Mapping the Landscape of Urban Peacebuilding
Institutional Affiliation
George Mason University
Start Date
3-11-2023 9:30 AM
End Date
3-11-2023 11:00 AM
Proposal Type
Presentation
Proposal Format
Virtual
Proposal Description
Rapid urbanization is a defining characteristic of the 21st century, one that invites myriad opportunity for conflict through contrasting uses of public spaces and goods, negotiating power relations through multi-layered governance structures, and navigating contested spaces amidst diverse identities. As we increasingly grapple with climate disruption, the ability of urban areas to responsibly steward finite shared resources while supporting a burgeoning global population will have massive repercussions for the stability of our social networks and ecological systems.
Globally, cities provide an excellent space to investigate how emerging peacemaking practices can be used in complex social environments to prevent violence and generate more equitable and thriving communities. Given that cities are home to people from many different backgrounds, they offer an opportunity to understand how peacemaking can be adapted to the local context and “go viral” within regional and global social change networks. Cities provide a hub where local peacebuilding practitioners such as activists, artists, violence interrupters, and environmental justice advocates network, innovate, and connect across lines of difference to engage an expanding circle of stakeholders. Cities invite dynamic intersections between scholars and practitioners and diverse forms of creativity, resistance, and transformation to interrupt cycles of violence and to shift paradigms around what peaceful, sustainable, healthy, and just cities look like.
While academic articles have begun to investigate the dynamics of urban peacebuilding, there hasn't yet been a review of the literature that posits what constitutes this nascent and evolving field and how the axes of urban peacebuilding might be defined and categorized. This project will probe the contours of the emerging study of urban peacebuilding, will examine how peace and conflict resolution scholars might better situate themselves in the growing field, and will explore how methodology and practice can be responsive to the dynamics that are unique to cities.
Mapping the Landscape of Urban Peacebuilding
Rapid urbanization is a defining characteristic of the 21st century, one that invites myriad opportunity for conflict through contrasting uses of public spaces and goods, negotiating power relations through multi-layered governance structures, and navigating contested spaces amidst diverse identities. As we increasingly grapple with climate disruption, the ability of urban areas to responsibly steward finite shared resources while supporting a burgeoning global population will have massive repercussions for the stability of our social networks and ecological systems.
Globally, cities provide an excellent space to investigate how emerging peacemaking practices can be used in complex social environments to prevent violence and generate more equitable and thriving communities. Given that cities are home to people from many different backgrounds, they offer an opportunity to understand how peacemaking can be adapted to the local context and “go viral” within regional and global social change networks. Cities provide a hub where local peacebuilding practitioners such as activists, artists, violence interrupters, and environmental justice advocates network, innovate, and connect across lines of difference to engage an expanding circle of stakeholders. Cities invite dynamic intersections between scholars and practitioners and diverse forms of creativity, resistance, and transformation to interrupt cycles of violence and to shift paradigms around what peaceful, sustainable, healthy, and just cities look like.
While academic articles have begun to investigate the dynamics of urban peacebuilding, there hasn't yet been a review of the literature that posits what constitutes this nascent and evolving field and how the axes of urban peacebuilding might be defined and categorized. This project will probe the contours of the emerging study of urban peacebuilding, will examine how peace and conflict resolution scholars might better situate themselves in the growing field, and will explore how methodology and practice can be responsive to the dynamics that are unique to cities.
Additional Comments
We might be able to be in-person, just waiting to hear about another engagement.