The issue opens with an interview with the Indian development expert Dr. Kshemendra Kumar Upadhyay, who reflects on the cast system's implications for the Indian society. Elisabeth Mikkelsen's article reports a case study of how 'sensemakings' about conflicts change as they are enacted from the perspective of staff and management in a non-profit organization that participated in conflict management training. In continuation, Bhimsen Devkota and Edwin van Teijlingen present a study that explores the motivating factors of individuals who joined Maoists as health workers in Nepal. The article provides policy-relevant conclusions on how to promote sustainable peace and improve health care services in communities affected by the conflict. In a similar vein, Adam Baird delves into the micro-foundations of peaceful society in his piece "Negotiating Pathways to Manhood ". He uses original empirical data collected in Medellín, Colombia, and a conceptual focus on masculinities to understand why some male youths negotiated a pathway to manhood without joining violent urban gangs.

 

"Rethinking Development from a Post-colonial Perspective" is the title of Sidi M. Omar's article in which he to proffers critical thoughts on development practice and discourse from the standpoint of post-colonial studies. Abosede Omowumi Babatunde offers an analytical evaluation of the conflict in Nigeria's Niger Delta and concludes that an integrated bottom-up participatory process that secures the quality of life of the people and that protects the environment is the path to sustainable peace and development in the Niger Delta.

 

The PIONEER article is this time dedicated to the Bradford model and outlines the contribution made by the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford to the field of international peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The PROFILE section presents the work of the Enough Project, which fights to end genocide and crimes against humanity. The issue's book review section reviews Audra Mitchell's 2011 publication Lost in Transformation: Violent Peace and Peaceful Conflict in Northern Ireland.

On the occasion of this years' elections in Nigeria, the issue opens with an interview delivered by the Nigerian political scientist Sadeeque Abubakar Abba. The second contribution by Ubong Essien Umoh and Idara Godwin Udoh employs linguistic theory to explain the use of the numerous adjectives used when we talk about "peace": qualifiers such as "positive", "warm", or "conditional", the authors argue, are employed by peace scholars as peace means different things to different people. Suggesting that thought is influenced by the availability of appropriate words in a given cultural context, they conclude that to examine the discourse of peace is an excellent way to look at the limits of our understandings thereof.

In his article Bryan Nykon takes a closer look at the influence of feature films on our beliefs in the legitimacy of violence. Drawing on the knowledge of conflict dynamics, he puts forward a number of specific suggestions of how to develop humanizing elements within films.

Transitional justice is the topic of Padraig McAuliffe's article. In critically assessing the use of transitional justice mechanisms, he stresses the value of paradigmatic transitions sensitive to local conditions. Paul van Tongeren presents a policy brief on infrastructures for peace, which have received growing attention due to predictions that political violence will increase in the near future. Such structures to deal adequately with ongoing or potential violent conflicts are lacking in many instances and have successfully been built up in a number of countries, as the policy brief shows.

The development of the idea of ombudsing is traced in the issue's PIONEER section, which reflects on the multicultural antecedents and especially the Scandinavian origins of the nowadays more and more popular practice. Finally, this issue's PROFILE presents the work of Mediators Beyond Borders, an NGO supporting local peacebuilding capacities in underserved areas and advocating the use of mediation in public policy disputes.

The opening article by Neuroscientist David Bueno presents a series of new data on the influence of genes on aggressive behaviour. In exploring a hitherto neglected field, Craig Zelizer develops an analytical model regarding the role of humour in peacebuilding in divided societies. The third article by Stean Auguste Nkumb Tshiband engages in a discussion of civilian peacekeeping as contrasted to multidimensional peacekeeping based on both practical and theoretical insights, and Vjeran Katunaric studies gender equality as a crucial element of peace culture in Croatia. In her article “Reciprocal recognition as a means of peaceful conflict transformation”, Sonia París makes a claim for nonviolent conflict settlement based on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. A legal perspective is employed by Eduardo Vázquez de Castro, who writes on mediation in consumer issues comparing Spanish and European legislation. The section PIONEERS is this time dedicated to the non-violent resistance of two Maori chiefs in 19th century New Zealand and draws a link between the politics of acts of resistance and faith-based justifications. Lastly, the issue’s PROFILE presents the Rotary Peace Foundation.

JoC 1:1 opens with a comment by the journal's editor on the discipline of Conflictology. Furthermore, it includes an interview with Johan Galtung and a discussion of the work of Adam Curle by Thomas Woodhouse (University of Bradford). Two articles focus on mediation in organizations. Nikolaj Kure and John Winslade examine the implications of transporting narrative practices from a context of mediation in two-party relations to an organizational context, and Josep Redorta presents the results of an innovative mediation strategy applied in a Spanish company.

The Journal of Conflictology has started as a pilot project with this issue 0. The articles have not been peer-reviewed.