Power Dynamics in Peace Work

About this training

This online training invites participants to critically reflect on their own roles, positionalities, and the power dynamics shaping their work in conflict and peace contexts. Combining theory with practical tools, it equips practitioners to apply an intersectional, discrimination-aware lens in facilitation, partner dialogue, conflict analysis, and project design.

Content

The training encourages participants to reflect on their own roles, positions, and power dynamics, examining the balance between impartiality and awareness of power structures. It offers practical tools for applying an intersectional, discrimination-aware approach in facilitation, partner dialogue, conflict analysis, and project work. Additionally, it creates a space for exploring how intersectional power dynamics influence conflicts, peace processes, and the roles of practitioners within these contexts. Connecting theory with practice, the training links discussions on power, intersectional discrimination, post/decolonial perspectives, and peace work to participants’ diverse lived experiences and positionalities.

By introducing key terms, concepts, and language, it equips participants to critically examine their field while learning from peers about discrimination and violence in conflicts and peace initiatives. The online format draws on participants’ expertise and real-world cases, fostering reflection on how power imbalances shaped by intersectional forms of discrimination influences conflicts, peace processes, and individual roles, and explores how they and their organizations can work towards dismantling them.  Using familiar tools like conflict analysis and project design, they learn to incorporate racism-critical and decolonial perspectives into their daily work. They acquire essential concepts and vocabulary to critically evaluate their practice, learn from others, and identify strategies to challenge colonial power structures within their organizations, and develop practical tools to integrate an intersectional, discrimination-aware perspective into facilitation, partner dialogue, conflict analysis, and project implementation.

Key concepts:

• Power dynamics
• Colonial continuities
• Epistemic racism and the coloniality of knowledge
• “Racial silence"
• Intersectionaliy
• Liberal and local peace
• Epistemic violence
• Decolonizing and anti-racist perspectives

Learning objectives

By the end of the training, participants...

• have created an understanding of how coloniality and power produces intersecting axes of violence and oppression, and how they materialize along different dimensions (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism, antisemitism) relevant to peace work.
• understood how this interacts with societal and (inter)national conflicts as well as peace processes. Participants will connect these insights to how power structures manifest in conflict settings and peacebuilding practices.
• reflected on how this applies to their own peace work, recognizing that decolonizing practices are necessary to prevent harm and build sustainable peace.
• developed practical strategies and tools to apply an intersectional, power- and discrimination-aware perspective in their work.

Who can register for this training?

The training is designed for people who are active in peacebuilding and already have knowledge on basic theories around peace and conflict. A basic understanding of power relations and coloialism is helpful for the participants, but not a must.

We prioritise smaller class sizes to promote interactive exchanges and the integration of your own practical experiences. Therefore we limit the number of spaces to a maximum of 20 participants. Register early to reserve your place!

Do you have questions about this training? Our team is happy to assist you. Please do not hesitate to contact me: hannah.wuerbel@propeace.de

Methodology

The method is based on the conscientization-problematization method developed by Paulo Freire. It assumes that all persons are already knowledgeable and can be guided to identify the knowledge by themselves. The participants, therefore, elaborate with the help of their own contexts the different dimensions in which coloniality and racism manifest and interact with conflict, as well as - based on their field of work - the possibilities of how they can begin to untangle coloniality and racism in their project, program, or organization.

Workload & Deliverables

• Participants will present from a decolonizing perspective a case study from their working contexts and conduct a conflict analysis that is amended and revised throughout the training.
• Participants prepare a presentation of their project, organization, or workplace that aims to be sensitive to coloniality.
• Participants prepare a pitch for the project/program they work in, addressing power imbalances and coloniality within their case, project, organization, or workplace.

Weekly content along the following table including…

• Basics of (reading) material used in the training
• Tasks for participants
• Working on the Decolonial Peace Work Wiki (optional)

After a successful participation, participants receive a certificate and become part of our alumni network.

Total expected weekly hours: 7 to 8 hours per week.