WG3 Local Peace

Humanity is confronted with many crises that are truly global in scale: from the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic and climate change to deep global inequalities, geopolitical tensions, and interstate and civil wars, to name a few. These crises also impact and uproot very local contexts, such as families, schools, and communities in urban neighbourhoods and villages. Scholarly interest in bottom-up and local approaches to peace has increased over the last couple of years. The literature talks about a ‘local turn’ in the study of peace. At present, local and everyday approaches to peace are mainly utilized as a conceptual lens in research in deeply divided and conflict-ridden countries, and much less so in more ‘peaceful’ countries. In the latter contexts, worries about increasing levels of polarization, conflict and violent extremism have resulted in a spike in research on these topics. Although researchers often focus on hyperlocal contexts such as schools, neighbourhoods, and online chatrooms, they mostly do not utilize the conceptual lens of local or everyday peace. Nonetheless, the literature on local forms of peace offers valuable insights and frameworks to look at these phenomena in innovative ways. At the same time, research on local peace in more peaceful contexts might enrich the developing research on everyday peace in conflict-regions. This Working Group will focus on how to multiply peace-making practices on the local level.