The Missing Peace: Why Field Research Matters to Policy and Practice

What do we know about the local realities of violent conflict? And how can we use what we know for peacebuilding? There are often considerable gaps between beliefs and practices “on the ground” and national and multilateral peacebuilding, development and humanitarian efforts. bicc´s 30th anniversary conference aims to explore how these gaps can be bridged. We are bringing together international academics, experts and practitioners to discuss innovative approaches to knowledge transfer. 

Experience from various bicc research projects suggests that knowledge of local conflict dynamics can improve government policies and external engagement—at minimum to ‘do no harm’ and at best to prevent or end violence. Our conference will, therefore, focus on the opportunities for integrating findings from field research into national and multilateral approaches to sustainable peacebuilding and conflict transformation. We will look at concrete examples of research in different conflict regions as we discuss local peacebuilding, the distribution of small arms and light weapons, non-state armed groups and forced migration and return.