Available translations:
Tamil / தமிழ்Russian / РУССКИЙ
Preface & Introduction
[The preface reprinted here with minor changes is part of the 2004 print edition.]
Confronted with a wide variety of conflicts, the international community has attempted to respond through humanitarian assistance, development aid, crisis prevention and conflict resolution programmes. To date many of these activities have exacerbated conflict dynamics as much as they have enhanced the opportunities for sustainable development and peace. In an effort to understand what works, lessons learned and best practices are being collected usually in the form of evaluations of individual projects or programmes. Although the number of studies undertaken has increased, few lessons have been systematised or accumulated for broader discussion in the academic field or for practitioners’ use.
The Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management [now: Berghof Conflict Research] produced this Handbook in response to the contemporary challenges which have to be faced by those who are working in and on violent conflict. The intention is to give an overview of recent developments in the field of conflict transformation from various perspectives: from academic analysts and practitioners as well as from experts representing different areas of work inside and outside of conflict zones.
The Handbook has been presented in several steps. First, it has been launched in successive series of articles on [this] interactive website. This site is organised as a platform to gather feedback from users and to stimulate debate on the content and focus of the articles. This feedback, as well as additional articles and input, allow the creation of an evolving manual and reference that reflects developments in the conflict transformation field. Second, we decided to publish [a] hard copy version, as we observed that many scholars and practitioners still asked for the complete compilation of all contributions.
We are grateful for the very positive reaction to our initiative among the colleagues, from all over the world, whom we have asked to contribute to the Handbook. They are experienced practitioners and scholars, some of them pioneers in the field and/or working on key tasks of conflict transformation. They accepted the demanding job of adapting their style of presentation to the common standards of this Handbook. Without their knowledge, motivation and flexibility, the Handbook project would not have been possible. We would like to thank all the authors who contributed to both the internet and hardcopy version of the Berghof Handbook. We hope that we can establish a continuing discourse with them as well as with our readers about cutting-edge practice and theory in our field.
[The 2004 hard copy edition] represents a compilation of articles that have been launched up to mid-2003 on the website. The hard copy version is not meant as a final point, but has to be seen as an ‘interim report’ of findings, as the Berghof team endeavours to develop the Berghof Handbook project further. Future developments will include
- [updating] of themes and issues which have been focused on in the past
- [adding] debates and dialogues on issues which are considered [to be] areas of special interest and importance
- providing services and feedback fora as part of the process of restructuring the website.
This means that friends and colleagues who are interested in results of peace practice and analysis in the field of ethnopolitical conflict are invited to visit our homepage from time to time in order to discover innovative articles which can be found and downloaded by searching the “News” section.
[…]
Many thanks have to be directed to those institutions and organisations who gave financial support to the Berghof Handbook, especially the Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies (Berghof Stiftung für Konfliktforschung) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung).
Finally we want to thank all those persons who joined the Berghof Handbook team since the beginning of the project, colleagues who helped at different stages and thus contributed to the first edition [… as well as to its continued growth over the past years].
Martina Fischer & Norbert Ropers
Berlin / Colombo, July 20, 2003
| Author | Title / Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Martina Fischer & Norbert Ropers |
Preface |
2004 08 2004 |
| Martina Fischer & Norbert Ropers |
Introduction |
2004 08 2004 |