The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies were broadly founded in the Northern Hemisphere, which strongly influenced how scholars understand patterns of peace or violence in Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia. This has proven to provide practitioners not only with false promises about external intervention, but even strengthened asymmetric colonial power structures in the way knowledge was and is produced. There is a need to make the discipline more plural by initiating and shaping a new research agenda that is more strongly rooted in the ground realities, contexts, imaginations - political, economic, and social - of the Global South(s).
This handbook is the first of its kind with a comprehensive and inclusive agenda for the field of peace and conflict studies: It engages in a thorough academic discussion not only about the Global South(s) but includes perspectives from the Global South(s). It reflects productive discussions with scholars from the Global South(s) that constitute the majority of authors in this handbook. In addition, while the handbook is a scholarly knowledge product, it is also an ongoing process for scholars, students and practitioners from both South(s) and North(s) with diverse backgrounds and positionalities.
This handbook is essential reference for students and researchers working on global peace and conflict studies, postcolonial studies, and international relations.

About the Editors
Siddharth Tripathi is senior research fellow at the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences, University of Erfurt, Germany, where he leads the BMBF funded project on postcolonial hierarchies in peace and conflict. Prior to that he was as a senior research fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen. He has held various teaching and research positions at Willy Brandt School of Public Policy Erfurt, German Institute for International and Security Affairs/Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) Berlin and Brussels, Institute of Diplomacy Kabul and Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR), University of Delhi. In his current research he focuses on the politics of knowledge production in IR and peace and conflict studies as well as decolonial and postcolonial praxis.
Solveig Richter is Heisenberg Professor for International Relations and Transnational Politics at the Institute of Political Science, Leipzig University, and implementing a Heisenberg research project on the legitimacy of non-state actors in post-conflict settings, funded by the German research foundation. Before that, she held positions as a junior professor for International Conflict Management at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt and senior researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs/Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Berlin (SWP), Germany. In her research she focuses on post-conflict peace-processes, on local non-state actors in conflict-areas as well as on external democracy promotion and conflict management. She conducted research mostly in the Western Balkans and in Colombia. She has a deep interest in fostering participatory and decolonial approaches as well as strengthening global and inclusive peace and conflict studies. Richter has published widely in peer-reviewed journals such as International Studies Quarterly, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP) and World Development Perspectives. During her professional career, she also worked as lecturer, journalist, and political consultant. From 2020-2023, she served as editor-in-chief of the Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung - ZeFKo Studies in Peace and Conflict, the most important journal in the field of peace and conflict studies in the German-speaking area.
Contributors
Husseina Ahmed, Beatriz E. Arias López, Kristine Andra Avram, Navnita Chadha Behera, Jalale Getachew Birru, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Thorsten Bonacker, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Clever Chikwanda, Kristina Dietz, Rafael Duarte Villa, Bettina Engels, Alexandra Engelsdorfer, Blanca Azucena Galeano Cardona, Viviana García Pinzón, Rose Jaji, Edward Silvestre Kaweesi, Achim Kemmerling, Steve Wakhu Khaemba, Ulrike Krause, Sabine Kurtenbach, Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, Jacqueline de Matos Ala, Bretton J. McEvoy, Myrna E. Morales, Ruth Murambadoro, Henri Myrttinen, Hawa Noor, Babatunde Obamamoye, Dylan O'Driscoll, Sushobhan Parida, Luicy Pedroza, Hanna Pfeifer, Japhace Poncian, Pablo Andres Ramos Baron, Angelika Rettberg, Lucas P. Rezende, Fabricio Rodriguez, Isabella Romero Ángel, Michelle Small, Richard Stupart, Tareq Sydiq, Birte Vogel, Jonas Wolff, Farooq Yousaf