Caroline Hargreaves | London School of Economics and Political Science (original) (raw)

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Papers by Caroline Hargreaves

Since 2010, the concept of resilience has increasingly been applied in development contexts and p... more Since 2010, the concept of resilience has increasingly been applied in development contexts and programming, and 2011 marked the year of its incorporation into the humanitarian sector. The Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, an independent assessment of the British government's humanitarian assistance to Haiti and Pakistan mapped out key challenges facing the humanitarian sector and outlined a new approach that would improve UK assistance. 1 In the aftermath of the report, the UK Department of International Development (DFID) made resilience a central component of its aid work and is aiming to apply resilience in all of its country programs by 2015. 2 As DFID is funding many UK NGOs, several of these organizations have also integrated resilience into their mandates, many spanning across both development and humanitarian assistance. On the other hand, there have been little or no attempts by policy-makers and practitioners to scrutinize the theoretical underpinnings of resilience or how the term will articulate itself in practice. Thus, the main area of interest to this paper will be if the concept and practice of resilience can respond to a global need for assistance in context of changing climate of humanitarian needs. First, the conceptual challenges will be addressed, leading into a debate on the language of resilience in the international community. Second, the paper will review the complex task of measuring resilience and how to surpass this caveat. Third, attention will be paid to funding mechanisms supporting the concept and how this will impact its integration into the discourse. Finally, the problematiques of using resilience in development and humanitarian sectors will be examined. Throughout the paper it will be argued that although there are several limitations to the current articulation of the resilience discourse, there is a need for more coherent approach for aid actors dealing with disasters, and resilience presents a coming-together and sophistication of these efforts.

Whether dealing with reintegration, disarmament, development or peace negotiations, the peacebuil... more Whether dealing with reintegration, disarmament, development or peace negotiations, the peacebuilding discourse has moved beyond mere interventions at a 'ripe' point in time, towards being recognized as complex processes of promoting constructive social change. Furthermore, due to effects of increased trans-border activity and the emergence of 'new wars', the international community is finding it harder to engage in 'positive peacebuilding', distinguishing perpetrators from victims and locating the core of violence and conflict. Lessons learned from e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Sri Lanka depict the 'shadow side' of peacebuilding operations aiming to put in action thoroughly designed plans for achieving a relative peace. This essay will argue that it is this 'liberal peace' itself that contributes to the continuation of 'cultures of violence', which in turn embraces all actors involved in the peace building process. In order to further this point, the essay will first make an inquiry into the very nature of violence itself and its manifestations in wider society and culture. Different forms of violence such as 'direct', 'structural' and 'cultural' will be underlined in order to reveal the complex workings of violence on all levels of a society and permeates all levels of international peace-building. The essay will then address the relative impact of violent groups on the process and examine to what extent their inclusion in the peace process will determine the final outcome. The analysis will to show that the discourse of peacebuilding is not violent because of its cooperation with violent groups, destructive functions and manifestations, but rather because of the violence inherent in the system within which all actors operate.

Discourse is the very essence of social change. Discourse is what defines us as people and goes t... more Discourse is the very essence of social change. Discourse is what defines us as people and goes to the heart of our culture. Clifford Geertz writes, "Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning." This web has now extended to the virtual realm and manifested itself through information and communication technology. This allows for the construction of identity and continuous mediation in both online and offline realms. In contemporary reality everything is political. Means such as text, images and video, contribute to the telling of the story of humanity, and accumulates in a vast pool of uncategorized knowledge which constitute our virtual social fabric. This essay will discuss to what extent discourse can be a driver of social change. It will be argued that there is a growing appetite for competing and alternative versions of reality, a need which is currently manifesting itself in the virtual realm of social consciousness and identity politics. Online activism and communities thus present a counter-hegemonic alternative to dominant discourses and narratives. I will use social constructionist theory to take a deep view of how people and movements are challenging engrained power relations through mediation of both the self and the social. The paper will not claim that communication technology is a panacea for social change, but sees Internet as a tool for empowering the 'moral imagination' and instigating processes of social transformation.

ICT for Peace Foundation, Jan 1, 2010