Paper short abstract:

Rejecting the tradition in peace studies for anthropologists to be cast as experts in local cultures, this paper outlines an alternative role based in Foucault’s injunction that we attempt an ascending analysis of power starting from it micro practices. The ‘peace process’ in Ireland is used to illustrate the potential of such an analysis.

Paper long abstract:

Hitherto, peace studies has been dominated by political science. While there are signs of a renewed interest in anthropology amongst some political scientists, the role assigned to us remains more or less the same as ever; namely, to comprehend the local cultures that that are thought to be both the underlying cause of ethnic conflict, and the means to its resolution. The proposed paper starts from the position that this is a based on a misconception of conflict, peace and anthropology. That being so, the paper does two things.

Firstly it seeks to develop a more critical role for anthropologists in the study of peacemaking. This is an anthropology of peacemaking that would draw inspiration from Foucault's twofold injunction regarding the analysis of power: that we seek to understand it not only as repression but also in its capacity to produce, and that we attempt an ascending analysis starting from the micro practices of power and focussing on how these become invested by ever more general mechanisms such as to become hegemonic.

Second, the paper seeks to illustrate the potential of such an approach with a case study; ie the peace process in Ireland. Tracing the history of a vernacular approach to identifying friend and enemy - known locally as 'telling' - this article explores the refinement of categories and mechanisms of categorisation through the peace process and their elevation to constitutional principle in the peace agreement reached on Good Friday 1998.