CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Premachandra, Wickrama Karaluarachchige Inuri Nimaya |
|---|---|
| Title | Everyday Art Peace: Art as a Medium for Fostering Peace between Divided Societies in Sri Lanka |
| Summary | Despite the end of the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, peace in the country remains fragile with many ethnic disputes taking place time and again. The limitations of top-down peacebuilding approaches as pointed out by critical wing scholars remain relevant to the state-centric peacebuilding mechanisms adopted in Sri Lanka. Everyday peace stands in contrast to such top-down peacebuilding policies and has gained significance in the literature on peace and conflict at present. This paper contributes to such literature by developing a framework on everyday art peace. Firstly, the paper develops a nuanced conceptual framework of everyday peace that incorporates the notions of the abundance of politics and ephemeral practices proposed by Guillaume and Huysmans into Mac Ginty’s conceptualization of everyday peace built around reciprocity, sociality, and solidarity. Secondly, the paper highlights the significance of art as a medium to foster peace and improve relationships between divided communities. Thirdly, this paper makes an empirical contribution by analyzing two murals painted by three local initiatives in Sri Lanka to explore how everyday art peace can contribute to facilitating peace between divided communities. Visual analysis is conducted along the three sites of meaning-making of the murals; the production, the murals, and the interactions it has with the communities as proposed by Gillian Rose. The theoretical and methodological approach allowed to bring out the empirical potentiality of everyday art peace to foster peace and facilitate better relationships between divided societies. |
| Supervisor | Kurowska, Xymena |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/premachandra_wickram.pdf |
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