‘Peace can co-exist alongside violence’

Based on your ongoing research project, what can you say about how we can achieve peace? 

Unlike violence, peace is not, at first glance, all that easy to recognise. Peace is most readily evident in processes – that is, when we actively work towards it. In our international field research, we now work with a pluralistic definition of the term: we see peace when it manifests itself in concrete activities and in everyday practice. And peace can exist alongside violence and war.

How exactly do you carry out your research project?   

We work globally with communities and initiatives that are committed to peace. In Germany, we have organised film festivals, advisory workshops on the German migration system and a summer football school in collaboration with associations of Colombian, Ukrainian and Venezuelan migrants. In Colombia, we supported a festival organised by displaced people, which enables former combatants from different armies to reconcile. Part of the research focuses on how people in these initiatives perceive and make peace visible. In Italy, for example, this has resulted in three murals depicting people engaged in peace-building. We also see, when comparing different countries, that cultural and sporting activities are the key drivers for creating and maintaining peace.

What conclusions do you draw from your research for international peace work?

We approach peace through processes that we, as researchers, can then examine. For peace work, this means that it must always be developed in collaboration with communities and as part of a long-term endeavour. However, it also means that peace research is becoming more complex and requires significantly more time to implement.