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Contribution short abstract

This study foregrounds a group whose role for peace has largely been sidelined in existing scholarship: displaced women. Drawing on research in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya and the theoretical lens of everyday peace, agency and situated knowledge, the findings position them as pivotal peace actors.

Contribution long abstract

With UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) the role of women in conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction has received increasing recognition. However, despite notable progress achieved over the past decades, the global Women, Peace and Security agenda lacks attention to displaced women and their contributions to peace. This paper addresses this gap by exploring peacebuilding practices of displaced women living in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Employing a qualitative multi-method approach, this research centres displaced women’s agency and examines how they actively foster peace. Theoretically, the analysis is guided by displaced women’s everyday peace practices as conceptualized by Mac Ginty, which is complemented by Lister’s agency theory and Elorduy’s notion of situated bits of knowledge. The findings reveal that peace is not a fixed condition but a dynamic, ongoing practice for displaced women. They use their agency to manoeuvre violence, insecurities and structural constraints in the camp. They employ flight as a purposive strategy to seek peace in exile and engage in individual and collective practices to establish peaceful everyday lives for themselves, their families, friends and wider communities around them. Peace activism is also a field they get active in to advocate for more peaceful conditions in Kakuma and beyond. The richness of their peace practices places displaced women as significant peace actors whose perspectives and lived experiences are of key relevance for peacebuilding, sustainable development and more nuanced and effective humanitarian interventions.