Study title

Data collected for this project included in-depth interviews, workshops and focus groups with social movement leaders and activists in 4 Conflict Affected Contexts: Turkey, Nepal, South Africa, Colombia. We also gathered archival materials and news clippings from each of the diverse contexts. Data was collected in local languages, transcribed, but not always translated. Project reports including detailed country/movement case studies, and a final synthesis report, are all available in open access format on the project's websiteThis participatory, co-produced research seeks to understand how social movements, in some of the most complex and conflict affected contexts in the world, build knowledge, develop strategy, and educate in the pursuance of peace with social justice. Four participatory case-studies of four very different types of social movement, in Colombia, Nepal, Turkey and South Africa will be explored through a process of participatory, collaborative research that is carried out in close collaboration with the respective social movements. The case studies will then be synthesized to draw out comparative insights on the learning and knowledge production strategies of social movements in contexts of conflict. Recent research on 'peacebuilding' has noted the lack of participation of civil society in peacebuilding processes, which results in peace agreements and peacebuilding processes that while ending the armed conflict, often fail to remedy the underlying factors that produced the conflict in the first place. At the heart of the drivers of conflict in many contexts is inequality, in its multiple economic, political, cultural dimensions: unequal access to resources, land, food, housing, education, healthcare, and unequal treatment before the law and/or the political system, particularly for different cultural and ethnic communities. These are precisely the areas that many grassroots social movements seek to mobilise in favour of. Strengthening social...