In Zimbabwe, mothers and respected women have a lot to say in communal dispute resolution. In Chile, the customs and traditions of many indigenous groups have long played an important role in local peace formation. In Germany, many contributions to environmental protection would not be possible without young people completing a voluntary ecological year.
These and other examples from participants were collected during a workshop at the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg on the topic of societal peace formation from a global perspective. IFSH peace researcher Dr. Anna Kreikemeyer organized the workshop. In her opening presentation, she outlined the diversity and significance of societal traditions and everyday practices for local social unity. Anna Kreikemeyer explained that peace research is increasingly interested in traditions and practices of societal conflict settlement and the strengthening of social cohesion. De-colonial, feminist and ethnographic research are particularly helpful in recognizing, respecting and protecting the agency of lay people in different regions of the world.
The workshop on 4 September 2024 took place as part of a summer school of the International Law Plus program of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg. For the third time, law students from the Universities of Pretoria, Hamburg and Santiago de Chile came together to work on the topic of Bringing Together Global North and South Voices under the direction of Dr. Dorothy Makaza-Goede. All participants agreed that inter-regional dialog and interdisciplinary cooperation can contribute to global peace.
Further reading: Kluczewska, Karolina, Anna Kreikemeyer. 2021. Advancing Peacebuilding from the Ground up. Policy Brief 4/2021. Hamburg: IFSH. DOI: 10.25592/ifsh-policy-brief-0421.