Having explored nonviolence as the underlying principle of unarmed civilian protection (UCP), the next essential feature is local ownership and community involvement. One of the key principles in UCP is the ‘primacy of the local’ (Julian and Schweitzer, 2015; UCP/Accompaniment Community of Practice [UCPACoP], 2024), which means that local people are involved in and can lead the process so that the protection of their community and countering or reducing the threats they face works for them. In this chapter, I explore the significance of the ‘primacy of the local’ element of UCP and how this works within communities.

Rooted in nonviolence, UCP is based on the principle that inclusion is key to building resilient communities composed of relationships and networks founded on trust. The primacy of the local in its simplest form is that in UCP, the protection work must include the ownership of local people and recognize their local structures and institutions. This element challenges the conventional narrative that ‘we’ go to protect ‘others’ or that communities are passively waiting for help.

The chapter will discuss why the inclusion of local people makes UCP significant in recognizing the agency and capacity of local communities, how they hold essential knowledge, develop systems for protection from violent conflict and have useful networks and relationships that help keep them safe.

The concept of the ‘local’ itself sits in the messy space of overlapping identities, multiple geographical boundaries and of living amid crisis, so we need to consider what we mean by local in protection from violent conflict.