“A FAMILY TREE CAN BEND, BUT IT CAN NEVER BE BROKEN”: TEACHERS AFFECTED BY CIVIL WAR UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL COHESION IN POST-CONFLICT LIBERIA

Abstract

Social cohesion is increasingly upheld by scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding as a necessary condition to achieve sustainable peace following violent conflict. What social cohesion means in a non-Western post-conflict society is, however, unclear. Especially lacking is a deeper understanding of social cohesion between/amongst victims and former perpetrators in post-conflict society, such as Liberia. Today, social cohesion is widely conceptualized in Western nations as social inclusion, similarity, or equality to address societal problems associated with globalization, migration, or marginalization. In conflict-affected settings, by contrast, social cohesion is conceived as encounters, participation, or collaboration to address problems associated with social division or mistrust. These two genres of conceptualizing primarily focus on the causes of conflict (i.e., disparities) that give rise to inequalities and that is understandable given the context in which they were developed. The critical question, however, is whether utilizing such conceptualizations of social cohesion to a non-Western post-conflict society is adequate to rebuild cohesiveness amongst adversaries after a civil conflict. To answer this question, this study adopted a qualitative case study centered on secondary school teachers who suffered (i.e., physical tortured, relatives killed, etc.) during the Liberian civil war to uncover how they learn to live in communities where former perpetrators also reside, so as to gain deeper understanding of social cohesion following brutal conflict. This study found that all the participants drew upon their cultural practices which is clustered around three major themes—forgiveness, ritual dining, and mutual care—to learn to live in communities where former perpetrators also dwell. This study asserts that these cultural practices combine to form a holistic process and provided insights for a deeper understanding of social cohesion after violent conflict which can best be represented by a concept, I termed a shared kinship culture. Hence, this study concludes that the current conceptualizations and theories of social cohesion are insufficient to explain how social cohesion is understood in a non-Western post-conflict society, like Liberia, because they tend to ignore the specific contexts, social realities, and rich repository of local knowledge and cultural practices in such areas.