This study examines pastoral households’ preferences for climate-smart agribusiness (CSA) interventions and their implications for peacebuilding in Kenya's North Rift region. Climate variability has intensified conflicts over land, water, and livestock, threatening livelihoods and social cohesion. In this context, CSA interventions, including livelihood diversification, sustainable resource management, livestock commercialization, capacity development, and insurance, offer pathways to link climate adaptation with peacebuilding. Using data from 499 pastoral households, the study applies best–worst scaling and latent class modeling to identify preferences for nine CSA interventions and distinct household segments. Results show that training youth and women in agribusiness and promoting drought-tolerant crops are the most preferred interventions, while insurance options are least preferred. Literacy, market access, extension services, and credit availability significantly shape household preferences, reflecting structural inequalities. The findings suggest that context-specific CSA interventions can strengthen livelihoods, reduce competition over scarce resources, and enhance social cohesion, thereby contributing to climate resilience and peacebuilding when aligned with local priorities and institutional realities.
This article analyses Thailand's peace landscape using the 2023 Thai Peace Index (TPI), a composite index of 34 indicators across four dimensions: absence of physical violence, social security, respect for diversity, and equitable distribution of resources. Drawing on national and provincial data alongside qualitative fieldwork in a multiethnic community in Aranyaprathet, the study shows how structural inequalities, uneven development, and governance asymmetries are associated with subnational variations in peace. Although the overall score rose from 3.42 in 2021 to 3.43 in 2023, this aggregate stability masks substantial regional disparities, particularly in Northeastern and Southern border provinces. The qualitative findings illustrate how locally led, multicultural peacebuilding—rooted in shared cultural practices, intergroup dialogue, and safe deliberative spaces—can strengthen social cohesion in structurally disadvantaged settings. The results challenge narrow conceptions of peace as the absence of violence, underscoring the importance of distributive justice, recognition, and inclusive governance. The article concludes by proposing an integrated model linking subnational data systems with culturally grounded participatory processes and policies that reduce structural inequalities.
This study explores the everyday peace practices of migrant workers in South Korea as they navigate employer dependence and marginalisation in the workplace. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the analysis identifies two primary approaches: defensive coexistence, which prioritises self-protection and conflict avoidance, and reciprocal engagement, which seeks to foster collaborative relationships with local Koreans. These distinct strategies are underpinned by two mechanisms: strategic plurality, the blending of distinct practices that results in a plurality of everyday peace; and semiotic asymmetric invisibility, the use of inconspicuous actions to navigate majority power. Theoretically, the study reconceptualises plurality and invisibility as strategic instruments of agency rather than symptoms of fragmentation or mere resistance. By centring this perspective, the article demonstrates that migrant workers not only proactively negotiate their structural constraints but also foster peace within informal spaces.
This briefing examines how universities in conflict-affected Mindanao contribute to peacebuilding through everyday academic practice. It argues that universities function as embedded peace infrastructures, where peace is produced through institutional proximity, sustained social presence, and long-term relationships with conflict-affected communities. Drawing on reflexive insights from institutional engagement, the briefing shows how peace emerges through routine academic labor that blurs the boundaries between teaching, research, and community work. It highlights the institutional tensions faced by academics whose community engagement constrains conventional research productivity and reproduces structural inequalities in global knowledge production. The briefing concludes by reflecting on the implications of this model for peacebuilding policy, research ethics, and university governance, calling for greater recognition of public universities as central, yet under-acknowledged, actors in sustaining everyday peace in contexts of protracted conflict.
In late 2024, and within the span of nearly two weeks, the political landscape in Lebanon and Syria was dramatically transformed with the Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire agreement and the rapid collapse of the Assad regime in early December. New administrations were formed in both countries soon after, which in turn set expectations of improved relations between Lebanon and Syria. However, in the spring of 2025, clashes erupted on the porous Lebanese-Syrian border-a border that remains ambiguous and subject to demarcation due to decades of sour Lebanese-Syrian relations. The clashes were a symptom of a larger issue resultant from the short-sighted, highly securitized approach adopted by the now-deposed Assad regime that fomented skepticism and stoked tensions between the two states. This is further exacerbated by Israel's repeated aggressions against, incursions into, and occupation of territory in both countries. These dynamics continue to threaten the prospects of lasting peace in bilad al-Sham (commonly translated as "the Levant") and underscore the reality of the situation: two countries joined at the hip, long bound by a shared history, navigating their shared destinies in a post-Assad future. Moving forward, Lebanon and Syria must reset their relations and work together for regional peace and prosperity.
