Over the past decade, peace research has increasingly emphasised the importance of including the local perspective in any peace initiative. The local perspective is especially significant in realising just peace, in which addressing social injustice and human rights violations can go together with a peaceful relationship building process for addressing division and animosity. However, adopting a strictly binary approach—local versus international—presents challenges. While local communities need agency to shape their futures, international support can still play a vital role, particularly in providing platforms and addressing external geopolitical forces that may hinder local peace efforts. Trans-local turn has emerged as a hopeful approach, fostering local to local interactions and solidarity between peacebuilders from various conflict contexts. Unlike conventional top-down empowerment, trans-local exchanges promote reciprocal empowerment, a concept that emphasises mutual, non-hierarchical collaboration between those who are primarily interested in achieving just peace in their own societies. Our research explores how local actors share experiences and strategies to support one another, while maintaining self-determination and authority in working toward just peace in their own context.

Civil society has increasingly been recognised as a crucial component for sustainable peacebuilding in contexts of protracted conflict. Unlike high-level negotiators, whose influence often depends on backing from specific identity groups, civil society actors are generally seen as less entangled in identity politics, positioning them to foster peace with a focus on shared, community-centred goals. However, the role of civil society is frequently marginalised when peace processes prioritise the establishment of functional state institutions, sidelining grassroots voices and leaving peace efforts vulnerable to domestic and geopolitical pressures. This marginalisation is particularly evident in cases where there are conflicting aspirations for nation-statebuilding. Our research examines the role of civil society in peacebuilding within divided societies, aiming to understand how civil society’s agency can be exercised and strengthened to enhance the sustainability of peacebuilding initiatives.

Our research examines the intertwined roles of peacebuilding and development in conflict-affected societies, focusing on key frameworks such as conflict-sensitive development and the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus (or Triple Nexus). Peacebuilding has evolved as a multidisciplinary field aimed at addressing the root causes of violent conflict, creating conditions for sustainable peace, and preventing the recurrence of violence, through collaborative efforts across sectors. Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing awareness, within both peacebuilding and development communities, that aid effectiveness requires sensitivity to local conflicts to avoid inadvertently fuelling tensions. We explore challenges to aid effectiveness in these contexts, reflecting on the Do No Harm principle and the concept of conflict sensitivity. Our research also delves into the Triple Nexus approach, which highlights a strategic link among humanitarian, development, and peace efforts that can be utilised to improve the effectiveness of each sector.  

Our research is rooted in Peace Studies, a transdisciplinary academic field that is normatively concerned with understanding the origins of violent conflicts and exploring practices for conflict resolution, transformation, and conditions for sustainable peace. While Peace Studies is both normative and practice-oriented, our research approach does not adhere to a rigid or fixed definition of peace. Instead, we adopt a context-sensitive approach that encourages engaged research. This involves collaborative partnerships with practitioners, focusing on enhancing, examining, or addressing issues of public interest and societal challenges. Traditionally, academic research has treated ‘expert’ knowledge as separate from practical experience, often viewing community partners merely as sources of data rather than as co-creators of knowledge. In contrast, we strive to establish a reciprocal learning environment where knowledge is co-produced, bridging the gap between theory and practice.