Article published In:
Language and Cultural Values: Adventures in applied ethnolinguisticsEdited by Bert Peeters
[International Journal of Language and Culture 2:2] 2015
► pp. 194–218
Edited by Bert Peeters
[International Journal of Language and Culture 2:2] 2015
► pp. 194–218
How universal is UN ‘peace’?
A comparative linguistic analysis of the United Nations and Giryama (Kenya) concepts of ‘peace’
It is now commonly accepted that, for the sake of international peace, the provisions of the UN Charter (originally devised to regulate interstate wars) should be interpreted so as to allow for intrastate interference as well. Yet the UN Charter does not explicitly state what the term peace refers to. It seems that the concept underpinning this term is so much the norm that only deviations from it are marked and therefore noteworthy or definable. Still, in view of the wide array of UN peacekeeping missions all over the world, a clear notion of ‘peace’ could make an important contribution to the success of these missions. In view of this, the paper addresses two questions: what lies behind the concept of ‘peace’ embedded in UN discourse, and how internationally salient is it? To provide the necessary perspective, we undertake a comparative analysis of the UN and Giryama (Kenya) ‘peace’ concepts. The analysis aims to highlight those aspects of Giryama and UN ‘peace’ that are characteristically ‘socially meaningful’ and concludes by highlighting convergences and divergences between them.
Keywords: , Giryama (Kenya), peace, United Nations, comparative ethnolexicology
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2024. Peace beyond the Absence of War: Three Trends in the Study of Positive Peace. In New Perspectives on Global Peace [Working Title], 
van Iterson Scholten, Gijsbert M.
2020. Peace in Peace Studies: Beyond the ‘Negative/Positive’ Divide. In Visions of Peace of Professional Peace Workers [Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, ], ► pp. 27 ff.
Wolf, Hans-Georg
2017. De-escalation—A Cultural-Linguistic View on Military English and Military Conflicts. In Advances in Cultural Linguistics [Cultural Linguistics, ], ► pp. 683 ff.
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