On Nov. 24, 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a revised peace accord that marked a political end to more than 50 years of war. The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies has the primary responsibility for technical verification and monitoring of implementation of the accord through the Peace Accords Matrix Barometer Initiative.
In this talk, Angela J. Lederach (Ph.D. ‘20), assistant professor of peace and justice studies at Chapman University, will draw on a decade of research with grassroots social leaders in Colombia, weaving together campesino theories of time, social relations, and place to develop an ethnographic theory of “slow peace.” Lederach's research culminated in her book, "Feel the Grass Grow: Ecologies of Slow Peace in Colombia" (Stanford University Press, 2023), which won the 2024 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title from the American Library Association.
Slowing down does not negate the fierce urgency of social leaders’ commitment to disrupt and transform the compounding forces of political and environmental violence that persist in post-accord Colombia, says Lederach. Instead, slow peace offers a relational framework for peacebuilding as a multigenerational, multispecies, and permanent struggle to cultivate a more just and livable world.
Lederach will be joined in conversation by Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, professor of the practice and director of the Peace Accords Matrix, and and Isabel Güiza-Gómez, Ph.D. candidate in peace studies and political science.
This event builds on the Kroc Institute’s longstanding expertise in strategic peacebuilding.
Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.