Narrating everyday peace in Libya : a study of Libyan youth civil society activists’ framings and enactments of peace

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Libyan uprisings in 2011, both the political and academic foci have been predominantly placed on high-level political solutions to achieve peace. Thus, peacebuilding efforts on the grassroots level and civil society groups’ roles in furthering peace have been mostly neglected. This thesis seeks to address this gap, focusing specifically on marginalised Libyan youth civil society activists and their approaches to building peace within the larger society-state peacebuilding context. Utilising ten in-depth interviews conducted in the summer of 2015, the thesis examines how these interviewed Libyan youth frame and enact notions of everyday peace in the conflict environment. For this purpose, civil society in peacebuilding and everyday peace theories are employed as epistemological tools, while Kohler-Riessman’s performance analysis of narratives serves as methodological approach.

The study finds that Libyan youth civil society activists frame peace in the everyday in a threefold manner: in negative terms as an absence of violence, as an interim phase that perpetuates violence recognising the continuous presence of conflicts, and in positive forms as experiences that counter structural violence. These framings turn into actions to further peace. In response to their daily conflict environment, and national and international discourses, participants vary between strategies of resistance and the assumption of liberal peace practices to further negative peace. Positive peace is promoted through creative solutions employing traditional network structures and international civil society practices that empower individuals and create alternative communication networks and spaces for civil society to act, and subsequently a sense of belonging. It is argued that this varied understanding of peace, responding to constantly changing conflict dynamics, translates into hybrid strategies that have the potential to alter existing societal discourses and practices, and contains significant conflict transformation potential on the grassroots level. Additional research is suggested using different methodological approaches to uncover alternative narratives on peace and to monitor the further development of Libyan civil society and peacebuilding efforts.