The Citizens’ Network for Peace, Reconciliation and Human Security’ is a joint initiative of civil society organisations from Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey, supported by the European Union and Open Society Foundation in Turkey. The objective of the network is to building a citizens’ network for human security across Balkans and Turkey, with the aim to raise public awareness and create social mobilization among citizens and policy makers on the centrality of human beings as the prime dimension of security. We want to strengthen advocacy activities at the country, regional and European level on human security issues, grounded in a programme of systematic research at the country and regional level. The research activities of the network are supported by a regional network of researchers and guided by experts from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
Research theme of the Network: Forms and Spaces of Violence
We use violence as a proxy for human security and understand it as a form of social relation, and a form of influence. Our main interest is to understand how various types of social relations come about and how they combine to produce the types of vulnerability that represent security threats. Hence, in our understanding of violence, we move beyond the narrow conceptualisations of violence as direct physical harm, as an act, and instead are interested in its many different forms and manifestation, how they come about (i.e. the process and relations), and how they are interlinked.
We aim to highlight under-reported and overlooked situations and spaces in which marginalised and vulnerable individuals and groups are confronted with danger to their physical, mental and social well- being. With this in mind, the research undertaken by this partnership is organised in 3 clusters that represents different manifestations and locations of violence which have been identified as socially significant in the partner countries; i) violence affecting youth, ii) workplace violence and iii) violence related to community disruption.
Learn more at www.cn4hs.org
