Lives Amid Violence

Mareike Schomerus, (PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science) is Vice President at the Busara Center in Nairobi. Her research asks questions about international development, about violence, and about how best to acquire a deeper understanding of the invisible factors that shape today’s complex challenges and violent conflicts. Her writing is published in academic journals, reports, mass media, and in various books. In addition to her previous roles as Director of Programme Politics and Governance at ODI in London and Research Director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, also at ODI, she has advised numerous international development and peacebuilding organizations.

• Quanta by Michael Onsando1 Goodbye yellow brick road: Beyond the status quo of development in the wake of conflict2 The problem with bricks: Why building and stabilizing went to the wall 3 Money can’t move a ton of bricks: The real currency of economic life 4 Times are a-changin’, but the tide is not turning: Why life after conflict does not automatically get better 5 Vertical columns of accelerated air: The mental landscape 6 A satellite image of the neighbourhood: How who you are matters 7 You can’t make bricks without straw: People and states8 Mortar stronger than bricks: Connections and relationships Stories by Michael OnsandoAfterword: Practicalities by Stephanie Buell and Mareike SchomerusPostface: The roots of this book: Ten years of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) by Marcus Langley and Mareike SchomerusIndex

This ground-breaking book, drawing on eight years of in-depth research by the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC), is a clarion call for doing away with technocratic approaches to supporting the lives and livelihoods of people affected by conflict, and recognizing that development work is intensely political and must be shaped by local realities.