Building Bridges in a Divided Society: CSOs’ efforts to further the process of interpersonal reconciliation in Lebanon in an environment of political apathy and societal segregation

Abstract

This thesis sheds light on the question how civil society organisations (CSO), that work in the field of peacebuilding in Lebanon in areas where sectarian tensions are tangible, are attempting to erase and redefine the antagonistic and adversarial relations formed during violent conflict through a process of bottom-up, interpersonal reconciliation on the community level. Viewed through the lens of Allport’s Contact Hypothesis, it appears that within the contact situation, CSOs are able to create a facilitating space for interpersonal reconciliation between participants. However, beyond the programmes several challenges are visible that may hinder sustainable outcomes. This research also addresses whether the contact situation also has the ability to trigger attitude change on the side of the participants. Analysed by means of Pettigrew’s four interrelated processes and Tilly’s social boundary mechanisms, the findings suggest that CSOs have the ability to trigger attitude change by facilitating contact, in which intergroup learning and intergroup cooperation to work on common goals set the process of boundary transformation into motion. Thus, CSOs often function as a bridge-builder between different groups that experience feelings of enmity against each other, a quality pointed out by the literature. However, the potential for CSOs to play a constructive role in further interpersonal reconciliation is in some instances hindered by several social and psychological barriers on the community level and an uncooperative attitude on the side of authorities on the local level. Thus the context in which work, namely that of societal segregation and political apathy, limits the ability of CSOs to work on transforming negative relations into positive ones.