Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-278) and index.
Contents:
"Preface : In memoriam -- Introduction -- 1. Uncompromising compromise : A capabilities approach to transitional justice -- 2. The shadow of unification : Electoral consolidation of authoritarian unity -- 3. The shadow of past sovereignties : Extrapartisan mobilization and justice demands through 2010 -- 4. The shadow of transition -- 5. Imagining just futures : Knowledge-production, peacebuilding, and justice work -- Conclusion : Peace learning and justice -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
Summary:
"Responding to a diplomatic stalemate and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, Yemen's civil actors work every day to build peace in fragmented local communities across the country. This book shows how their efforts relate to longstanding justice demands in Yemeni society, and details three decades of alternating elite indifference toward, or strategic engagement with, questions of justice. Exploring the transformative impact of the 2011 uprising and Yemenis' substantive wrestling with questions of justice in the years that followed, leading Yemen scholar Stacey Philbrick Yadav shows how the transitional process was ultimately overtaken by war, and explains why features of the transitional framework nevertheless remain a central reference point for civil actors engaged in peacebuilding today. In the absence of a negotiated settlement, everyday peacebuilding has become a new site for justice work, as an arena in which civil actors enjoy agency and social recognition. Drawing on seventeen years of field research and interviews with civil actors, Yadav positions Yemen's non-combatants not -- or not only -- as victims of conflict, but as political agents imagining and enacting the justice they wish to see."--Taken from publisher web site. "Writing about post-conflict justice is challenging in the context of an ongoing war, a crushing humanitarian crisis, and a peace process that inspires little confidence. Yet without thinking about what comes next, there is real risk that conflict dynamics will get built into new institutions in ways that undermine the possibility of meaningful recovery, reconciliation, or justice. No decision about institutions in post-conflict societies is made only with the immediate challenges of reconstruction in mind. The design of post-conflict institutions and the pursuit of transitional justice unfolds against the backdrop of history and anticipation. The histories that count, the comparisons that decision-makers (or advisors) draw, and the consequences that various actors anticipate all shape the trajectory of post-conflict states, societies, and economies. This book explores these themes through the lens of Yemeni justice demands over the period since the unification of North and South Yemen as a single state in 1990. I identify three different modes of engagement with justice claims -- disengagement, strategic engagement, and substantive engagement --- and explore the adoption of these different approaches under the regime of former President 'Ali 'Abdullah Saleh, during the transitional period that followed the 2011 uprising and, now, amid the current war. Past engagements with justice structure current practices and the kinds of just futures imagined by Yemen's civil actors. Genuinely sustainable and accountable institutions and social transformation in post-war Yemen will only be possible through substantive engagement with questions of justice, including a reckoning with past transitional projects. The central argument of the book is that decision-makers can and should take as a model the substantive engagement -- or 'justice work' -- being done today by Yemeni civil actors in local communities across the country. Rather than waiting for a national settlement from the top or brokered from outside, civil actors are already engaged in the enactment of justice projects in real time. However, their ability to scale these projects beyond the local will depend upon the adoption of a 'peace learning' approach that recognizes the central importance of civil action."--Adapted from Introduction, page 2.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.