Environmental Violence in Peace Research: A Gap and Opportunity

Dec 18, 2024 | Richard Marcantonio
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Peace studies as a field of research has historically overlooked critical aspects of the environment in conflict, though scholars in adjacent fields have long highlighted concerns of violent environments. The emergent field of environmental peacebuilding has worked to address this gap, but even it has underrepresented important areas critical to human flourishing and peace. For example, environmental peacebuilding has predominantly focused on natural resource management rather than environmental management, despite a long history of considerations for the toxic remnants of war and ecocide in the ecology of conflict. Importantly, the gaps should be seen not as shortfalls of the past, but rather open opportunities of the future for peace scholars and practitioners. In many cases it is peace scholarship, especially empirical evidence derived from on the ground fieldwork, that needs to catch up to communities of practice.