On Wednesday 29 October at 12-1.30 in Taylor A08 or on MS Teams: Professor Gearoid Millar (Sociology) will talk on 21st Century Challenges to Peace: Theory, Pedagogy, Policy, Practice in Peace Work at the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society & Rule of Law (CISRUL).
As a field, Peace Work holds the twin aims of understanding and working to overcome violent conflict. In the past, as understandings of the challenges to peace evolved, so too did the practices applied to address conflict and build peace. The emergence and development of conflict transformation, the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, and the local turn are all examples of such responsive development in the post-Cold War period. Over the past decade, however, the challenges have been shifting with a new pace and intensity, and the various elements of the peace work field (theory, pedagogy, practice, and policy) have struggled to keep up.
Starting with 60 interviews in 2018/19 and 95 further interviews in 2024/25, this project explored perceptions of key challenges to peace among those engaged in peace work (primarily among academics and practitioners, but including also interviews with funders, publishers, and individuals working at the intersection of peace with business, engineering, climate action, and the arts). The data provide a worrying, and progressively worsening, portrait of a sector under intense pressure. The key questions, therefore, concern what peace work must do to once again respond and evolve to face these 21st Century challenges to peace.