This project aims to assess the impact of the ongoing collaboration between international volunteers and the Palestinian community in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank. With the Palestinian residents facing violence from Israeli settlers, particularly towards school children, Operazione Colomba (OC) has provided essential support by accompanying them through UCP. It is crucial to evaluate how this partnership has influenced safety and well-being. The project focuses on understanding OC role in creating a sense of security between 2018 and 2023, aligned with the nonviolent resistance efforts led by the Palestinian community, and the ability in remaining responsive to the needs.

The project pilots the participatory evaluation methodology developed by the Creating Safer Space network in a workshop series with academics and practitioners.

Project Team:
The project is lead by Association Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII (Operation Dove / Operazione Colomba), Italy, in collaboration with Youth of Sumud, Palestine.

Website:
https://www.operazionecolomba.it/en/projects/middle-east/palestine/

Towards the security of diverse and vulnerable populations in socio-segregated environments

This project investigates from a participatory methodological design the impacts of actions carried out by grassroots organisations in violent and socio-segregated urban contexts in the city of Cali on these territories and on the perceptions and realities among the diverse populations that are settled there. Specifically, it focuses on how actions and perceptions of security and protection relate to identity and territory among these populations.

The project pilots the participatory evaluation methodology developed by the Creating Safer Space network in a workshop series with academics and practitioners.

Project Team:

• Luisa María Colonia Zúñiga, Masterpeace Cali (principal investigator)
• Gustavo Suárez, Masterpeace Cali (investigator)

Final Report:

The final report on the project findings is available here (Spanish only):

Metodología participativa de evaluación y aprendizaje en protección civil desarmada (UCP) de Creating Safer Space: una herramienta poderosa para comprender y abordar los desafíos y estrategias de seguridad y protección pacífica de civiles en contextos urbanos violentos y
socio-segregados

Using a participatory action research design, this pilot project will engage with organizations serving migrants at the United States/Mexico border to develop tools for evaluating the impacts of unarmed civilian protection and accompaniment (UCP/A) to protect migrants in the North American border region. Meta Peace Team has been working since 2018 with US/Mexican organizations attempting to protect migrants increasingly exposed not only to violence by militarized border security on the US side of the border, but also by both police and gangs as they waited in Mexican communities. The UCP/A initiatives aim to protect migrants through accompaniment, humanitarian relief, and documentation aimed at advocacy. The pilot evaluation will assess the impacts, successes and challenges of the UCP efforts through participant observation and guided conversations with UCP/A organizers, delegation participants, and migrant leaders.

The project pilots the participatory evaluation methodology developed by the Creating Safer Space network in a workshop series with academics and practitioners.

Project Team:

• Stephen Gasteyer, Meta Peace Team / Michigan State University (principal investigator)
• Kim Redigan, Meta Peace Team (team member)
• Mary Hanna, Meta Peace Team (team member)

Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, the political turmoil caused by the regime has continued and become increasingly legalized and intensified. Thousands of people have since been killed, detained, or have fled their homes to escape the brutality of the junta. Having been left with no choice, many people have tried to flee into the nearest country, Thailand, in any way they can, some legally and some without documents. People without documents specifically are faced with many risks in Thailand, such as being searched, arrested, and deported. 

Using participatory action research (PAR) and autoethnographic methods, and working with Myanmar scholars who have fled to northern Thailand, the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) at Chiangmai University and Nonviolent Peaceforce Myanmar will work together to research refugees’ vulnerabilities as well as existing unarmed civilian protection (UCP) practices and mechanisms in the northern part of Thailand. The project will do so from the perspective of Myanmar refugees’ daily experiences, focussing on the tactics and strategies they have developed over time in order to protect themselves and others. These issues are relevant to the Creating Safer Spacenetwork’s mission to better understand vulnerabilities and protection mechanisms. 

Specifically, the study aims at understanding vulnerabilities and harms faced by Myanmar refugee scholars and the resiliency and effectiveness of civilian protection mechanisms for scholars in northern Thailand. Its findings and outputs will contribute to knowledge development, public awareness raising, and policy.

Project team:

• Dr Chayan Vaddhanaputi, Regional Center for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development (RCSD), Chiangmai University, Thailand (co-principal investigator)
• Nonviolent Peaceforce Myanmar (co-principal investigator)
• Kyaw Kyaw, Nonviolent Peaceforce Myanmar (project researcher)

The purpose of this project is to increase the understanding, visibility, preference for, and advocacy on the application of various research findings and good practices around unarmed civilian protection (UCP) in the management of conflict by state and non-state actors. To do so, it uses strategic media platforms and engages with practitioners, media houses, and civil society organisations (CSOs) in Kenya in advancing the importance of UCP. 

The activities designed to help realize this purpose include: 

(1) Conduct radio programmes to create awareness on, advocate for, and educate communities on the approaches and benefits of UCP to communities, state actors, development partners, and CSOs as a conflict management approach at the local and national levels. The radio shows will be aired on Kitwek FM Station that broadcasts to UasinGishu and other counties, and Ghetto FM radio that broadcasts in Nairobi, especially targeting populations in the informal settlements and low-income areas of the city.

(2) Conduct two trainings of two days each to build the capacity of selected media practitioners working in two counties – Uasin Gishu and Nairobi – on UCP and how to use the gained knowledge to promote UCP as an approach to conflict management. The selected journalist will be those who reported on conflict before. The trained journalists will be key in disseminating the findings of the N+ projects and UCP good practices by Rural Women Peace Link (RWPL) and Peace Tree Network (PTN).  

(3) Document and showcase in-depth stories of change of how UCP approaches have been used to successfully manage conflicts in Uasin Gishu and Nairobi counties.

Project team

• Arthur Okwemba, African Woman and Child Feature Service (project lead)

• Ruth Omukhango, African Woman and Child Feature Service

Gallery

This research studies the changing practice of UCP in Myanmar during and after the 2021 military coup. Security tensions in Myanmar, including the coup and the ongoing armed conflict, have drastically increased and intensified the forms of harm and vulnerability faced by civilians. This study will investigate how communities have adapted to new threats and levels of vulnerability under the Military Junta both during and after the 2021 coup. It will explore changes in unarmed community (self-) protection strategies as well as the protection of wider communities in the face of  different threats and vulnerabilities following the coup. The study aims to provide insights into effective UCP strategies during times of political turmoil and military rule.

To achieve the objectives, this research will be guided by the following research questions: 

1. What are the strategies that communities and CSOs use to protect themselves and their communities from harm during the military junta after the coup of 2021?
2. Are there different strategies for different threats and vulnerabilities?
3. What can we learn about adapting UCP and civilian self-protection when there is a military coup or new threats arising from a coup?

This research is mainly qualitative, including in-depth face-to-face interview, focus group discussions (FGDs) and literature study. The research will be conducted in Kachin and Northern Shan states of Myanmar, where armed conflict has escalated significantly since the coup. NP has an existing network with local CSOs in these areas from their previous collaborations on UCP work. One of the areas, Kachin, was studied by scholars to explore what kind of UCP is practiced by the community. Our study of Northern Shan will further broaden, deepen, and enrich perspectives and knowledges about the community’s strategy to provide (self-) protection to each other during and after coup in Myanmar. NP will closely collaborate with the local CSO partners in Kachin and Northern Shan in collecting data. The research will take six months to complete. 

The output of the research will be a draft working paper, which will be disseminated to local CSOs through a FGD in each research area. The FGD is in itself a data collection process to clarify and refine the working paper. The participants of this research (communities and CSO members) are the main beneficiaries of the output. The team expects that the project outputs will provide learning that may be adopted by CSOs in providing protection for civilians as well as independently practiced by communities.

This project is implemented through Nonviolent Peaceforce.

The conflict in the Deep South of Thailand has lasted for over 18 years, with the state trying to resolve the issue militarily. This approach, however, has not ended the conflict. Unarmed civilian protection (UCP) is a tool that can be used to manage conflicts and help protect civilians in conflict areas. This research aims to develop guidelines for protecting civilians at the community level in the Deep South of Thailand and apply UCP theory and tools based on existing community infrastructures for protection.

The study will use a participatory research methodology and be conducted with a target group of three communities in Thailand’s southern provinces. With the participation and consent of all parties, the aim is to create a safer space in which communities pursue their own peace initiatives. The project team believe that the adoption of UCP mechanisms in the southern provinces of Thailand could also help to transform the use of securitisation and violent force by the state into the adoption of the nonviolent method to protect civilians. It will engage in discussions of UCP at the policy level to test this idea.

Research team

• Fareeda Panjor, Prince of Songkla University (principal investigator)
• Anchana Heemmina, Duayjai Group  
• Yasmin Sattar, Prince of Songkla University
• Nonviolent Peaceforce Philippines (project partner)

Initial Results

Researchers have completed 80 percent of the project. We interviewed 69 target groups in three target areas as part of the research process and received preliminary survey results. The investigation discovered that the UCP mechanism is a novel idea that is not yet known in Thailand’s southern border provinces and that its potential to protect people is not widely accepted. Basic knowledge such as human rights concepts and an understanding of conflict and peace processes must be provided during the process of establishing the UCP mechanism in each community. Along with the mechanism design process, the research team offered about the UCP mechanism and basic understanding such as human rights and the peace process. Future initiatives will include collecting data from the field and assessing it with data from international research of UCP mechanisms.

Water is currently a structuring axis of hydro-social relations and the conflicts that arise over its control and use in Colombia. The first phase of this project explored conflicts related to concession processes for hydroelectric projects in the rivers La Paloma, Santo Domingo and Dormilón in municipalities of Argelia, San Francisco and San Luis in the Oriente Antioqueño region. Preliminary results showed associated problems such as mass tourism, real-estate pressure and mining, which add further threats emanating from the privatisation of water and which also depend on energy production. These new forms of river use and privatisation have been introduced in an insidious manner, without recognition of the damage they are causing to the communities and social actors involved. These forms of intervention, promoted by public policy, project an image of an “empty space” or one that is adaptable to new uses in the regions concerned, which intensifies the degree of vulnerability of the populations who live their, as it does not recognise their pre-existence and their territorial dynamics. More information about Phase I of the research project is available here.

In the second phase of this project, we intend to delve deeper into these combined threats, to explore the scope of self-protection in the face of a conflict of growing water privatisation. We also aim to explore the contributions of these self-protection strategies to reflections on just transitions, in a context of debate over energy alternatives and the revision of polluting, undemocratic development models.

Research team

• Beatriz Arias López, Universidad de Antioquia (principal investigator)
• Hernán Dario Pineda Gómez, Universidad de Antioquia 
• Mateo Valderrama, Asociación Campesina de Antioquia – ACA
• Juan David Arias, Grupo De investigación Territorio, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
• Jessica Restrepo, Grupo De investigación Territorio Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
• Denisse Roca, solidary consultant, CLACSO group on Political Ecologies of the South Abya-Yala

The first phase of the Art that Protects project documented the place of artistic and cultural initiatives developed by community-based organisations in the city of Medellín in the landscape of nonviolent self-protection. Issues such as legitimacy, permanence in the territory, and the commitment to socially engaged art appeared as key elements to understanding the self-protective character of these initiatives. In our investigation we found, firstly, that violations are not produced on the basis of isolated categories such as gender or age, but by a combination and superimposition of different social factors; and secondly, that the network of relationships and alliances between artistic and cultural organisations is a key strategy that allows them to generate sustainability and “armour” in the face of violations. More information about Phase I of the project is available here.

These findings will be further explored in the second phase of the project, in order to identify the type of networks that have been formed, how their exchanges take place, and what collaborative strategies they use, and to understand the effects on the self-protection of communities in the context of the urban conflict in Medellín from an intersectional reading of social vulnerabilities.

Research Team

• Beatriz Arias López, Universidad de Antioquia (principal investigator)
• Adriana Diosa, Cultural corporation for development Arlequín y los Juglares
• Freddy Giovanni Pérez Cárdenas, Cultural corporation for development Arlequín y los Juglares
• Sandra Maryori Benitez Diosa Cultural corporation for development Arlequín y los Juglares

Project Outputs

Time line of artistic and cultural organisation in Medellín, Colombia (source: results of Art that Protects, phase 1)

Indigenous peoples in Colombia are caught in the midst of an armed conflict that has lasted for more than fifty years. Despite an elaborate protection architecture, the state has so far been unable to effectively protect them. Hence, in order to survive, indigenous communities have had to devise their own self-protection strategies. Not only do these strategies encompass the physical and psychosocial dimension of security, but they also draw on ancestral spiritual and cultural practices that both strengthen the indigenous communities’ physical protection and reaffirm their self-determination. However, these practices are often misunderstood by the state structures, which fail to implement support strategies to support them.

This project seeks to understand how ancestral spiritual and cultural practices protect indigenous communities in the midst of armed conflict and what coordination mechanisms could be put in place to ensure that these practices are effectively supported by the state. The project seeks to generate a conceptual and visual representation of these practices through a collaborative visual ethnographic study of the Nasa people of the Resguardo Indígena de Huellas Caloto, an indigenous community situated in the North of the Cauca Department in one of the areas worst affected by the armed conflict.

Research team

• Piergiuseppe Parisi, Centre for Applied Human Rights / York Law School, University of York, UK
• Ana Deida Secue Rivera, Co-Investigator
• Lehidy Carolina Baltam Salazar, researcher, Popayán, Cauca, Colombia
• Nicolás Braguinsky Cascini, Filmmaker
• Pippa Cooper, Researcher
• Resguardo Indígenas de Huellas Caloto, Colombia  

Research findings

The key research findings can be summarised in the following points:

1. The Nasa indigenous people understand protection holistically. Spirituality and ancestral cultural practices are key to understanding protection because they relate to their cosmovision and stem from a culturally specific understanding of risk and harm.
2. The performance of protection rituals according to the spirituality and cultural practices of the Nasa people reaffirms and reinforces their self-determination and contributes to their survival (pervivencia) as a people.
3. The exercise of protection rituals represents a form of psycho-social and emotional self-care in the midst of the Colombian armed conflict.
4. Spirituality – and specifically the performance of rituals – signals belonging to and generates acceptance by the Nasa community. It promotes cohesion within the community. State protection officers who refuse to participate in rituals generate mistrust within the community and around the beneficiaries of state protection schemes.
5. The recruitment base of armed groups or criminal gangs operating locally include indigenous (Nasa) peoples. Spiritual leaders – such as traditional medics and elders – command respect within the Nasa community but also among indigenous recruits of the armed groups. This partially explains both why key Nasa figures are targeted by armed groups and the negotiating power of Nasa traditional authorities.
6. The state protection architecture is underpinned by an elaborate regulatory framework, which if applied comprehensively would accommodate ancestral forms of protection. However, in practice, the design and implementation of protection schemes – even those that are meant to strengthen indigenous forms of unarmed protection – fail to meaningfully include the Nasa people.
7. In order to better support self-protection practices rooted in the Nasa spirituality and culture and to provide culturally adequate protection schemes, Colombian authorities should ensure the active participation of Nasa communities in the design and delivery of protection.

By unpacking the notions of risk and harm from an indigenous Nasa perspective, the research has conceptualised an understanding of protection (and, more broadly, security) that complements that of physical protection offered by UCP (Oldenhuis, Furnari, Carriere, Wagstrom, Frisch, and Duncan 2021: 29-31). In particular, the research focuses on the notions of cultural and spiritual risk and harm, and it regards the exercise of protection practices rooted in culture and spirituality as necessary to holistically protect indigenous Nasa communities in the midst of the Colombian armed conflict.

The research centres the voices of the Nasa people, thus emphasising the protection needs of the communities. It offers avenues to strengthen local self-protection infrastructures by, on the one hand, formulating actionable recommendations that state authorities should consider in the design and delivery of protection schemes (Parisi and Cooper, forthcoming) and, on the other hand, facilitating the reappropriation and strengthening of certain neglected spiritual and cultural practices by the community themselves (through five tulpas de pensamiento convened by the indigenous community of the Resguardo de Huellas Caloto, the project partner).

Project website:

https://www.ritualisingprotection.org

Find out more:

The project has produced a short film, ‘Survive among violence. Stories of the Nasa people in Colombia’. The film was shown as part of the WOW Film Festival.