Emerging Trends in Peace Professionalism
Institutional Affiliation
Civilian Peace Service Canada
Start Date
2-11-2023 10:45 AM
End Date
2-11-2023 12:15 PM
Proposal Type
Presentation
Proposal Format
Virtual
Proposal Description
Increasingly, there are tensions shaping the processes of professionalizing peace work, often born out of a desire to improve the planning, implementation, and evaluation of peace programs at the regional, national, and international levels. Peace scholars, practitioners, and policymakers realize that technical and tacit knowledge alone cannot produce desired or actionable peace outcomes given the internal and constitutive aspects of peace workers (the need for intentional effort to develop oneself as a peace worker through training, well-designed studies, and guided, practical efforts), and organizational interests which influence how peace practitioners approach their roles. (e.g., UN peacekeepers and personnel) have been called into question in post-conflict settings where the processes of reconciliation and inter-community healing are fragile. Not only has this increased the calls for better training of peace workers, but it has also reinforced the need for an integrated, coordinated, and cross-sector approach to peace professionalism.
The presentation will be solution-oriented in that it proposes specific and practical steps towards peace professionalism that can serve peace researchers, practitioners and advocates. In keeping with the growing recognition that effective peacebuilding requires both skills and values (in other words ‘being’ peace as well as ‘knowing and doing’ peace).
More specifically, the paper will introduce the emerging trends in peace professionalism and refer to action research underway.
The anticipated learning outcomes of this session are as follows:
- Participants will have a greater understanding of emerging theoretical perspectives in peace professionalism;
- Participants will also have an opportunity to assess and reflect on their own values, competencies, and positionality through experiential self-learning exercises and their implications vis-à-vis peacebuilding processes; and
- Finally, participants will be able to identify varying ways of bridging the growing knowledge-practice gap between academics, practitioners, and policymakers on cross-cutting issues surrounding peace professionalism.
Emerging Trends in Peace Professionalism
Increasingly, there are tensions shaping the processes of professionalizing peace work, often born out of a desire to improve the planning, implementation, and evaluation of peace programs at the regional, national, and international levels. Peace scholars, practitioners, and policymakers realize that technical and tacit knowledge alone cannot produce desired or actionable peace outcomes given the internal and constitutive aspects of peace workers (the need for intentional effort to develop oneself as a peace worker through training, well-designed studies, and guided, practical efforts), and organizational interests which influence how peace practitioners approach their roles. (e.g., UN peacekeepers and personnel) have been called into question in post-conflict settings where the processes of reconciliation and inter-community healing are fragile. Not only has this increased the calls for better training of peace workers, but it has also reinforced the need for an integrated, coordinated, and cross-sector approach to peace professionalism.
The presentation will be solution-oriented in that it proposes specific and practical steps towards peace professionalism that can serve peace researchers, practitioners and advocates. In keeping with the growing recognition that effective peacebuilding requires both skills and values (in other words ‘being’ peace as well as ‘knowing and doing’ peace).
More specifically, the paper will introduce the emerging trends in peace professionalism and refer to action research underway.
The anticipated learning outcomes of this session are as follows:
- Participants will have a greater understanding of emerging theoretical perspectives in peace professionalism;
- Participants will also have an opportunity to assess and reflect on their own values, competencies, and positionality through experiential self-learning exercises and their implications vis-à-vis peacebuilding processes; and
- Finally, participants will be able to identify varying ways of bridging the growing knowledge-practice gap between academics, practitioners, and policymakers on cross-cutting issues surrounding peace professionalism.