A Different Kind of War Story: Centering Love and Care in Peace and Conflict Studies

• Applicant: Dr. Philipp Schulz
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508062692

Our research in contexts affected by armed conflict suggests that relations and practices of love and care shape how people make sense of and survive experiences of violence. In the midst and wake of armed conflict, people continue to forge intimate relationships, fall in love, and extend different forms of care to one another. Yet, narratives about armed conflict predominantly focus on harms and suffering. This project asks: How can relations and practices of love and care change scholarly and policy understandings of conflict and peace?Love and care are active practices, not passive emotions. Through in-depth, qualitative fieldwork in Uganda and Colombia, we will explore how conflict-affected individuals and communities experience, understand, and practice love and care. We will also investigate how these practices shape how people make sense of violence and remake worlds in its wake. Building on scholarly literature on the ethics of care, the anthropology of care, and emotions in world politics, the project will analyze how love and care illuminate different meanings of politics and the political in the context of armed conflict and peacebuilding. Recognizing that love and care also shape researchers’ relationships to their identity and subject matter, we will further examine how practices of love and care underpin and sustain the work of scholars of violence. We do not deny the importance of ongoing studies of harm and injustice; rather, we make the case for the significance of considering practices of love and care alongside violence. Theoretically and analytically, a focus on love and care can shift our sense of what peace looks and feels like, where it takes place, who is involved in the making of it, when violence ends and peace begins, and how violence lives on and transforms people’s lives. This contribution reflects a feminist approach to violence and peace research, which calls for investigating these subjects in ways that go beyond the formal, official actors and actions associated with political violence and peacebuilding. Ethically and methodologically, this project responds to emerging calls for scholars of violence to move beyond damage-centered research in favor of also meaningfully engaging with the forces and relations that sustain life.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Partner Organisation: Arts and Humanities Research Council
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Roxani Krystalli