Paper short abstract:

This paper challenges widespread international notions and mechanisms of peace and 'culture for peace'. Drawing on case studies in Eastern Indonesia, East Timor and the Philippines, it critically explores what traditional elites and anthropological research can contribute to peacebuilding.

Paper long abstract:

This paper first challenges widespread international notions and mechanisms of peace, such as the concept of liberal peace, and tracks down the paradigm shift in international peacebuilding discourses and the ambivalent role 'culture' plays in this. It argues for the importance of considering the cultural dimension(s) of peacebuilding processes, but, at the same time, warns of a superficial implementation of popular concepts in international development cooperation such as ownership and participation.

As part of the aforementioned paradigm shift, traditional justice mechanisms are increasingly integrated into transitional justice programs that are meant to initiate and lead the transition to political stability and sustainable peace of societies that have experienced mass violence or authoritarian, dictatorial regimes. Based on case studies in East Timor and the Philippines and on fieldwork in a post-conflict setting in Eastern Indonesia (Maluku) where traditional justice mechanisms are an important means to sustainably reunite society after years of violent (religious) conflicts, the paper then deconstructs the simplified image of 'culture for peace' and critically explores what anthropological research and a focus on 'culture' can contribute to peacebuilding processes. To this end, it analyses the (re)emergence and the (re)invention of traditional local elites that are part of so-called traditional justice mechanisms and play an important, but ambivalent role in current peacebuilding and decentralization processes throughout Southeast Asia.