Women, Forced Migration – and Peace? Peacebuilding practices of women in refugee camps

What meanings do people, and in particular women, who have fled violent conflicts ascribe to peace? This question is central in the research project.

Worldwide, violent conflicts contribute to people leaving their homes to seek safety in other regions and countries. Research about the nexus of conflict and forced migration has thus far primarily explored effects of conflicts. Studies show that conflict-induced violence can persist in refugee situations, particularly in camps, and can pose specific risks for women. Yet the inherent focus on violence neglects the role of peace. For the most part, peace is reduced to a condition for the repatriation of people to their places of origin. However, it is not considered as an impacting part of everyday life or as a motive for actions of refugees and women specifically.

This is where the project Women, Forced Migration – and Peace? Peacebuilding practices of women in refugee camps comes in. The project places peace at the core of the research and links academic discourses on forced migration and peace. The nexus of conflict and forced migration is complemented with an interdependent connection to peace and refugee camps are understood as peace-relevant post-conflict situations. Through empirical research with case study in the refugee camp Kakuma in Kenya and a complementing second case study in Germany, the aim is to investigate how women understand peace, how they seek to contribute to peaceful conditions in the refugee camp and in regions of origin, and what opportunities and limitations they experience in their peacebuilding practices.

For the analysis, the project draws on an agency focus and the local turn of critical peace research. An important part of this orientation is that the project refrains from a preconceived, fixed and possibly Eurocentric definition of peace. In line with the local turn, the ‘local’ knowledge and thus the views of the women on peace are perceived as essential and explored. Based on that women’s practices for peace in their understanding as well as opportunities and limitations for their peace-related action are researched. To this end, the project employs Ruth Lister’s (2004) agency theory.

By turning the perspective to peace, the project aims to stimulate academic discussions about the role of peace for refugees and to contribute to closing research gaps. In addition, the project pursues policy relevance and aims to share results about women as actors and their peacebuilding practices with humanitarian actors.