Towards relationality: interposing the dichotomy between peace and violence

Abstract

Some international peace organisations and associated globalised instruments, such as the World Peace Index and Global Peace Index, construct peace and violence in antithetical terms. These instruments, underpinned by hegemonic norms and a project management rationale, position peace as a marker of liberal democracies and violence as a characteristic of weak, nondemocratic states. We argue for a mutuality of peace and violence, as constituted in institutionalised and everyday practices of belonging and as having affective and relational dimensions. Drawing on psychosocial feminist ideas, we propose a ‘conceptual intervention’ that interposes the peace–violence binary and, in so doing, privileges locally grounded meanings and experiences of peace and violence. We explore two ‘parallel’ dimensions of engagement: storytelling and process. Storytelling and story-listening is an avenue to recognise the Other, and process entails collective reflexivity, mutual learning, and engagement where the balance between recognition and differentiation is navigated and negotiated. On both dimensions, the focus is on fostering psychological processes that promote mutual recognition, honouring processes of uncertainty, and mobilising (rather than silencing) ambivalence as wellsprings for creative action.