A False Peace: Bringing Racism and Race Into Peace Scholarship in the Metropole

• Published in: Peace and conflict 2024-11, Vol.30 (4), p.574-583
• Main Authors: Toussaint, Jeffrey G., Rosino, Michael L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antiracism; Conflict; Human; Justice; Peace; Racism
• ISSN: 1078-1919; 1532-7949
• DOI: 10.1037/pac0000739

Peace and conflict scholarship cannot afford to ignore the challenges posed by ongoing racial oppression. The dominance of racially silent research in the United States and Europe has significant implications for how peace is examined and framed and thus shapes the implementation of peace processes and policies. Examining the five leading journals in peace and conflict studies and many institutional reports, we find significant omissions of race and racism scholarship and Black peace activists and scholars who presciently connected issues of conflict and peace with racism, antiracism, and social and racial justice. To help address these omissions, we demonstrate the implications of examining race and racism from a critical sociological perspective and how it can address distortions in peace and conflict studies and contribute to significant epistemological and practical shifts in the field. We show how the inclusion of these concepts and theories of race and racism challenges race-neutral scholarship's preponderance in the field and upends many of its core assumptions. Public Significance Statement The present study demonstrates pathways for integrating critical sociology theories and concepts of racism and race into models of peace and conflict to help address the harms and distortions of the field's racial silence. We also outline how the inclusion of these ideas, and the contributions of Black peace activists can inform new ways of thinking about and practicing peace.