The expression and management of culture and cultural institutions are crucial – if overlooked – aspects of violent conflict, peacemaking, and peacebuilding. A number of seminal studies have shed valuable light on how culture plays into the causes and dynamics of violence, particularly civil war and conflict (including Horowitz, 2000; Ross, 2000; 2001; 2007). Recent works have started reflecting more systematically on the role of cultural institutions in peace accords (inter alia, Fontana and Masiero, 2022) and on how specific cultural expressions and institutions may foster the stable end of civil war and even peacebuilding (Hughes and Loader, 2015; King and Samii, 2020). Other studies started shedding light on how cultural institutions and expressions may perpetuate in peacetime the cleavages that underpinned violence (Bryan, 2015; Fontana, 2013; 2016). Yet, fundamental questions remain on the complex, multi-layered and interactive relationship between cultural expressions and institutions, and the political, territorial and socio-economic structures during and after violent conflict.
Submissions for the Special Issue on “Conflict and Peace: The Cultural Dimension” will address remaining questions, including:
• How do language, religion, traditions and other aspects of culture play into the motivations for conflict, dynamics of violence and opportunities for peace?
• How have education, museums, festivals and other cultural institutions been employed to reproduce conflict or build peace?
• How do cultural expressions and/or cultural institutions interact with new political and territorial structures after guns fall silent?
Submissions adopting inter-disciplinary and multi-methods approaches are welcome, alongside single-case studies focusing on any region, and large-n studies. We are particularly interested in submissions by authors identifying with different genders, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, early career scholars and scholars working in the Global South.
