Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict

On April 22, 2024, Helga Dickow and Fabricio Rodríguez welcomed an international delegation of experts and humanitarian aid professionals to the ABI. Among those present were Abbé Constantin Sere, head of Caritas in Burkina Faso, Baba Diarra, head of Carita’s partner organization ENDA Mali and Thomas Alyo, Caritas expert in Chad. The delegation was accompanied by Volker Gerdersmeier, Philipp Lang and Lisa Skender from Caritas International in Freiburg. 

The exchange focused on assessing the political situation and the different security challenges in the Sahel. In addition, both German and European humanitarian aid were critically discussed under the heading of "localization". Elements from these discussions will be incorporated into a policy paper for the "Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict" project. 

The Virtual Encyclopedia is online! On the website https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/ you can discover interesting texts and podcasts.

What is it about?

Scholars, practitioners and activists from different geographies and positionalities have pointed to the need to resignify peace and conflict. Despite their shared ground, however, many of these debates have often developed in parallel and disjointed streams. Developed by the research network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict Studies the Virtual Encyclopedia offers a space of encounter for this wealth of ideas and arguments.   

The Virtual Encyclopedia is a compilation of theory, research, and practice in peace and conflict studies from de- and postcolonial perspectives. It strives to promote the inclusion of multiple and diverse voices and reach a plurality of audiences to raise awareness of how knowledge and practices are entangled with the coloniality of power and often contribute to the perpetuation of inequalities and injustices underpinning the (re)production of violence.

What is new about this Encyclopedia?

The Virtual Encyclopedia strives to capture and reflect concepts’ contested character and context relevance. Rather than unambiguous and all-encompassing definitions, it aims to provide its audience with diverse tools to critically approach the field of peace and conflict studies from the lenses of postcolonial theory and decolonial thought. 

The Virtual Encyclopedia offers a platform to a variety of voices; among them are academics from a variety of career levels, background and regions, as well as practitioners and activists. The ultimate goal of the platform is to promote dialogue and reflection by combining text, audio, video, and storytelling across different formats.

What is already online today?

The Encyclopedia will evolve gradually and will reflect findings and conceptual considerations from within the hierarchies-network. With the launch of the Encyclopedia, the following contributions are available: 

Texts

• Andréa Gill – Systems of Conflictivity
• Claudia Brunner – Epistemic Violence
• Juliana González Villamizar – Intersectionality
• Koen Vlassenroot & Godefroid Muzalia – Collaborative Research
• Selbi Durdiyeva – Transnational Justice and Decolonisation
• Garrett FitzGerald – Pluriversal peacebuilding

Podcasts

Find all podcast episodes here:

• Coloniality, peace & conflict: An introduction (with Manuela Boatcă, Siddharth Tripathi & Susanne Buckley-Zistel)
• Why Coloniality? Plural approaches to big buzzwords (with Layla Brown & Filiberto Penados)

Stay informed on new contributions:

• https://www.instagram.com/postcolh/ 
• https://twitter.com/postcolh22
• https://www.facebook.com/postcolh
• https://www.youtube.com/@postcolonialhierarchies

The policy paper series (PPS) is a space for addressing the practical challenges of peace and conflict (studies) from decolonial and postcolonial perspectives.

Conceived as a multidisciplinary forum, the series features research that has special relevance to practitioners. In particular, it speaks to collective efforts that seek to transform the ways in which distinct colonial trajectories shape contemporary ideas and practices of peace and conflict.

You can find the first call for contributions in this PDF.