SWARMING JUSTICE: THE ROLE OF MASS MOVEMENTS IN CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION.

The field of what is increasingly called Conflict Transformation devotes a lot of attention to the role of the "expert" intervener in facilitating constructive change in relationships as well as in dysfunctional social and political structures. But what if the interveners are a "swarm" of ordinary citizens forming networks and mobilizing social movements to demand political, social, and environmental justice across a range of issues? This paper proposes the science of Complex Adaptive Systems as a new lens through which to understand mass citizen mobilization as a form of conflict intervention using a case study of "Idle No More," an indigenous group of First Nations protestors catalyzing a peaceful revolution to protect land and water. The paper examines the utility of expanding peace research to include complex systems principles such as self-organization, social entropy, distributed leadership, and the networked world of conflict transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]