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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) has granted funding to extend the interdisciplinary research network "Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict" until 2028. The initiative unites the University of Bayreuth with the Universities of Marburg and Erfurt along with the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI, Freiburg) to examine contemporary conflicts and peace-building efforts through a postcolonial lens and strengthen peace and conflict research in Germany.
The "Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict" network, established in 2022, will be extended for another two years (2026-2028) with financial support of €1.4 million from the BMFTR. The research focuses on how historically developed postcolonial hierarchies manifest themselves in contemporary conflict dynamics and what implications this has for sustainable conflict transformation in the future. To this end, the network members analyse conflict settings that have been shaped by colonialism, using postcolonial research perspectives as well as methods and theories from peace and conflict research.
In view of major changes in the global context, it has become even more urgent to examine postcolonial hierarchies. They influence the questioning of the rules-based international order and rapid shifts in global power relations. As the US pulls back and Europe feels increasingly challenged, security priorities, international alliances and practices across the Global South are being reshaped . "The innovative contribution of our research in Bayreuth is to explore changing postcolonial hierarchies in the context of these growing 'South-South relations'. At the interface of security and economics, as well as changing personal relationships and expert knowledge, we are researching elements of a newly emerging and more decentralised security order," says Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke, Chair of African Sociology at the University of Bayreuth.
Postcolonial hierarchies and their relevance to current conflicts
The network is funded under the BMFTR funding line for strengthening and further developing peace and conflict research in Germany. This aims to promote interdisciplinary and methodologically pluralistic research structures and knowledge transfer in order to provide orientation knowledge for politics and society in these times of rapid change.
The Hierarchies Network critically examines existing paradigms in knowledge production and their role in peace and conflict practices. The starting point is that hierarchies and the violent conflicts they generate are of great importance for peace and conflict research. Postcolonial hierarchies draw attention to the aftermath of historical developments that continue to shape current conflicts and block paths to peace.
In the extension phase, the network is focusing particularly on current political developments. The Russian war against Ukraine, the terrorist attacks on Israel in 2023, and the ongoing violence in Gaza, but also the largely unnoticed escalations in many countries of the Global South (e.g. in Burkina Faso, Sudan, Ethiopia, or in the drug wars in Central America) illustrate the current high level of conflict. At the same time, this exacerbates political polarisation and extremism in Western societies, including in the form of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim racism and repressive migration policies. The study of the postcolonial hierarchies inherent in these conflicts thus also reveals possibilities for sustainable conflict transformation.
The University of Bayreuth is involved in the Hierarchies Network through three sub-projects led by Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke, Dr. Biruk Terrefe, Dr. Adam Sandor (all sociology and politics with a focus on Africa) and Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman (history with a focus on Africa). The sub-projects examine various case studies from Africa to determine how security governance is negotiated between actors in the Global North and South, what interdependencies exist in security policy in the Red Sea and the Sahel, and how the practices of transnational development and security experts are changing in the context of new plurality and increasing authoritarianism.
Structure formation and further development of peace and conflict research
The network's Virtual Encyclopaedia is particularly innovative: as a multimedia open-access platform, the encyclopaedia presents key concepts and debates on peace and conflict from postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, bringing together a plurality of voices from around the world.
The Bayreuth project participants are also involved in the UBT Peace and Conflict Research Network, which has been connecting peace and conflict researchers at the University of Bayreuth for three years now. The network organises the Bayreuth Peace Talks lecture series and is part of regional efforts to structure peace and conflict research in Bavaria. In this way, insights and impulses from the Hierarchies Network are incorporated into these research networks, the promotion of young talent, and political and social consulting.
Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke
Chair of Sociology in Africa
Phone: 0921 / 55-4116
E-mail: jana.hoenke@uni-bayreuth.de
https://www.peaceandconflict.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html
https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/
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