Building peace and studying peace in 2024

Building peace and studying peace in 2024: a conversation between practice and academia
by Macken KEEFE
22 January 2024

The student-led Society for International Affairs (SOFIA) hosted a panel discussion at the campus of Trinity College Dublin between two leaders in peacebuilding scholarship and practice: Gillian Wylie and Lucy Roberts. Their dialogue was facilitated by Vinnie Hourihane, an undergraduate political science student at Trinity College Dublin and the current chairperson of SOFIA.

Dr Wylie is the head of school and an associate professor at the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Her areas of research expertise include human trafficking, the politics of international migration, globalisation, and gender-related issues. Roberts is the international peacebuilding director at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organisation based in the USA, and previously served as its Asia regional director. 

Hourihane welcomed the audience and noted his excitement to speak with both panel members. He then invited Wylie and Roberts to share why they were attracted to careers in peacebuilding. Each highlighted the extent to which higher education and personal encounters with injustice guided their respective careers and similar philosophies.

Wylie noted that she has “always [been] more interested in how people at the grassroots make peace”. Her PhD research focused on peace movements in Europe during the late Cold War era. This, Wylie shared, was inspired by her own participation in nuclear disarmament campaigns during the 1980s, while she was an undergraduate student in Scotland.

Roberts, similarly influenced by life experiences, explained that her childhood and early professional endeavours each played an important role in shaping her present values. She experienced “a feeling of injustice” as a child in Wales, where she was raised in a single-parent, low-income household, which directed her towards peacebuilding. Later, once Roberts began working in international development during the 1990s across Sri Lanka and the Maldives, she “began to feel as if a lot of the work was bringing a Western… almost colonial agenda with it”. Roberts returned to the UK to pursue a master’s degree in development studies, which solidified that perception:

“[Returning to the UK] gave me time to reflect and recognize some of my suspicions… were right. Taking time out to study helped me move towards the peace field.”

The importance of values in peacebuilding work was a recurring theme throughout the panel discussion. Roberts introduced the AFSC by explaining that it seeks to “raise the voices of people on the ground and amplify community voices”, a mission that she praised. She connected her own beliefs in grassroots agency and bottom-up peacebuilding to those of the AFSC, representing a major factor in her choice to work with the organisation.

Wylie distinguished between two types of violence that researchers study: direct violence, “the way in which human bodies are hurt by violence”, and structural violence, “the way inequalities and poverty and injustices make people’s lives difficult and sow seeds of conflict.” A cursory look at 2023, Wylie observed, reveals “every iteration of the fact that we live in a world of direct and structural violence.” She emphasised the immense “costs and human displacement” of armed violence in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Israel-Gaza war to illustrate the impact of direct violence last year. She also used the ongoing climate crisis as an example of continued structural violence not only against people, but against the planet itself that requires an adequate response:

“I think the nexus between climate, conflict, and the possibilities of peace is something we really need to be more aware of.”

Despite these negative trends, Wylie left room for optimism. “We do know from peace studies”, she explained, “that we understand the multivarious causes of conflict, [and] we know some of the conditions for building… peace.” Peace takes different forms across different places, “But we’re not without ideas and resources and the possibilities for bringing about change.” Violence, Wylie believes, is not an inevitable feature of human life:

“Training in peace studies always makes us pay attention to where peace is happening and where are the possibilities as well.

“If we look at the world as something humans are always creating and recreating, then there are possibilities for doing things differently.

“We need to direct our attention to the everyday: the everyday experiences we all have of conflict resolution, of dealing with different people, of community work that involves building relationships, of families that manage relationships… there are around us, at all times, ways of doing peace.”

Wylie praised the AFSC as one organisation whose work is positively reframing how to accomplish peacebuilding. Roberts then elaborated on the ways that the AFSC has responded to violence during 2023. Her organisation does not have a comprehensive programme to support Ukraine, but it has provided support to both Russian and Ukrainian conscientious objectors, as well as Ukrainian children. In the Gaza Strip, the AFSC is “providing food, blankets, sanitary packets”, and other resources to affected people. Their sustained calls for a ceasefire have also “galvanised so much action and support” since the first days of violence, propelling their aid efforts forward. Roberts described her outlook on 2023 as “bleak”, given the extent to which civilians are suffering worldwide. But, like Wylie, Roberts expressed faith in positive progress.

“From a positive side… all the work on the ground… are heartening stories that don’t reach the media”, she reflected. “In the news, I think we don’t see the heartening stories of communities coming together.” Roberts identified the need for the audience to look past negative and “alarmist” media headlines to identify the ways that peacebuilding can be pushed forward constructively.

Roberts explained how she and the AFSC aspire to identify and address structural violence at the local, national, regional, and international levels: “We’re trying to look at systems that are enabling these conflicts taking place, and trying to map the systems.” By identifying systems of inequality and injustice — what Roberts identifies as the root causes of violence — she is “looking for entry points and ways we can create sustainable change”.

One example Roberts identified is “a system of racism that creates a kind of hierarchy of conflict: which conflicts gain more funding or more media attention. Why doesn’t Myanmar receive more attention, for example?

“If we looked at all of these conflicts together in one mapping process, we could look at what are the driving factors. What are the commonalities? What’s creating a hierarchy of focus? Does it serve a purpose? This needs more analysis,” Roberts said.

Hourihane then asked the experts to forecast peacebuilding during 2024, given the developments and lessons they learned over the last year. Many of the conflicts and troubling trends from 2023, according to Wylie and Roberts, have carried over into this year.

“We could start again with the same concerns,” Wylie argued. “Many of the conflicts that were so vicious in the last year are spilling over into this year. Of course, this is the year where a large chunk of the world’s population [is] going to be voting in elections of various degrees of freedom. … The trends towards authoritarianism and populism seem to be revving up.”

A new innovation that may emerge this year, Wylie recognised, may be the application of “international legal frameworks” to “rein in human rights violations”.

“Who knows what will happen in the case around Israel and genocide?” she asked the audience. “It’s an interesting case in of itself [for] using the frameworks of international law to try to establish accountability and rights, whatever the outcome.”

Wylie suggested a range of opportunities for peace research to evolve through 2024. This included the “decolonisation” of methodologies and classroom curricula, to integrate “localised ways of understanding peace” into mainstream academic discourse. Wylie also identified the growing body of work that studies the relationship between peacebuilding and individual-level psychology, which seeks to better inform the complex and long-term impacts of violence. She highlighted that “peace studies [have] always been interdisciplinary” and benefit from the continued integration of other disciplines’ research techniques.

Roberts concurred with Wylie’s prediction of continued violence, sharing that 2024 offers many opportunities for her and the AFSC to reflect critically on their techniques. “The more conflict, war, and suffering there is”, she said, “the more we feel our work is necessary. It means we have to become more strategic and impactful in the way in which we engage.”

Roberts echoed Wylie’s support for further developing the intersection between peacebuilding and psychology. “One part of our work we can develop [during 2024]… is the psychodynamic lens to conflict. When we’re mapping conflict and oppression, we can try to do more to understand what’s driving people and conflict. We know from research that facts don’t influence people.”

Roberts also reaffirmed the commitment of the AFSC to cultivating grassroots peacebuilding. She acknowledged the continued importance of “getting to groups with impacts of trauma, especially in countries with ongoing violence”, for the purpose of improving aid and developing better-informed peacebuilding models during 2024. “There are ways to work with communities to help them think about ‘what do we want’, ‘what do we need here to live full lives’, and part of that process can be healing in of itself,” she explained.

Hourihane offered audience members an opportunity to ask Wylie and Roberts questions related to their work. One audience member, commending the speakers for their positive attitudes, asked them how they “remain optimistic in light of everything that goes on.” Wylie and Roberts both responded by revisiting their core values.

Wylie anchored herself to the “fundamental idea” that “the world is of our making. It’s not inevitably the way that it is.”

“It’s a world of activity, of choice, of power politics, but I do believe [in] … and see lots of good examples of people building peace, even in situations where the possibilities are constrained.”

Wylie specifically referenced the Drawing Hope exhibit, which features drawings by children from Korea and its diaspora, as indicative of the potential for building peace in highly divided societies. The AFSC is included in the partnership of organisations that are curating this exhibit, which also includes Okedongmu Children in Korea, Corrymeela, Ulster University, ReconciliAsian, and Friends of Northeast Asia Children’s Art Exhibition Organizing Committee.

Roberts referenced the approach of appreciative inquiry to explain how she remains hopeful towards the future. “If you look at what’s working well, you find more and more of that. … If we all bring a positive outlook, it will bring a change.”

“Our work will never be done,” she continued. “It’s all ongoing, so an appreciation of what’s happening here and now is important for our well-being.”

Approximately 60 members of the public and Trinity College Dublin community attended the panel discussion in-person. Audience members commended the speakers for their “lively discussion”, “clarity”, and “passion” for peacebuilding. 

After the conversation concluded, the leadership of SOFIA felt that it was successful. Jiwoo Kim, the first-year representative of SOFIA who arranged the panel, reflected that Wylie and Roberts successfully gave the audience “a point… of interaction with peace studies”.

The primary mission of SOFIA, according to Hourihane, is to promote understanding and discussion of diplomacy and international politics within the Trinity College Dublin community. He believed that this panel was successful in advancing that mission.

“Both speakers’ insights into [peacebuilding] from their own perspectives really clarified what often can be a sprawling realm of study. The engagement from the audience also illustrated their passion and interest.”