I am a political scientist and international development scholar who has been raised and educated both in the Global North and the Global South. My mixed heritage and migration journeys have contributed to a deep desire to understand myself and the complex and diverse societies that we live in. The study of peace and conflict enables me to gain insight into how we can address structural disparities through critical education and practice.

InnPeace provide a research space where scholars and practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds can come together to explore mutual interests related to how we can address conflicts in our society by exploring different forms of inner and outer peace. The research centre offers a space for joint events, publications and discussions on pertinent topics today.

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My field of study is existential psychology, with a special focus on life meaning. What people see as meaningful is highly subjective. For some, engagement for peace, tolerance, and equality are obviously meaningful. Others see radical action – and even violence – as the only viable way towards what they find meaningful. When trying to gain insight into people’s life worlds, it is crucially important to understand what they value as meaningful, and if they fear that this might be desecrated by others.

The team of InnPeace advocates for a balanced and empirically grounded concept of peace. It takes into account individual and group goals, attitudes and values, but also acknowledges transrational factors that influence personal and organisational mood and action. Accordingly, the concept is non-normative, but open to subjective understandings of peace and to their cultural embeddedness. It is here that research on meaning and peace can cross-fertilise: to support a worldview that gives credit to the plurality of viewpoints, the necessity to understand what people actually mean by their actions and words, and to thus strengthen the visibility of our common humanity.