Insurgent Peace

Community-Led Peacebuilding of Indigenous Peoples in Sagada, Philippines

Bibliographic Data

ID3948688
AuthorsNerve V Macaspac (0000-0002-0600-8316, Department of Political Science and Global Affairs, College of Staten Island, The City University of New York (CUNY), Staten Island, NY, USA, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume24
Issue4
Pages839-877
Publication date2019-08-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2018.1521803
OpenAlexW2900079958
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited76

In a global era when most wars are fought between state and non-state actors, how do people make peace? This article examines the processes through which civilian communities imagine and build peace during a prolonged active armed conflict. It presents a case of a demilitarized community—popularly understood as a peace zone—of the indigenous peoples community of the Municipality of Sagada in the Philippines in the context of 50 years of armed conflict between the Philippine state and the New People’s Army (NPA), a rebel group waging a Maoist-inspired insurgency. For 30 years, the indigenous community of Sagada has effectively regulated military and rebel operations and prevented conflict-related civilian deaths and internal displacement. While existing research identifies Sagada as a pioneer model of the phenomenon of peace zones in the world, we know very little of the community work that sustains this model. Situated within the “local turn” in peacebuilding literature and emergent field of peace geographies, this article examines the kind of work required from a civilian community to protect their lives during conflict, and what this tell us about peace. I use the term insurgent peace to refer to peace as dynamic processes rooted upon a refusal and disruption of the spatial logics of violence imposed by the competing structures of power of state and non-state armed actors upon civilian communities. Further, insurgent peace captures the quotidian work of civilian communities in carving alternative political spaces and enacting peaceful futures during armed conflict

Geography · Indigenous · Insurgency · Peacebuilding · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance

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