AK Critical Peace Research

Welcome to the website of the AK Critical Peace Research!

Based on a discomfort with a third-party-funded and increasingly unreflected application orientation of science and a criticism of the normalisation of operational and cognitive proximity of peace and conflict research to the military, this working group aims to offer a platform for those colleagues who understand their work in this field differently: orientated towards civil society interests and actors, networking between the global North and the global South, inspired in particular by post- and decolonial and related feminist and Marxist perspectives, in exchange not only among academics, but also with activists and social movements who are not primarily to be researched, but from and with whom we want to learn in the theory and practice of critical knowledge production.

Contact

The spokespersons for the working group are

Sabine Jaberg
(Political scientist and peace researcher, Hamburg)

 

sabine.jaberg@t-online.de

Philpp Lottholz

(Universität Marburg)

 

lottholz@staff.uni-marburg.de

Mailinglist

To be added to the mailing list, please send an e-mail to:

herrschaftskritischefriedensforschung-owner[at]lists.aktivix.org

For other enquiries, please contact Sabine or Philipp by email.

News / Announcements

Mode of operation: - Working method:

The working group meets online once a month – alternately on a fixed morning or evening date. These meetings primarily serve to exchange views on critical perspectives on current developments and our everyday academic life. They can also be used for short inputs followed by discussion. This is where decisions are made about our next steps, etc.

 


For longer inputs and more intensive discussions as well as for spontaneous exchange needs, special meetings are planned, which are convened independently by the working group members, without decisions being made for the working group.

Details about the zoom room and minutes of the meetings will be communicated via the mailing list. Anyone who would like to contribute to one of the above points, has other ideas or simply wants to exchange ideas and get to know other researchers who are critical of domination is cordially invited to join us.

Fixed monthly date for open and topic-related dialogue:

We meet online once a month for a working group meeting, in which both open exchange and topic-related brief input and exchange are possible. Due to different care and work commitments, the meeting times alternate (mornings and evenings). The next dates are:

Wednesday, 7 May 2025, 6.00 p.m.
Friday, 6 June, 11.00 a.m.
Wednesday, 2 July, 6.00 p.m.
Friday, 1 August, 11.00 a.m.

Details of the zoom room and minutes of the meetings will be communicated via the mailing list. Anyone who would like to contribute to one of the above points, has other ideas or simply wants to exchange ideas and get to know other researchers critical of domination is welcome to join us.

Creation of a database on knowledge critical of domination: Anyone who would like to participate in this is welcome to contact us at any time.

Creation of a database on knowledge critical of domination:

If you would like to take part, you are welcome to contact us at any time.

AFK-Kolloquium 2025

  • Der AK Herrschaftskritische Friedensforschung bringt einen Antrag zur Wissenschaftsfreiheit in die Mitgliederversammlung ein
  • Aus dem AK wurden zwei Panels genehmigt: Kritische Friedensforschung 2.0 und Wissenschaftsfreiheit.

Content (literature / conference paper)

Here we document selected current publications by members of the AK Herrschaftskritische Friedensforschung.

Archive

This text was developed in a participatory manner in the AK Critical Peace Research the German Association for Peace and Conflict Research (AFK) in January/February 2025 and discussed at the AFK General Assembly on 20 March 2025. This is NOT a statement by the AFK as a whole.

Read statement

Mourning the death of Michael Berndt:

On 8 July 2024, Dr habil. Michael Berndt at the age of just 61. The news of his sudden death left us all speechless and shocked. Michael was an active member of our working group on peace research critical of domination. Many knew him for decades as a colleague, some also as a friend – and we all valued him as a competent, controversial, yet always friendly and sincere person. But Michael was also an imposing figure with his stature, beard and obligatory cowboy boots. His passion was playing the guitar, which he had perfected in recent years. Academically, he felt committed to critical peace research – especially its political-economic branch. The fact that this approach seemed out of fashion for a long time did not bother him at all. On the contrary: it spurred him on to demonstrate its current relevance. He never hung his colours to the wind. He did what he considered scientifically correct and important – and that was a fundamental, materialistically underpinned critique of any military policy.

Only recently, his essay on the interventions in the Sahel was published in an anthology on critical peace research. And just a few days before his death, he spoke about the Wannsee Declaration at an online meeting of our working group. This founding document of critical peace research from 1971 was of central importance to him as a reference point for his peace research thinking and actions. At this last joint session, Michael was bursting with energy and ideas. He will be missed all the more in our debates, indeed in critical peace research as a whole.

Sabine Jaberg

Further information on the life and work of Michael Berndt: http://www.miel-berndt.de/MB/Welcome.html


The Miel-Berndt family would like to ask for donations for medico international in Michael’s memory:
DE 69 4306 0967 1018 8350 02
Keyword: Dr habil. Michael Berndt

If you would like to take part, you are welcome to contact us at any time.

The workshop took place online in November 2024. This included public keynote speeches by Angela Lederach and Marcos Scauso.

The workshop took place in November 2023 at Justus Liebig University Giessen.

In recent years, a so-called ‘critical café’ has been held regularly at lunchtime or in the evening to provide a framework for exchanging, networking, discussing and developing ideas away from conventional academic formats.

12/13 December 2022, Giessen: The AK Critical Peace Research and the section Transnationale und Intersektionale Herrschaftskritik at the Giessen Graduate Centre for Social Sciences, Economics and Law GGS of the Justus Liebig University Giessen jointly organised a workshop in which we critically examined the possibilities and conditions of critical research. The event was held at Justus Liebig University Giessen. You can find a report on the workshop here.

  • Members of the working group were involved in the content and organisation of various panels and workshops.
  • Meeting of the working group on critical peace research and election of the new spokespersons

„Peace needs participation and self-organisation – a plea for a critical view of the Ukraine war and its consequences“

  • Members of the working group were involved in the content and organisation of various panels and workshops.
  • Meeting of the AK and re-election of the spokespersons
  • Here you can find a report on the workshop written by Maria Zhiguleva for Wissenschaft & Frieden.
  • Here you can find a publication by Juliana Krohn and Christina Pauls, which emerged from an intensive exchange at the workshop.. 

The Working Group Critical Peace Research met at the congress of the Informationsstelle Militarisierung (IMI) in Tübingen on 13.11.2015. The working group will coordinate itself and also discuss key areas of cooperation. The IMI congress has overlaps in terms of content. Among other things, it will deal with the topics of ‘cognitive militarisation’ and the exchange with grassroots activists from Afghanistan, who will report on the creation of political spaces under the conditions of occupation. The theme of the congress itself is “Military Landscapes: Discourses – Spaces – Strategies”. The congress also sees itself as an interface between the peace movement and peace research.