This chapter introduces the logics, assumptions, and theoretical underpinnings of micro-sociology in the context of Peace and Conflict Research. In the chapter, I present and discuss how macro-phenomena comprise and yet are more than the sum of micro-interactions. I then proceed to introduce key concepts and elements of the micro-sociological framework developed in this book, including interaction rituals, emotional energy, social bonds, micro-sociality, and socioemotional credit and discredit. Moreover, the chapter conceptualizes four forms of interaction that shape peace, and conflict: friendly interaction, conflictual interaction, dominant interaction, and low-intensity interaction. These modes of interaction can be analyzed to understand concrete situations and grasp larger patterns of peace and conflict. The chapter discusses how modes of interaction can be changed and challenged, how interactions are also shaped by practices and material circumstances, and how intergroup conflicts and peace may imply different forms of interaction.

This chapter elaborates on how moral remembrance resonates for local communities. It briefly theorises the concept of solidarity as currently understood, placing particular focus on Randall Collins’s work on the significance of interaction ritual chains and emotional energy. Central to his interaction ritual chain theory is the notion that people in face-to-face encounters produce mutual rituals that are sustained through an emotional energy that results in a feeling of membership and in a desire for action that is considered a morally ‘proper’ path. Drawing on numerous human rights–sponsored memorialisation initiatives in the Western Balkans and Israel–Palestine, the chapter analyses the myriad of ‘facing the past’ dialogue groups. The chapter demonstrates that ‘facing the past’ encounters ritualise historical narratives and generate a strong vocabulary of sentiments, which, in the long run, does not translate transnational solidarity into human rights values but ends up strengthening ethnic homogenisation, essentialisation and group polarization. In other words, moral remembrance does not offer a real alternative to sustaining those emotions and transforming them into solid, long-lasting human rights values; instead, contrary to what would be expected, it strengthens the narrow, ethnically based nationalist perceptions of collective memory, and reproduces nationalist discourses and practices.

The conclusion summarises key findings and delineates potential routes for further research that could continue in the footsteps of, and further flesh out, the ideas developed in this book. In particular, I discuss the relevance of examining conditions that may unleash social avalanches and suggest that approaches as diverse as agent-based modelling and Randall Collins’s ritual interaction theory provide promising ways forwards.