Description
This panel draws together four parallel research projects from the AHRC-funded ‘Creating Safer Space’ network. We discuss unarmed civilian protection (UCP) practices and self-protection efforts of conflict-affected communities, civilian-to-civilian protection techniques, and how grassroots UCP activities challenge or bypass top-down approaches. Complementing the innovations in existing UCP practices that often feature international interventions, our projects consider alternatives that foreground local perceptions and priorities using culturally-specific, non-textual and artistic data gathering processes. We examine how UCP can be promoted and harnessed in a variety of challenging contexts, and how experience and knowledge can be translated and operationalised across different arenas. Our projects share an emphasis on self-protection, culturally-specific tools and local agency to examine how local-level UCP is implemented, understood, shared, and built on.
