Navigating the Complexities of Inter-Religious Peacebuilding: Implications for Theory and Practice

Abstract

As conflict dynamics become complex and escalate globally, especially identity-based conflicts, we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in the Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Peacebuilding field toward contextually innovative and effective community-led approaches. The inadequacies of liberal and neoliberal paradigms and the increase in identity-based conflicts, religious pluralism, and differences in communities have motivated evidence-based inter-religious community-level engagements over the past two decades. These interventions rely on the theoretical frameworks of emancipatory peacebuilding and compassionate reasoning, and reflect an in-depth sense of spirituality, longing, and the essence of human relationship building and practice. This study gathers data from primary sources (which include findings from hybrid interviews) through a semi-participatory and empirical qualitative explorative research process in order to critique the underlying philosophies of traditional paradigms and explore emerging alternatives. It also posits that inter-religious community-led interventions are founded on the emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding (EERPb) framework. They are adaptive to non-linear (and sometimes non-scientific) approaches and are less focused on international standards. The framework fundamentally embraces phenomenological, metaphysical, and ethical realities in peacebuilding, operationalizes the concept of just peace, and acknowledges a global approach to peace that offers the opportunity to resolve the difficulties encountered by the various CAR and peacebuilding theoretical schools.

1. Introduction

The dynamics of conflict and violence, as well as the complexity of the relationships between and the motivations of agents, are constantly changing. Inevitably, these dynamics shape peacebuilding, conflict analysis, and the resolution of scholarship, practice, and policy. Furthermore, the nature of these phenomena and motivations—including the need to prioritize a local peace agenda—determines and influences the evolution of peacebuilding, peacemaking, development, and humanitarian response models or paradigms to appropriately and contextually address conflict and violence, especially as there are gaps and failures in some institutionalized and liberal peace-driven paradigms, leading to ineffectiveness (Campbell et al. 2011; Mac Ginty and Williams 2016; Carey 2022; Richmond and Carey 2005; Newman et al. 2009; Mac Ginty 2010, 2021; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Autesserre 2014; Berents 2018; Mac Ginty and Firchow 2016; Paffenholz 2015; de Coning 2013; Jastard et al. 2019; Bliek 2021; Neufeldt et al. 2020; Tschirgi 2015; Bruursema 2015; Randazzo 2016).

According to the 18th edition of the Global Peace Index (Institute for Economics and Peace 2024), fewer conflicts are being resolved militarily or through other liberal and neoliberal approaches. Additionally, the average level of global peacefulness has deteriorated by 0.56 percent, comprising the 12th deterioration in peacefulness within the last 16 years (Institute for Economics and Peace 2024). Perhaps, as increased power competition and the rise of middle-level powers drive the internationalization of global conflicts, a refocus at the ‘local’ level, alongside the potent and evidence-based outcomes of grassroots religious actors, can increase the degree of peacefulness.

In Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America, people resonate highly and are affiliated with religion. According to the Pew Research Center, 86–98% of people in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Uganda consider religion to be of daily importance (Pew Research Center 2022). Furthermore, as the populations of these countries and the rest of the globe actively grow, it is essential to note that the importance of religion in people’s daily lives influences their relationships with others and their emerging and growing psychosocial and religious needs, hence necessitating the emergence of inter-religious peacebuilding as a subfield. Inter-religious peacebuilding is relevant and effective in addressing fractured relationships arising from underlying religiously motivated identity-based conflicts and violence (Owen and King 2019). Its relevance and effectiveness are not limited to religiously motivated identity-based conflicts and contexts, as religion is often absent as the root cause of conflict (Korestelina et al. 2024).

This normative and theoretical study does not argue for religion and religious peacebuilding but is anchored on the assertions of previous pro-religious peacebuilding research. Fundamentally, it aims to assert that peacebuilding and development must acknowledge and incorporate organized and non-organized aspects of peacebuilding processes, especially the phenomenological, ontological, and axiological components within the frameworks of inter-religious peacebuilding, especially at the grassroots or community level. These components strengthen the indispensability of the local knowledge of religious actors and acknowledge the importance of local inter-religious partnerships, participation, ownership, and local wisdom, alongside working to holistically address the tangible and intangible needs of actors, including spiritual (Bliek 2021; Neufeldt et al. 2020; de Coning 2013; Tschirgi 2015; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Autesserre 2014; Bruursema 2015; Randazzo 2016; Hart 2008).

Methodologically, this study uses a semi-participatory and empirical qualitative explorative research process, including hybrid interviews (primary sources) and a literature review (secondary sources). The coding methodology is anchored on a qualitative coding strategy called the Description–Interpretation–Presumption focused (DIP) coding strategy (Adu 2019). Specifically, this study uses a combination of interpretation- and presumption focused coding strategies to accurately analyze the implicit indicators of interview data, which are significant pieces of information identified in interview transcripts that help address the research questions of the study (Strauss 1987). The implicit indicators help create codes that reflect the findings of data collected from primary sources (hybrid interviews). Some of the categories and themes from the coding strategy of the research are as follows: community-led, contextually owned, context- and culture-sensitive, collaboration and co-creation, needs-driven, strategic, and inclusively participatory interventions, multi-sectoral and sustainability, and flexibility and adaptability. The findings support the argument of this study and posit that the incorporation of “compassion and forgiveness”—as metaphysical realities—into reconciliation (peacebuilding or peacemaking tools) and the organic wisdom of local religious actors—as phenomenological realities—characterize emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding and offer a unique ethical character (i.e., axiological realities) to the paradigm (Allen Nan et al. 2012; Gopin 2022; Natorski 2011).

This paper is structured into seven sections. Section 1 provides an introduction that highlights and places the study in a broader context. It defines the purpose and significance of the paper. Section 2 offers a characterization of inter-religious entities and their frameworks. Section 3 is a literature review of a collection focused on the theoretical frameworks of this paper: Critical and Emancipatory Peacebuilding and Compassionate Reasoning. Section 4 of the paper explores the evolution of peacebuilding schools, philosophies, and paradigms, and how their emergence has influenced current research on peacebuilding paradigms by assessing a collection from the literature. Section 5 focuses on emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding, a new concept and paradigm that extends beyond the status quo of institutional or neoliberal inter-religious peacebuilding. Section 6 of the paper, through detailing conceptual and pragmatic challenges, reveals the limitations of its etymological application and technicalities relating to such terms as ‘local’ or ‘community-led and -owned.’ Finally, Section 7 of the paper—the conclusion—positions the emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding (EERPb) theoretical framework as an evolving framework that characterizes locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding approaches as sustainable, equitable, and inclusive. The shift from institutionally controlled inter-religious peacebuilding processes to organic and adaptable grassroots-generated inter-religious approaches highlights the current emerging popularity of ‘Localization and Decolonization’ as opportunities to refocus on peacebuilding as a community-led effort, leveraging the effectiveness of locally led and owned or community-led inter-religious peacebuilding and the associated challenges regarding co-creating and testing new means for its facilitation (Kwuelum 2023). This offers an opportunity to decentralize the formulation and design of paradigms. Furthermore, it prioritizes shared power, knowledge, and actualization of the potency and agency of actors in a conflict-affected context at the grassroots level.

2. Characterizing Inter-Religious Entities and Their Frameworks

Fundamentally, religious peacebuilding entities1—especially individual religious actors—are a unique set of actors who display a conviction of “a calling” by God, deeply rooted in an uncompromized posture of passion. Interviews with a collective of religious actors across Africa and Southern and Latin America2 have indicated that there is a unanimous affirmation of their involvement in peacebuilding practice as a ministry characterized by charisma or a set of endowed gifts and skills from God, also regarded as selfless service to Shalom: the commitment of accompanying communities toward freedom from physical violence while working on mutual problems, harmonizing relationships, and well-being within the systemic context of justice and equity through reconciliation. There is a conviction that the call to the ministry and committed witnessing portrays a sense of spirituality and ethos. Furthermore, it emphasizes the ontological aspect of the identity of religiously inclined peacebuilders3. This connotes a mandate: the passion and commitment of these religiously inclined peacebuilders, in all ramifications, refer to reconciliation as peacemaking and being in the right relationship with God, which involves constant renewal, working toward building bridges between people or communities, and, finally, creation with God (Belay 2024; Miller 2010). The Shalom perspective insinuates that faith-based or religious approaches are an aspirational reality and a dilemma that aims beyond the concept and perspective of positive peace. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, reflected on the dilemma of peace, stating “peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in neighboring countries. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, people are fed, and individuals and nations are free.” (Wolfe 2015).

Broadly, faith-based or religious peacebuilding frameworks are complex, messy, and, at most times, unscientific and structured. These actors work toward peace, which is perceived as an outcome to be achieved only after full submission to the will of God (Abu-Nimer 2003). Additionally, more often than religious institutions (e.g., churches and affiliated socio-economic-oriented agencies or departments), these individuals are guided by a wealth of spiritualand ethical values and principles from their religious beliefs and heritage. Their personal identity qualities are elusive and not easily explained. Inevitably, their religiously inspired emotional intelligence, the technique of the Pulpit, and the tool of hermeneutics, alongside the use of Religious Texts, offer them remarkable leverage power and influence over communities (Little 2007) and an ability to work with communities. In a 2002 United Nations report by Kofi Anan on armed conflict prevention, he affirmed that “religious organizations can play a role in preventing armed conflict because of the moral authority that they carry in many communities.” Furthermore, he noted that certain religious leaders and groups “possess a culturally-based comparative advantage in conflict prevention and can help to emphasize the common humanity of all parties … (and) mobilize nonviolent alternative ways of expressing dissent prior to the outbreak of conflict” (Annan 2012).

The desire of religious actors to mutually collaborate, courageously accept, and affirm each other as partners who are from different religious backgrounds tends to drive the aspiration of religious actors to envision the world as a human family or a presumed universal brotherhood and sisterhood of all human beings under the care and authority of a loving personal God (Zahn 1992). Moreso, their meaning-making, and interpretation of peace through the lens of religion are reflective of faith-based or just peace. The relevance and effectiveness of inter-religious posture and mobilization are evident as tools in conflict-centered or violent scenarios, even when religion is not a factor.

In a unique conflict-affected context characterized by a multi-faceted and complex ethnoreligious protracted conflict, formal and informal religious entities collaborate as partners and use inter-religious peacebuilding models to address basic human needs and prevent and reduce the destructive dynamics of violence and war. In contrast to other paradigms, ideally, the religious paradigm tends to humanize peacebuilding processes, actors, and outcomes. Furthermore, it acknowledges identity needs and enables accountability, responsibility, and respect for the norms of conflict-affected contexts, evoking dialogue, possible reconciliation, and forgiveness (Abu-Nimer et al. 2001). The paradigm’s core is the understanding and motivation regarding religion’s role in the dynamics and mechanics of conflict (Moller 2006; Nicholas 2014). This paradigm is both ethical and moral.

The potential of religion for peace is embodied in numerous structures, such as (religious) individuals or leaders, religious peacemaking movements, religious peacebuilding, and development organizations or faith-based organizations established by churches, religious institutions or bodies and communities, and spiritual peacemakers or peacebuilders (Little 2007; Faith and Development in Focus: Nigeria 2018). These religious structures and entities are involved in the development, education, healthcare, poverty, good governance, corruption, peacebuilding, inter-religious dialogue and reconciliation, and humanitarian relief dimensions of peacebuilding (Faith and Development in Focus: Nigeria 2018). In addition, they are either formal (legally registered to function) or informal (not legally registered but functional). Their religious affiliation and orientation shape and influence their work (Marshall 2020; Smock 2001); however, their efforts are difficult to assess (Marshall 2020). Faith-based peacebuilding (religious peacebuilding) pays attention to the everyday context of life, existing in the shadow of ongoing violence and shaped through resistances and resiliencies, large and small (Berents 2018). Moreso, an embodied understanding of everyday peace, can complicate orthodox understandings of peacebuilding.

There is no doubt that religion, the personal identities of religious actors, and their roles in communities form an alloy of force that enables positive impacts (Little 2007). However, it is important to affirm the “ambivalence” of religion—as a potential to foster violence or peace—from a conceptual point of view (Garred and Abu-Nimer 2018; Juergensmeyer 1996; Jenkins 2007; Wolfe 2015). Additionally, the inevitable negative impact of extremist religious perspectives poses a challenge in the characterization of religion (Stern 2004; Juergensmeyer 2003; Matyok et al. 2011). Existing peace-approach mechanisms, such as those from liberal or institutional perspectives, are often perceived as hegemonic peace paradigms (Mac Ginty and Williams 2016; Natorski 2011; Newman et al. 2009) that pay less attention to addressing and transforming the root causes of violence (Matthews 2017), including religiously aligned motivations.

Contextualizing or situating community-led and -owned inter-religious peacebuilding is anchored on localism, localization, or local turn. Many peacebuilding schools have advanced the cause of localism, localization, or local turn as a major philosophy, based on the focus shift to “everyday” peace. Furthermore, localism as a philosophy of inter-religious peacebuilding at the community or grassroots level emphasizes the role and meaning of contextualized or locally led peacebuilding processes. Furthermore, it highlights the influence of critical peace scholarship (CPS) on conflict analysis, resolution, and peacebuilding, thereby examining the concept of power in peacebuilding. Overall, the emergence of localism, localization, and the local turn as a philosophy in the field is due to the shared commitment to the problematization of the relationship between knowledge and power, alongside the ethical engagement of social dynamics in society and the peacebuilding field.

A community-level type of inter-religious peacebuilding implies a “bottom-up” approach and oriented principle (Bliek 2021; Neufeldt et al. 2020). It suggests a peacebuilding process that (partly or wholly) constitutes or incorporates non-linear or informal and somewhat unorganized approaches, often regarded as non-scientific and less aligned with international standards. Powerful and influential actors within the international development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding systems dominate and create an institutional conception and control of peacebuilding frameworks, promoting an understanding of peacebuilding evolution as mainly “top-down”. Notably, the failures and ineffectiveness of peacebuilding approaches and power imbalances are the outcomes of “top-down” paradigms (Mac Ginty 2010; Mac Ginty and Firchow 2016; Paffenholz 2015; de Coning 2013; Jastard et al. 2019); however, it is important to acknowledge that this premise does not negate the microscopic underlying power dynamics in community-led and -owned approaches, including those in the inter-religious dimension.

3. Literature Review: Theoretical Frameworks

The theoretical frameworks for this study strongly indicate that the multi-dimensional features of peacebuilding and the context of peacebuilding praxis are constantly changing. Therefore, it is important that the constantly changing praxis of peacebuilding stimulate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarly engagements in order to adequately meet the conceptual and pragmatic goals of the field.

Locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding is anchored on critical, emancipatory, and compassionate reasoning theories (Richmond 2021; Okyere 2021; Gopin 2022). There is no doubt that contexts such as colonialism, slavery, racism, and imperialism, among others, stir scholarly debates on emancipation and its theory. Often, discussions on ‘emancipatory’ peace paradigms are perceived as radical and unhealthy dislocations of the status quo. However, I must note that the fundamental values of peacebuilding are inseparable from the very nature of peacebuilding itself, as it works to actualize the ‘agency’ and ‘potency’ of actors. In its entirety, peacebuilding should and must be liberatory.

An emancipatory (peacebuilding) theory is relative to ‘social justice’, which resonates with the critical examination of power and the interactions between power, knowledge, and social dynamics. This theory has been widely used in critical and post-colonial theoretical literature (Richmond 2021; Okyere 2021), which emerged as the sixth peacebuilding school. Emancipatory knowledge has been developed with nuanced contextual understanding, and it refutes the positivist assumption of a singular (usually somewhat colonial) truth perspective through an advocacy mode. Indisputably, the literature holds that acknowledging subjectivity allows for a certain degree of refutation of colonial hegemonic positivist truths.

In order to decentralize powerholding and stratification of knowledge in peacebuilding processes, Okyere (2021) called for the multiplexing of methodologies in peacebuilding, the adoption of a multidisciplinary approach to understanding peace and peacebuilding, and the question of intervention in post-war peacebuilding, examining the principles that guide the implementation of peacebuilding through the lens of the critical and emancipatory school of thought. However, incorporating transdisciplinary perspectives on ‘emancipatory’ concepts would emphasize and strengthen the interconnectedness between their etymology and meaning-making.

Critical and emancipatory peacebuilding theory suggests decolonizing the peacebuilding field to enable a context in which localized peacebuilding infrastructure can flourish. It signifies the interweaving of emancipatory peacebuilding into the fabrics of society, emphasizing the negative connotation of “objects and subjects of peace” (Okyere 2021), and creates a safe space for the type of elasticity that the community-led and -owned inter-religious peacebuilding framework possesses. Furthermore, it strengthens opportunities for the independent ownership of processes, inclusive and equitable participation, and sustainability. Religious and community leaders and community members can collaborate to transform bias and suspicious relationships through different inter-religious initiatives, including exchanges toward mutual understanding, respect for differences, and harmonious living.

In the context of changing praxis, Richmond (2021) emphasizes the role of self-determination in peace paradigms. The debate pertaining to emancipation by various disciplines raises a broader question on global justice (Richmond 2021), as well as a question regarding the driving force of global justice in the form of ‘resistances’ (Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Mac Ginty 2021; Hellmuller 2018).

The philosophic connection between localism and community-led inter-religious peacebuilding is emphasized by the fact that locally led peacebuilding is the process in which local actors set their agendas, develop solutions, and bring the capacity, leadership, and resources to make those solutions a reality (Funk and Said 2010; Kendhammer and Chandler 2021; Boege n.d.; Ojendal et al. 2017; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017). According to the United Nations, peace is more sustainable when locally owned, led, and implemented (Bliek 2021). The conceptualization of “local ownership” occurs within the theoretical approaches of liberal peace and communitarian or everyday peace (Hellmuller 2018). Notably, early proponents of the paradigm shift—John Paul Lederach (1997) and Kevin Avruch (1998)—argued that the cultural context remains pivotal to sustainable peace. Hence, there is a need to affirm the vital and ingenious role of local religious actors who have ‘unbiased capacities for peace’, and who are passionately committed to collaborating beyond the boundaries of religion.

It is almost impossible not to acknowledge the transdisciplinary lens and the interaction between emancipation, critical theory, the theory of power, and compassion. In Jane Georges’ (2013) definition and description of ‘Emancipatory’, she provided a nursing perspective. She views its use as emphasizing the centrality of power relations in suffering and the ability to render compassion impossible. This theory takes the impacts of power relationships on the axes of gender, ethnicity, and other socio-political constructs into context (Georges 2013). The place and human capacity to be compassionate transcends theology and spirituality to neuroscientific assertions (Stevens and Woodruff 2018). The relationality of culture as an embodied experience in history and social interactions creates a scholarly platform to weave various scientific perspectives. For example, cultural psychology can utilize its scientific culture theory to evaluate the degree to which emancipatory social movements draw upon adequate culture theory (Ratner 2019).

The theoretical framework of the theory of power underpins the importance of grassroots-level inclusion and participation of communities in inter-religious peacebuilding, as opposed to harsh peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian mechanisms.4 According to Xavier Mathieu, critical peacebuilding scholars advocate ‘a more empathetic, responsive, culturally sensitive, and ultimately radical peace encompassing the local, indigenous. Quotidian experience remains prominent, especially that of the subaltern categories, within conflict-affected spaces and societies’ (Mathieu 2019). The approach of critical scholars “reveals the universalist assumptions that inform peacebuilding” (Mathieu 2019) and positions critical scholars as essentialists.

Therefore, in contrast to liberal peacebuilding, localism or the local turn moves beyond the automatic ushering of peace through peace deals to enable the agency of individuals and communities as local actors, thereby critiquing orthodox approaches (Mac Ginty 2021; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Autesserre 2014; Berents 2018). The 2024 GPI report indicated that such automatic peace deals or agreements, which neglect the inclusive participation of individuals and communities, have consistently failed (Institute for Economics and Peace 2024). The emergence of localism leads to an understanding of peacebuilding evolution as a “top-down” and “bottom-up” binary (opposite) discourse, thereby creating neoliberal approaches (Bliek 2021; Neufeldt et al. 2020; de Coning 2013; Tschirgi 2015; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Autesserre 2014; Bruursema 2015; Randazzo 2016; Mac Ginty 2010; Mac Ginty and Firchow 2016; Paffenholz 2015; de Coning 2013; Jastard et al. 2019). Marxist tradition, Immanuel Kant, continental philosophy, and essentialist understanding have strongly influenced critical scholarship (Carey 2022; Newman et al. 2009). The theory of power compels the shift from liberal peace paradigms, which are hegemonic and proposed by social constructivists, to neoliberal peace paradigms5, especially localism or local turn (Mac Ginty and Williams 2016; Carey 2022; Newman et al. 2009; Richmond and Carey 2005; Campbell et al. 2011).

The compassionate reasoning theory reveals that a combination of mental and social abilities in religious actors is critical to the ultimate goal of holistic peacebuilding (Gopin 2022). It is the positive energy of internal self-expression that transcends empathy. Compassionate reasoning refers to “compassionate thoughts, experiences, and habitual practices leading the mind toward higher practical reasoning about ethical principles that can maximize compassion in one’s own life and in earthly existence.” (Gopin 2022). The compassion to respond to conflict and violence (as the best emotional capacity in the higher mind) and disrupting the boundaries of law and policies form an essential synergy. The constant and active cultivation of feelings and actions of compassion is intrinsic to this theory. It generates collaboration, diversity, and active learning from everyone and everything (Gopin 2022; Stevens and Woodruff 2018). According to Gopin (2022), this is the beginning of political reflection and negotiation on the best strategic non-violent interventions (Gopin 2022). Additionally, Gopin believes that the more compassionate you are as a person, the more motivated you are to use logic and reasoning, to use the whole of your mind and capacity, and to care for others in the best way possible (Gopin 2022). Resonating with this theory, Georges (2013) explored and described neurological research and proved that relief from suffering occurs when compassion is possible. For Georges, violence and suffering occur when compassion is impossible (Georges 2013). This is a core characteristic of the emancipatory and elicitive religious peacebuilding paradigm. However, it is important to note that the applicability of compassion in faith-based religious peacebuilding is a complicated and complex phenomenon (Gopin 2000). This study acknowledges the strengths of emancipatory, critical, and compassionate reasoning theories but critically notes the fundamental role of human experience in terms of how it influences the human capacity for ‘forgiveness and compassion’ and the tension in positioning them as values, virtues, and praxis in the pursuit of reconciliation at all levels (Abu-Nimer et al. 2001; Lederach 1997; Daly and Sarkin 2007).

The reviewed literature on theoretical frameworks neglects to emphasize the complexity and operationalization of the potency of independent indigenous (local) knowledge and the actualization of agency for freedom and ownership in peacebuilding processes while highlighting their centrality (Constantinides and Georges 2022). Therefore, normatively and theoretically, emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding (EERPB) theory is proposed in the current study in order to push beyond the neoliberal peacebuilding paradigm to incorporate the metaphysical, phenomenological, and axiological realities of peacebuilding, thus helping to transform divided societies (Daly and Sarkin 2007; Lederach 1997; Hart 2008; Kollontai et al. 2018).

4. The Neoliberal School of Peacebuilding and Evolution of Peacebuilding Schools

Certain factors trigger movements in the field of peacebuilding, including the failures and ineffectiveness of some liberal peace-driven paradigms, the underlying dynamics (especially power imbalances) manifesting as oppressive mechanisms within the subsystems of foreign–domestic non-governmental organization relationships in the peacebuilding field, and the emergence of a local peace agenda.

Conceptual and pragmatic gaps in scholarship and practice necessitate the constant negotiation of peacebuilding ideologies, philosophies, and practices. Importantly, the exploration and contextualization of peace (approaches to peace) in peacebuilding creates a fundamental awareness of the field’s evolution (Jastard et al. 2019), especially the associated schools of thought.

The conflict management school emerges at more acceptable levels of intensity and costs of conflict (Matyok et al. 2011) and embodies constructivism, which holds that conflict is a natural, essential, and valuable element inherent in human behavior. Its attributes depend on the interaction of conflict dynamics with peacebuilding approaches (Carey 2022). According to Carey (2022), peace is categorized as positive or negative. This school of thought is the oldest school of peacebuilding, and its approaches are short-term, focusing on powerholders or the powerful political class, who usually influence negotiation processes. Its theoretical framework is anchored in the theory of political elites and posits that peace is attainable when it is in the interest of influential political leaders.

The conflict resolution school comprises conflict resolution theory in response to international or state wars. Idealistically inspired by the liberal peace perspective and paradigm, this school proposes the establishment of norms and standards to regulate the world through a global monitoring body, such as the United Nations and other international organizations (Campbell et al. 2011). Civil society actors are vital protagonists, and the focus is placed on the external actors of the conflict. Dialogues and peace agreements are some of the school’s theoretical framework’s mechanisms, anchored on legal and conventional mediatory framing. The school’s theoretical framework suggests that interventions on the underlying causes of injustices, exclusion, security, and people’s perceptions of conflict can lead to the attainment of peace. However, this theoretical framework needs to address power dynamics and the role of power in conflicts, which manifest as a power imbalance in asymmetric relationships.

The conflict prevention school aims to prevent violence from starting or restarting by strategically tackling the causes of conflict that lead to violence (Schirch 2013). Self-assessment and idealist-inspired theoretical frameworks inform this school of peacebuilding thought. It suggests short- and long-term strategies and interventions that address the possible causes of conflict and violence. Schirch (2013) described the conflict prevention school’s paradigms as aiming “to manage, mitigate, resolve, and transform central aspects of the conflict through official diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation, and mediation”. Furthermore, it aims to foster reconciliation in order to prevent the re-occurrence of violence and instability.

The conflict transformation school embodies idealistic-oriented theoretical frameworks in which civil actors are key protagonists and indispensable to the holistic transformation of structural and systemic levels of change in society (Paul van Tongeren et al. 2005; Campbell et al. 2011). It focuses on internal actors in the conflict. John Paul Lederach’s conflict transformation approach profoundly influenced this school of peacebuilding thought in the mid-1990s. This approach focuses on the middle-level layer of society as positive agents or local organizations to build peace and stimulate reconciliation. According to Campbell et al. (2011), “Lederach’s focus on the empowerment of mid-level leadership has had considerable influence on the practice of civil society peacebuilding”. The transformation-oriented paradigm suggests that addressing the root causes and drivers of violent conflict depends on the transformation or change that occurs at the personal (beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors), social or relational (changing patterns of interpersonal relationships), cultural (depolarization and changing patterns of community interactions), and structural (changing patterns of a conflict generating agents within structures, institutions, and systems) levels of relationships (Barnett et al. 2007; Lederach 1997; Appiah-Thompson 2020; Hart 2008). Broadly, conflict transformation theory emphasizes long-term infrastructure (Lederach 1997). This school’s theoretical framework emphasizes the integration of various components of peacebuilding during and after conflict reconstruction (Hart 2008; Lederach 1997). According to the United Nations’ Agenda for Peace, the post-conflict reconstruction framework suggests a range of peacebuilding activities and functions for peacebuilding actors, which precede and follow peace agreements and accords in order to stabilize war-torn states post-war (An Agenda for Peace, United Nations 1992). This paradigm narrowly focuses on preventing the re-occurrence of violence, from negative peace to positive peace. It places emphasis on reconstruction and stimulates the role of reconciliation as a post-conflict mechanism, which enables overcoming fear and insecurity and requires the transformation of adversaries through a long-term architecture that cultivates trust-building and other principles of human dignity and mutual needs (Halperin and Sharvit 2015; Hicks 2011; Bar-Tal 2013; Lederach 1997; Trujillo et al. 2008; Allen Nan et al. 2012). This school stimulates and situates neoliberalism as a critical path toward post-conflict reconstruction or holistic recovery.

Inevitably, in order to address the impact of the liberal peace agenda and negotiate an understanding that affirms the importance of local peace paradigms, it is essential to highlight the necessity of localization, localism, or local turn (a process of advancing local-led peacebuilding and development), which includes strengthening the capacity of local actors and entities. However, the concept and problems of ‘capacity building’ vary contextually and according to sector. It is worth noting that religious actors have inherent capacities in their contexts that need to be discovered, acknowledged, and developed. A realignment of capacity building with capacity strengthening necessitates accompaniment, affirmation, support, accountability, trust, and the strengthening of existing capacities.

Overall, peacebuilding approaches have been altered in the post-Cold War era, aiming to transform conflict and violence by generating agents intertwined with the reality of culture and its link to conflict and the process of peacebuilding (Avruch 1998; Ross 2007; Reychler and Paffenholz 2001; Trujillo et al. 2008). Furthermore, all forms of injustice should be constructively resolved through various paradigms to create a sustainable and peaceful environment (Reychler and Paffenholz 2001). This process comprises multiple functions, roles, and activities, which form “components that together create the possibility of sustainable transformation, moving the conflict dynamic toward the goal of more peaceful relations” (Lederach 1997). It is a collection of concrete linear and non-linear methods that researchers and practitioners can use to analyze conflict dynamics (whether they are growing, active, dynamic, evolving, or existential). The goal of peacebuilding is to repair relationships, transform institutions, and engage actors (both internal and external). Preventive peacebuilding efforts are increasing as violence is cost-intensive, and interpersonal dynamics between parties determine the outcome of conflicts (Reychler and Paffenholz 2001). Hence, there is a need to analyze problems, integrate learning, and create opportunities for reflexive practice and praxis in a constantly reflective manner. Thus, the neoliberal school has emerged, in which inter-religious peacebuilding as a subfield leans on the critical and emancipatory peacebuilding theory alongside the theory of compassionate reasoning.

The neoliberal school of peacebuilding addresses the gaps in and critiques the values of liberal peace methodologies, heightening the viability of localism or the local turn (local participation) and emancipatory paradigms (with a focus on social welfare, justice, and the ethics of human security) (Matyok et al. 2011; Mac Ginty and Williams 2016; Campbell et al. 2011; Carey 2022). Neoliberalism is often regarded as a disguise of liberal peacebuilding, as it incorporates some of its aspects (Campbell et al. 2011; Thiessen 2014). A neoliberal peacebuilding blueprint can be summarized as including security, demilitarization, political transition, social and economic development, reconciliation, justice, and social rehabilitation (Thiessen 2014; Newman et al. 2009). Neoliberal peacebuilding has introduced investigations into the roles and effectiveness of communities and actors with inter-religious positions. This inquiry aims to reclaim and reposition the agency and potency of these actors as essential, undermining a sustainable just peace concept that incorporates forgiveness within the framework of accountability, responsibility, and human dignity.

5. The Current Research: An Emerging Paradigm—Emancipatory Elicitive Religious Peacebuilding (EERPb)

The current research signifies the need for an inclusive pluralistic (equitable interaction) approach to address the complexity of existential differences and commonalities in peacebuilding. Although it is a new scholarly venture into the viability of locally led and owned religious peacebuilding, it is important to note that there are pertinent realities that constantly influence and motivate research on the uniqueness of inter-religious peacebuilding, especially at the grassroots level. These realities are as follows: (i) awareness of the experiential aspects of peacebuilding, which necessitates peacebuilding scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and theorists to be phenomenological in their frameworks; (ii) awareness of the existential abstract and ontological aspects of peacebuilding, which necessitates peacebuilding scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and theorists to incorporate metaphysical frameworks; and (iii) awareness of the moral and axiological implications of the relationality of peacebuilding, which necessitates scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and theorists to be mindful of their commitment to peacebuilding ethics.

Therefore, the lack of conceptualization and introduction of competing peacebuilding paradigms (predominantly liberal and local) has inspired the emergence of emancipatory religious peacebuilding. Inter-religious community-led and -owned peacebuilding is a uniquely different local paradigm. It may be formal or informal and can involve a combination of formal and informal frameworks. Aligning to Thiessen (2014), this study’s rationale for the “emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding” theoretical framework pushes beyond the status quo of (neo)liberal peacebuilding (as outlined by the United Nations Agenda for Peace), critiques the underlying philosophies, and explores emerging alternatives (Thiessen 2014; An Agenda for Peace, United Nations 1992). It is important to note that addressing the underlying psycho-spiritual perspectives, needs, and other root causes remains challenging under the neoliberal peacebuilding blueprint (Newman et al. 2009; Thiessen 2014).

Emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding operationalizes the concept of just peace and acknowledges a global approach to peace, which “resolves the difficulties theoretical schools (realism, liberalism, cosmopolitanism, critical) encounter” (Carey 2022). Importantly, the elicitive nature of the paradigm does not negate the underlying micro-power dynamics and fear of embracing new behaviors. However, “forgiveness” remains a contentious issue (Kollontai et al. 2018; Daly and Sarkin 2007; Helmick and Petersen 2002; Miller 2010; Tutu 1999). Notably, in various spiritualities of religions, religious traditions, wisdom, and heritages, forgiveness is perceived as valuable in pursuing just peace and well-being beyond positive peace. The elasticity of the paradigm obstructs societal norms and the status quo in responding to the pathologies of conflict, including communal and religiously motivated violence (Mac Ginty 2013; Abu-Nimer 2001; Leonardsson and Rudd 2015).

The basic human needs (BHNs) theory is fundamental to the emancipatory elicitive religious paradigm. Human needs theories propose that humans have particular basic universal needs, and conflict occurs when they are not addressed. Maslow (1973) proposed self-transcendence as a need above self-actualization in the hierarchy of needs (Danesh 2011; Maslow 1973). However, emerging human needs theorists—including John Burton (1990)—hold that needs are intensely and relentlessly sought. Burton’s basic human needs (BHNs) theory emphasizes that a set of ontological and non-negotiable needs (a necessary condition of human life), when unfulfilled, suppressed, and disregarded by authorities, will turn out to be the drivers of deep-rooted and intractable social conflicts (Avruch and Mitchell 2013; Bar-Tal 2013; Burton 1990). Along with this theory came guiding principles (indeed, “rules”) for conflict resolution practice.

Generally, BHNs are fundamental to peacebuilding interventions and the development of an integral peacebuilding framework that emphasizes basic needs, satisfaction, and values. The locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding paradigm addresses basic human needs in order to prevent and reduce the destructive dynamics of violence and war. According to Schirch (2013), satisfying basic human needs is the most effective way to foster healing, change behavior, end violence, and transform conflicts. In contrast to liberal or international peacebuilding, emancipatory religions that elicitive peacebuilding humanize peacebuilding processes, actors, and outcomes.

Notably, the difficulty of measuring outputs and outcomes in community-led inter-religious peacebuilding makes it difficult for local religious actors to access external resources (especially grants). Communities contribute, set their agenda, and commit to sustaining processes during inter-religious engagements. Inevitably, religious peacebuilding structures (Annan 2012; Little 2007), and an embodied understanding of everyday peace can complicate standard perceptions of peacebuilding (Berents 2018; Mac Ginty 2021). Religious hermeneutics, values, and principles are fundamental to the vision and mission of both formal and informal religious entities.

Religious peacebuilding scholars, such as Garred and Abu-Nimer (2018), have argued that there are rich resources for peace within every faith. Though ambivalent, each religion has inspired peacebuilders who draw on the faith’s teachings and traditions to help prevent and resolve conflicts and violence. Integrating theories and analysis into conflict resolution and world religion reveals evidence-based practice through peacemakers who are uniquely positioned within the conflict-affected context to collaborate through inter-religious partnerships. It sets the perspective that religious peacemaking portrays religion as associating more with peace than conflict. Furthermore, it shows the ability to subdue irrational reactions emerging from ‘redemptive violence’ (Wolfe 2015) while also striving to conquer our primitive defense mechanisms that respond out of fear and deceive the mind into believing that violence is the answer. Wolfe (2015) alluded to the myth of redemptive violence within us, posing it as an allegory of the human condition. It should be noted that making peace through religious–spiritual principles and exceptional convictions ultimately enhances the humanization of the essential elements of human dignity (Hicks 2011).

Religious peacebuilding—especially emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding—is a relatively new concept and field of practice. Since 2000, emancipatory religious peacebuilding has continued to undergo conceptualization, systemization, and theoretical development (Hertog 2010). Nevertheless, its ability to heal the heart of conflict and carry out deep peacemaking (Gopin 2002) through inter-religious peacebuilding approaches remains indisputably positioned in the conceptualization of sustainable peacebuilding. The realization of sustainable peacebuilding depends on an integrated short- or long-term framework (Lederach 1997). Justifying this position, Hertog (2010) referenced the fifth block of peacebuilding architecture developed by Luc Reychler. The “integrative climate”, a favorable social–psychological and political–psychological environment, emphasizes that the “integrative climate” entails the emotional, psychological, and socio-psychological aspects of conflict transformation and peacebuilding. These aspects are regarded as “soft aspects or components of peacebuilding” (Hertog 2010) and include future expectations, reconciliation, trust-building, values, perceptions, mental walls, psychological wounds, and feelings (Hertog 2010). Religion’s five dimensions are a source of leverage, strength, and wisdom for faith-based peacebuilding (Frazer and Mark 2018), especially locally led and owned or community-led inter-religious peacebuilding.

Emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding or strategic and holistic peacemaking transforms the personal and interpersonal aspects (levels) of conflict, including the psychosocial dynamics of the conflict. It is a form of “religious revivalism that is shaking up complacent cultural institutions of the modern state, and it is evidently forcing most people to rethink their moral and political assumptions as citizens of their state, as well as citizens of a global society” (Gopin 2000; Owen and King 2019). In addition, it is integrative and serves to create a common global culture and a fractionalized search for identities, backgrounds, and original systems of meaning (Gopin 2000; Lederach 1997). It is more sustainable than liberal, institutional, or structural peace, as it accommodates a shared power structure, prioritizes the conflict actor as the subject, enhances ownership of the process by the conflict actors, humanizes actors, and creates ‘an incarnated experience’. However, it is not immune to power dynamics.

In a context such as Nigeria, which is a deeply religious society, Nigerians are described as living in an enchanted universe, regarding the spiritual as the most critical reality (Campbell 2020). A recent survey by the Africa Polling Institute indicated that Nigerians trust or believe in religious leaders more than political leaders; in particular, the poll demonstrated that 55% of citizens trust religious leaders, while 44% trust traditional leaders. In contrast, 26% and 22% trust the government and judicial system and the national assembly and police, respectively (Africa Polling Institute 2021). Therefore, hermeneutics is an excellent tool (in emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding) for shaping and reshaping conflict dynamics in a country. Although this tool offers the creativity of interpreting scriptural texts, cultures, epistemology, and other aspects of religion as a holistic strategy (Smock 2001), hermeneutics can be used negatively to motivate violence, which is the paradigm’s key limitation. It is important to note that religious approaches to transforming conflicts include other strategic methodologies and tools related to specific contexts.

Collaboration among faith-based communities and locally led organizations has yielded positive and evidence-based impacts in various sectoral interventions. Most importantly, their interventions showed evidence of the EERPb framework. However, the attribution of success stories is inadequate. Often, most of them are subcontractors whose project implementation successes are attributed to mega-powerful INGOs who are their sub-grantors.

For example, in the Adamawa, Borno, and Plateau states, the Mennonite Central Committee6 supports faith-based partners whose programs are locally led and implemented and have inter-religious postures (Mennonite Central Committee n.d.). Some of these inter-religious programs involve women’s economic and social empowerment, trauma support (psychosocial first aid), resilience, livelihoods, village savings and loan associations, inter-religious dialogue, and other peacebuilding initiatives7, with the aim of achieving broad and inclusive development in a diverse context that is present in northern Nigeria. Notably, these inter-religious community-led peacebuilding initiatives promote and strengthen social cohesion, unity, and understanding in communities, while respecting each other’s religion. These efforts are sustainable, as they courageously incorporate the input of communities into crafting solutions and fully own the process. The Emergency Preparedness and Response Team (EPRT)—an MCC partner—started as a project in 2005 to address the root causes of and transform ethnoreligious dynamics in the Plateau State (Justice Development and Peace Caritas Jos n.d.). It is composed of the Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), and the National Council of Muslim Youth Organization (NACOMYO), alongside some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies, such as the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA). It also enjoys an interfaith, interagency, and gender-diverse composition, and its action plans at its inception includes advocacy, awareness campaigns, hazard assessments, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, and emergency response.

The EPRT has various programs and micro-structures, including Local Emergency Preparedness and Response Teams (LEPRTs) and committees in all locally governed areas of the state. Members of various teams and committees within the EPRT work together with trust, tolerance, and mutual respect. The composition and functionality of the EPRT attract community trust and investment from community members. Community leaders and government security agencies constantly make referrals to LEPRTs to settle and address ethnic and religious conflicts in the areas of Barkin Ladi, Mangu, Bokkos, Langtang North, Wase, Jos North, and Jos South. Meanwhile, in Langtang South, Pankshin, and Kanke, LEPRTs settled disputes between churches and traditional religious believers. During emergencies and disasters, these micro-structures competently undertake inclusive and participatory humanitarian relief distribution, assessment, registration, and supply. EPRT volunteers receive a wide range of technical training, capacity acquisition, and strengthening measures from their international partners. For example, the training provided by the United Nations Development Programme enabled the EPRT to monitor conflict-related early warning signs for early responses (EWER) in collaboration with government security agencies. The EPRT has established over 152 Peace Clubs in Government, Missionary, and Private Schools across the 17 Local Government Areas of Plateau State and coaches participants in understanding conflict, alternatives to violence, gender-based violence, journeys to reconciliation (including the role of forgiveness), and trauma awareness. Due to the positive impact of the peace club project8 in transforming bias, hatred, prejudice, and suspicion among Christian and Muslim students, the Plateau State Government—through the Ministry of Education—officially endorsed and permitted the EPRT to establish more peace clubs in schools while adopting them into the educational curriculum. In 2017, Abdul Hamid, a peace club teacher, received the Best Teacher’s Award from the State Universal Basic Education Board. Through interfaith collaboration and strategic non-violent options, the EPRT engages in dialogue and mediation, as well as peacebuilding processes with herders and farmers, traditional and religious leaders, and other community stakeholders. Through its alternative to violence project (AVP), the EPRT has contributed to personal and communal levels of transformation, thereby leading to the peaceful coexistence of various faiths and tribes and encouraging religious tolerance in the state. The activities of the AVP include interactive exercises, games, and role-play, which help participants examine the ways in which they respond to anger and frustration that may lead to aggression and violence.

Community members participate in project cycles and have reflectively contributed to adjusting project frameworks and implementation. Mutual co-creation and co-learning constantly empower both EPRT members and community beneficiaries, thereby strengthening their skills, sustainable ownership of processes, and sustainability of projects. Sustainable community-led and -owned inter-religious peacebuilding requires actors to develop and have a set of skills. Furthermore, these skills must adapt to new scenarios in a manner motivated by compassionate reasoning, transformation, and healing relationships (Gopin 2022). The motivation and unique passion for transforming systems by the EPRT volunteers and communities reveal that the inter-religious community-led paradigm can easily incorporate the concept of ‘reimagination of peacebuilding’, going beyond constructive religious peacebuilding (Hayward 2012). Generally, this concept elevates the faith-based peacebuilding paradigm beyond contemporary peacebuilding norms.

Reimagining peace(building) implies that the connection between theoretical frameworks and fieldwork is indisputable (Pouligny et al. 2007). This connection has created a web of models for peace. In the philosophic and ethical moral imagination principle of Lederach (2005), the concept of “building peace” unfolds the complexity of time in an effort toward integrating peacebuilding work. Furthermore, a holistic, transformative approach to constructive change would require a much greater integration of diverse peacebuilding efforts rather than the current competitiveness and isolation of schools of thought and practices that seem to dominate the field (Lederach 2005).

6. Conceptual and Pragmatic Challenges of Locally Led and Owned Inter-Religious Peacebuilding

Some challenges of locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding include the limitations of its etymological application. The term ‘local’ implies stratification and a binary categorization; ‘local’ suggests inferiority in contrast to ‘international’.

Concretizing “the local”, and situating the “specificity” of scenarios or cases in the “locally grounded” context has been suggested, focusing on “the local” as a small, fixed geographical unit (Carey 2022; Jabri 2006). Moreso, in the peacebuilding agenda, “the local”—as a small-scale unit—can be “seen as more accessible, attentive and encouraging greater participation of people” (Ojendal et al. 2017). Diverse responses to who is local reveal differing perceptions of peacebuilding actors. Significantly, there is a lack of consensus, which is seemingly an ongoing problem in the field (Bliek 2021; Ojendal et al. 2017; Funk and Said 2010; Bräuchler and Naucke 2017; Funk 2022; Mac Ginty 2021; Donais 2009). The “local,” among other things, can refer to local governments, local communities, local individuals, local agencies, or actions (Ojendal et al. 2017), even when global, that form the local context (Lambek 2011).

Additionally, the argument that localization connotes locally led inter-religious peacebuilding inadequately defines the degree of ownership and power attributed to local actors. Bottom-up approaches represent an alternative to dominant modes of intervention (Lefranc 2011) and serve to rekindle the enthusiasm for collaboration with locally grounded peacebuilding (Carey 2022; Sampson and Lederach 2000).

Technical capacity is pivotal for peacebuilding. Locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding primarily tends to incorporate indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and cultural and contextual sensitivity components to design a collaborative framework that can suitably accommodate and respect differences. Sometimes, the lack of technical skills and capacity (which reflects professionalized and specialized standards) requires respectful, equitable, and mutual partnership and collaboration with external stakeholders, inadvertently affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of these ingenious initiatives. In particular, Western epistemologies and peacebuilding approaches systemically influence international development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian mechanisms.

Therefore, local inter-religious actors must adopt these rigid approaches to access external resources, especially funding. Community-led inter-religious approaches are often less technical and extremely elastic in design, helping them to better adapt to emerging contextual, cultural, and conflict dynamics. When community members contribute to designing locally led inter-religious peacebuilding projects, it motivates and strengthens their ability to adapt to and perceive ownership of the process. Simultaneous and spontaneous approaches are as important as “best practices.” Contextual interpretation and meaning-making of positive impacts, outcomes, and outputs create tension with regard to the previously tested metrics. Language remains a challenge and barrier. It is difficult for Westernized monitoring and evaluation metrics to capture evidence from such inter-religious initiatives, which are considered meaningful by these communities and religious actors in their domains.

Idealizing locally led inter-religious peacebuilding as ‘localism’ poses a challenge toward the pragmatic and concrete implementation of locally designed peacebuilding interventions. Unchecked small spatial units (i.e., at the local level) might create a powerholding tone and constrain social norms associated with gender, patriarchal, or hegemonic cultures. It is pertinent that local actors, communities, domestic civil societies, and governments “decolonize” their mindsets to actualize their agency and potency in being carriers of the same hegemonic paradigms. When local actors or entities do not “decolonize,” domestic civil society organizations and local structures too often mirror problematic international structures and models (Djohossou et al. 2023). Local actors are often regarded as conflict actors and sources of violence (Ojendal et al. 2017).

Furthermore, the lack of a transformative impact on the broader society from local community-led inter-religious interventions remains a challenge. It portrays locally led inter-religious interventions as being stuck and disconnected from broader peacebuilding goals (Ojendal et al. 2017). Inevitably, the levels of transformation are debatable when local interventions are seen as only impacting the grassroots and excluding broader systems and structures. Transformation should go beyond the local arena, and questions regarding access to substantial resources by influential stakeholders to upscale local peacebuilding efforts remain unanswered (Ojendal et al. 2017).

Resource power continues to be a real threat to the independence and sustenance of locally led inter-religious community peacebuilding. Local inter-religious peacebuilders should have access to sufficient resources to upscale their effective, evidence-based, and creative interventions. Therefore, local inter-religious actors must harness and mobilize local resources. As such, it is important that well-meaning entities in communities cultivate a philanthropic spirit.

It is worth noting that the challenge of universalizing peacebuilding procedures as an organized and scientific mode of operationalization remains pressing. The success of local peacebuilding, such as locally led inter-religious peacebuilding, continues to be criticized by stakeholders in the field.

7. Conclusions

Exploring locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding helps unveil the underlying dynamics in the relationships between influential international actors and less powerful local inter-religious actors. Additionally, it highlights the importance of ethics in the development, humanitarian and peacebuilding, and CAR fields. It conscientizes scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to respect and mutually negotiate when learning to unlearn and discover. Through collaborative reflection, reflexive practice, and policymaking, we realize that implementing the localization model, paradigm, or approach fosters an environment of mutuality and learning in which decolonization and decentralization processes can occur. Furthermore, it will help effectively and continuously address colonial legacies within communities of critical practice and between institutions. Locally led approaches and interventions, especially those associated with inter-religious peacebuilding, highlight the importance of context-based and culturally adaptable lexicons, vocabularies, and languages as communication channels and serve to transform the extractive attitudes of actors, acknowledging each actor’s capacity and their mutual contributions toward systematic change at all levels.

Long before the establishment of the United Nations—and, subsequently, the formation of institutions for specialized and professional approaches to resolving conflicts—there have been traditional and indigenous peacebuilding structures and systems that address community conflicts and violence. However, societies and phenomena evolve, and conflict dynamics change and become more complex and sophisticated. According to Heraclitus (a first-century ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Ephesus), “Change is permanent.” We are to embrace change as the fundamental essence of life and live in it—even celebrating it—with a total awareness of what one has, and that will inevitably be lost. Therefore, this premise reveals the reason for embracing the evolution of paradigms, models, and approaches in the field.

Developing a shared vision, purpose, and approach to addressing emerging dynamics and issues in communities will help build relationships and connections among actors in all sectors, strengthening networks and capacities for best practices. Collaboration and inclusivity are inevitably important when we build relationships, consortia of ideas, and people-centered approaches and interventions. In this way, the humanness of the field and the well-being of actors can be promoted.

It may seem inherently obvious that successful and sustainable inter-religious peacebuilding must include co-creation and fostering ownership by the parties involved at all levels. Nevertheless, history is full of failed top-down, outside-imposed peacebuilding efforts. The emergent popularity of localization and decolonization at present represents an opportunity to refocus on peacebuilding as a community-led effort and leverage the effectiveness of locally led and owned or community-led inter-religious peacebuilding and its challenges, in order to promote the co-creation and testing of new means for its facilitation (Kwuelum 2023).

Exchanges in the CAR and peacebuilding fields have affirmed the fact that there is a need for a more robust and healthier collaboration between scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in the global north and south in order to transform the inherent and existential power dynamics. A decolonized form of knowledge building in institutions of learning and decentralization of the design of peace processes must accommodate phenomenological, ethical, and metaphysical realities. Inevitably, this will allow for an inclusive and collaborative peacebuilding practice that operationalizes the concept of just peace (going beyond positive peace) and acknowledges a global approach (a holistic and integrated paradigm, model, and approach). The emancipatory elicitive religious peacebuilding framework uniquely embraces these principles and characteristics, which are essential in locally led and owned inter-religious peacebuilding practices.