for peace and reconciliation.

Second, Sierra Leone illustrates a truth Northern Ireland has long ignored: no meaningful development can occur without first mending broken relationships. As Fambul Tok aptly stated, putting resources into a community with unresolved conflicts is like pouring water into a bucket full of holes. The view in Sierra Leone is that sustainable development can only take root after repairing these holes — through relationship-building and reconciliation work at all levels of society.

This insight exposes a critical blind spot in Northern Ireland’s approach to development. The recently released draft Programme for Government speaks optimistically of building “a globally competitive, sustainable, and inclusive economy which benefits everyone.” Yet, it largely ignores how deeply communal divisions undermine these aspirations.

Community and economic development in Northern Ireland is messy. Basic infrastructure projects become proxy battles over which community will “really” benefit, whether we are talking roads, bridges or stadiums. The inability to transcend these divisions leads to absurd inefficiencies: duplicate community centres built in close proximity to service Catholic and Protestant communities respectively, a catalogue of shelved projects due to political differences after spending millions on initial consultations, under-populated schools within walking distance of each other because educational integration is opposed, and segregated housing developments that force people to travel great distances to access services.

Northern Ireland faces a clear choice. We can continue pretending that economic development alone, peppered with nominal “sharing” initiatives, will heal divisions, while watching as resources drain through the holes in our communal fabric. Or we can learn from Sierra Leone’s example, acknowledging that genuine progress requires us to actively and continuously mend relationships.

The path forward isn’t easy. Unlike Sierra Leone’s bonfires, which serve as catalysts for healing, Northern Ireland’s traditions remain stubbornly divisive. There’s also a deep fear that linking ongoing political division and economic development will paralyse progress. Yet that’s precisely why we need to heed Sierra Leone’s lesson: transformative change begins not with grand economic plans and platitudes about peace through prosperity but with the patient, deliberate work of rebuilding trust within and between communities and at the political level.

Development isn’t just about building new roads, attracting investment, or constructing schools and hospitals — it’s dependent on building bridges within and between communities and moving forward together. Until we commit to that harder task, we will continue to pour our resources into a fundamentally leaky bucket.

Published by Brandon Hamber in the Derry Journal, 29 November 2024.

Inaugural John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair Peace Lecture

The inaugural John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair Peace Lecture took place on 20 September 2024 at the Derry-Londonderry Campus of Ulster University, in partnership with the Hume O’Neill Chair and the John and Pat Hume Foundation.

The lecture was delivered by Taoiseach Simon Harris TD, who paid tribute to the peacebuilding efforts of John Hume and Tip O’Neill while reaffirming the Irish Government's commitment to deepening peace on the island.

In his address, Taoiseach Harris stated:

"We are also witnessing a new era in British-Irish relations. My recent meetings with Prime Minister Keir Starmer have set in motion a much-needed reset of relations between our two Governments. I have always believed – and this remains unshakable – that the peace process thrives when the British and Irish Governments act in full partnership as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. Unilateralism failed in the past... Today, we are restoring a genuine sense of partnership, ensuring we address the critical issues that underpin lasting peace, progress, and reconciliation."

The lecture highlighted the importance of collaboration in fostering peace and rebuilding trust across political traditions on the island.

Beyond Intragroup Betrayal: New Article

Continuing our work on the issue of betrayal in peacebuilding Wilhem Verwoerd, Alistair Little and Brandon Hamber have published a new article.

The article was published in the Peacebuilding journal entitled "Beyond intragroup betrayal during intergroup relational peacebuilding". 

You can download the article here, open access.

This article addresses a neglected human cost of relational peacebuilding, identified in an earlier article on ‘peace as betrayal’. The focus here is how relational peacebuilders can respond to painful accusations of betrayal by family-type group members evoked by working with the ‘other side’. Continuing to draw on the reflections of experienced peace practitioners from South Africa, the Israel-Palestine region and the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, a contrasting distinction is made between two routes: a ‘clarification’ route that explains why working with ‘them’ is not a betrayal of ‘us’ vs a ‘counter-critique’ response that attempts to turn the traitor tables on the accusers. An evaluative discussion of the counter-critique route explores the pitfalls of political abuse, avoidance of shared responsibility and underestimating ‘thin’ relations (Margalit), as well as the complementary potential of the clarification and the counter-critique routes beyond peace as betrayal.

Psychosocial Issues and Peacebuilding Paper

Community Meeting, Colombia (Credit: Brandon Hamber)

Today I presented a short paper entitled "Mind the past to build the future: Systematic attention for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) inpeacebuilding efforts". The presentation was part of a member state consultation hosted by Stabilisation and Humanitarian Aid Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch Government. The initiative is run by the Dutch Government to find opportunities to enable international bodies, tasked with building sustainable peace, to integrate psychosocial aspects in all stages of their work.

In the member state consultation I was asked to give a brief insight into the psychosocial dynamics that need to be analysed and addressed when working on the peace-conflict continuum, and the value-added of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in peacebuilding efforts. Also, to focus on the importance of ongoing efforts to integrate MHPSS in peacebuilding. I based my remarks here on a chapter written for a large-scale research project into psychosocial issues and peacebuilding carried out by myself and colleagues.

You can download my paper here.

Professor Erin Baines Visits Belfast

In December 2017 Professor Erin Baines, Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) at the University of British Columbia, visited Belfast.

The purpose of the trip was to explore ongoing partnerships and also engage with Ulster University MSc, LLM and PhD students. Professor Baines offered two classes on focusing on her work in Uganda entitled "Children & Futurities" and a second research focused workshop entitled "De-colonial approaches to research on violence".

We also got some time to do some writing, and wider than this her and I outlined some future plans for joint co-operation and research. I look forward to continuing to work with her.

Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

My with Grainne Kelly continued in 2017 focused on the concept of reconciliation. In 2017 they spoke at two high-level events in Northern Ireland. The first with The Executive Office and staff as they consider the role of reconciliation in the draft Programme for Government and Together: Building a United Community (TBUC). They participants and delivered the keynote address at a further seminar at the “Together: Building a United Community Engagement Forum” on 15 June 2017, with the Executive Office (TEO) and over 160 community practitioners, policymakers and academics that took place at the Girdwood Community Hub.

Refugee Law Project Summer Institute

In Mid-May 2017 I visited Uganda again as part of the Summer Institute focusing on “Men’s and Women’s Relations in Coercive Settings” (17-19 May 2017) hosted by the Refugee Law Project (RLP) and in War Partnership (CSiW). As part of the event I participated in a 2-day long workshops run by RLP and partners with men who were former combatants/abducted during the Northern Uganda war to learn from their experiences. The second part of the event was a more open conference focusing on women’s and men’s experiences of forced relationships in wartime. I am most gratfeul to Dr Chris Dolan and Professor Erin Baines for the opportunity to attend, learned a fortune.

Some of the Refugee Law Project staff

Masculinites, Violence & Post Conflict

Prof Brandon Hamber gives the closing remarks at the postgraduate conference on Masculinities, Violence and Post Conflict, 14 January 2016, Ulster University. The conference was organised by PhD students in TJI, INCORE and IRISS, and supported by International Alert, Conciliation Resources, Saferworld, and the Political Settlements Research Programme.

Problematising Masculinities, Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice

My latest piece on masculinity:Hamber, Brandon (2015). There Is a Crack in Everything: Problematising Masculinities, Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice. Human Rights Review, 1-26.

The study of masculinity, particularly in peacebuilding and transitional justice contexts, is gradually emerging. The article outlines three fissures evident in the embryonic scholarship, that is the privileging of direct violence and its limited focus, the continuities and discontinuities in militarised violence into peace time, and the tensions between new (less violent) masculinities and wider inclusive social change. The article argues for the importance of making visible the tensions between different masculinities and how masculinities are deeply entangled with systems of power and post-conflict social, political and economic outcomes. An analysis of masculine power within and between the structures aimed at building the peace in societies moving out of violence is considered essential. The article argues for an analysis that moves beyond a preoccupation with preventing violent masculinities from manifesting through the actions of individuals to considering how hidden masculine cultures operate within a variety of hierarchies and social spaces.

Click here for more details.

Keynote: Psychosocial Issues and Peacebuilding

From the 6th to the 8th of May 2015, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (South Africa) and the War Trauma Foundation (Netherlands) hosted a conference attended by 52 individuals from 15 countries around the world that explored the nexus between psychosocial needs, practice and peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict.

 Based on years of experience in the field of peacebuilding (by IJR and its partners) and a long trajectory of developing, implementing and analysing mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) projects around the world (by WTF and its partners), the two organisations partnered in bringing together academics and practitioners from both fields to explore ways in which the nexus between MHPSS and peacebuilding could be better understood.

As such, the programme was structured in such a way that practitioners could share their experiences (best practice and challenges), academics could put forward their existing research and the group as a whole could explore ways in which the two fields could begin to be brought closer together in order to contribute to the development of more sustainable and holistic interventions.

 The full conference report is available here.

 To watch my keynote address at the conference play below.

Irish Association Talk: Transforming Societies

I will be speaking at the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic and Social Relations autumn lunch on Saturday 12th Sept 2015, 12.30-1.00. My topic is 'Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Reflections on Truth, Reconciliation and Healing in South Africa and N Ireland'. Using personal experience from engagement with victims and survivors during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland, the lecture will delve into the complex interplay between individual psychological processes and macro-political interventions such as truth commissions. Specifically the lecture will explore issues such as reparations, “doing justice”, the power of ambivalence, and concepts such as closure, trauma and reconciliation setting out the role of transitional justice, human rights and mental health practitioners in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired. The lecture will take place at Stephen's Green-Hibernian Club, 9 Stephen's Grn, Dublin 2. For Details, click here.

Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding

I am delighted to announce that my new book edited with Elizabeth Gallagher is now out, Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding.

The book Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding offers a template for those dealing with the

aftermath of armed conflict to look at peacebuilding through a psychosocial lens. This Volume, and the case studies that are in it, starts from the premise that armed conflict and the political violence that flows from it, are deeply contextual and that in dealing with the impact of armed conflict, context matters. The book argues for a conceptual shift, in which psychosocial practices are not merely about treating individuals and groups with context and culturally sensitive methods and approaches: the contributors argue that such interventions and practices should in themselves shape social change. This is of critical importance because the psychosocial method continually highlights how the social context is one of the primary causes of individual psychological distress.

The chapters in this book describe experiences within very different contexts, including Guatemala, Jerusalem, Indian Kashmir, Mozambique, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The common thread between the case studies is that they each show how psychosocial interventions and practices can influence the peacebuilding environment and foster wider social change.

Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding is essential reading for social and peace psychologists, as well as for students and researchers in the field of conflict and peace studies, and for psychosocial practitioners and those working in post-conflict areas for NGO’s.

Interested in a copy, you can buy from Amazon, or directly from Springer.

You can also get updates on the book by visiting the Facebook Page.

30th International Congress of Psychology

I will be at the 30th International Congress of Psychology between 22-27 July 2012. This year it is held in Cape Town, South Africa. I will be involved in several presentations.

On Monday 23 July 2012, I will hosting a symposium at 11am, entitled "From the individual to the collective: Exploring social transformation through psychosocial Interventions". This symposium will report on the findings of Trauma, Peacebuilding and Development project with various authors of the case studies speaking. I will also present, with with Dr Elizabeth Gallagher our research on "Youth, masculinity, the past, and conceptualisations of trauma in post-conflict Northern Ireland".

On the Tuesday the 24th I am part of a symposium focusing on the issue of reparations after violent conflict entitled "Surviving gross human rights violations - exploring survivors' experience of justice and reparation". I will give a paper at 4:30pm called "Healing political wounds: The role of macro interventions in assisting victims of political violence".

Community based rehabilitation

Have not got to this yet, but it looks interesting: "Community based rehabilitation: a strategy for peace-building by William Boyce, Michael Koros and Jennifer Hodgson". The blurb on it reads: "Certain features of peace-building distinguish it from peacekeeping, and make it an appropriate strategy in dealing with vertical conflict and low intensity conflict. However, some theorists suggest that attempts, through peace-building, to impose liberal values upon non-democratic cultures are misguided and lack an ethical basis. We have been investigating the peace-building properties of community based approaches to disability in a number of countries. This paper describes the practice and impact of peace-building through Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) strategies in the context of armed conflict". Get the article from BMC International Health and Human Rights.

Peacebuilding and Post-conflict Situations

David Becker and Brandon Hamber will run a workshop for OPSI entitled "Peacebuilding and Post-conflict Situations". The workshop is for the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC or DEZA). It takes place in Maputo, Mozambique on 31 March to 4 April 2002.