Decolonial Peace and Agroecology in North and East Syria

Maria Andrea Nardi, Lund University (Sweden/Argentina)

In recent years, academic literature on ‘decolonial peace’ has emerged as a critical response to traditional and liberal peacebuilding paradigms. Approaching decolonial peace from a political ecology perspective offers a powerful lens to examine the advances and challenges in building an agroecological system as part of the political project of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES). I argue that DAANES’s political project for agroecology exemplify a decolonial peace project central not only for Syria’s future process of reconstruction but also for reimagining environmental peacebuilding. I ask (a) how does the DAANES challenge understandings of nation-state and peace? (b) what is the role of agroecology in peacebuilding? I present a discussion based on analysis of primary and secondary data co-produced in dialogue with key informants, academic and grey literature, focus group discussions and farmers’ perceptions on agriculture developments during the last ten years.

This is part of a panel on "Climate Change, Community Governance, and Environmental Justice in Syria: Insights from the 3-year ECO-Syria Project."