Resisting War
Subtitle: How Communities Protect Themselves
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9781107159808
Subjects: Community organization; Civil war; Nonviolence; Colombia, history
Description: "In civil conflicts around the world, unarmed civilians take enormous risks to protect themselves and confront heavily armed combatants. This is not just counterintuitive - it is extraordinary. In this book, Oliver Kaplan explores cases from Colombia, with extensions to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and the Philippines, to show how and why civilians influence armed actors and limit violence. Based on fieldwork and statistical analysis, the book explains how local social organization and cohesion enable both covert and overt nonviolent strategies, including avoidance, cultures of peace, dispute resolution, deception, protest, and negotiation. These 'autonomy' strategies help civilians retain their agency and avoid becoming helpless victims by limiting the inroads of armed groups"--