The AFK Working Group “Herrschaftskritische Friedensforschung/Critical Peace Research” warmly invites you to a digital colloquium series during the winter semester of 2026/27. The series provides space for open and collegial exchange on ongoing and completed research projects, as well as on current debates and developments in peace and conflict research. K. Andra Avram from Conflicts.Meanings.Transitions is co-organizing the colloquium, together with Laura Kotzur.
The series will open on 12 October 2026, with María Cárdenas, Philipp Lottholz, and Leon Bijan Kianzad. Further sessions will follow in November (Elena Smirnova), December (Hanna Pfeifer), January (Laura Kotzur), and February (Max Mutschler), covering a broad range of topics, perspectives, and methodological approaches. The events will take place – almost always – on Mondays from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., and will be held in either German or English, depending on the session.
Further details and registration for the colloquium
Background on the Working Group “Herrschaftskritische Friedensforschung/Critical Peace Research”
Emerging from an unease with the increasing orientation of academia toward externally funded, application-driven research – an orientation that is itself becoming less and less critically examined – and from a critique of the normalization of peace and conflict research’s operational and intellectual proximity to the military, this working group seeks to provide a platform for colleagues who understand their work in this field differently.
The group is oriented toward the interests and actors of civil society, seeks to build connections between the Global North and the Global South, and is particularly inspired by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, as well as related feminist and Marxist approaches. It aims to foster exchange not only among scholars, but also with activists and social movements. These groups are not primarily understood as objects of research; rather, we seek to learn from and with them, both in theory and in the practice of critical knowledge production.
