Theorizing Ecological Relationality in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

Dahlia Simangan, Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability, Hiroshima University (Japan)

By drawing on the literature on the Anthropocene, posthumanism, and environmental peacebuilding, this paper theorizes ecological relationality in the context of post-conflict peacebuilding. Justice and reconciliation are broadly recognized as crucial components of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. However, approaches to pursuing justice and promoting reconciliation remain humancentric despite the recognition that war and violence harm not only human societies but also nonhuman nature. In peacebuilding processes, the environment is rarely considered in transitional justice and reconciliation mechanisms. Similarly, in ecological justice, vulnerability is generally conceived as an exclusively human experience. While ecological relationality has become an important concept in challenging the primacy of human agency and fostering a deeper awareness of human-nature entanglement, it remains underexplored in peacebuilding discourse and practice. This paper contributes to recentering the peacebuilding debate around the notion of relationality by understanding the mechanisms and outcomes of integrating nonhuman nature in past transitional justice and reconciliation efforts. It is imperative to rethink agency and vulnerability when building peace in order to align with the demands that climate change-related crises bring to conflict-affected societies.