Community Peace Work in Sri Lanka: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

This paper looks at community peace work in Sri Lanka, and represents work in its early stages. It provides a view of peace work from the perception of a Sri Lankan community peace activist. The popular practice of treating community peace work as an apolitical exercise will be challenged. An overview of the meta-narratives of the Sri Lankan conflict will be provided, since these inform the broader analytic context which needs to be understood for successful community peace work to be undertaken. Community peace building practice, which draws from knowledge of the international conflict resolution discourse, is treated as just one `peace¿ approach among several. Community level work is seen as one contribution to the overall peace effort in finding a resolution to the Sri Lankan conflict.