Peace, culture and creativity
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PhD in Leadership Studies with reference to Security & Development

Background and context ​
Peace is understood mainly through the lens of Western scholarship and this informs scientific knowledge, policy and practice in relation to peacemaking and peacebuilding. Yet, how peace is imagined, enacted, and sustained, emerge from socio-cultural contexts that are deeply rooted in local worldviews (Bollaert, 2019; Murithi 2006). The breadth in  ontologies of peace are frequently overlooked by dominant scholarship, resulting in limited understandings of peace (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013; Te Maihāroa et al., 2022).
The project brings these perspectives to the forefront, recognising cultural expression as a space where peace is continuously imagined and practiced. It explores how artistic practices, such as storytelling (Anyeko & Shaya Hoffmann, 2019), theatre and performance traditions (Silva & Menezes, 2016), craft making (Paphtis et al ), music (Opiyo, 2015), enable communities to transform experiences of conflict into healing, connection, and hope (Coombes, 2003). Focusing on African contexts, the project seeks to document and analyse the infrastructures of peace that persist within everyday cultural  and creative life, tracing how they contest, coexist with, or transform formal peacebuilding initiatives.
By integrating decolonial and participatory approaches, this research aims to build a more plural understanding of peace and its intersections with cultural and creative practices. 

Project Code: 2627-ACBB5
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Entry Requirements

This project leads to the award of a PhD in Leadership Studies with reference to Security & Development. Before you apply, please check the specific entry requirements and once ready, complete the application via King's Apply. Remember to include the Project Code in your application.

Supervisors

Dr Gloriana Rodríguez Álvarez is a Lecturer in Leadership, Development, Peace and Security Education at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London. 

Dr Priyanka Basu, Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries
Keywords
  • Peace ontologies
  • cultural expressions
  • Creative work
  • performance traditions
  • peacebuilding
  • cultural heritage
  • decoloniality
Area of research ​
The project aims interrogates how peace is understood in relation to cultural heritage and creativity in contexts that are most affected by violent conflict. It documents and maps interventions that reveal  intersections between creativity and peacebuilding interventions at global, regional, national and subnational levels and peace sustaining activities in conflict-affected contexts in Africa. The project should make a conceptual contribution through contributing the transdisciplinary perspectives of those most affected by violent conflict. The project can undertake a multi-case study design.
 Building on emerging work on peace ontologies (Adegoke & Alvarez, 2025; Akinyoade, 2012; Golding & Fontan, 2025), the project will explore how cultural heritage, cultural expressions and creativity interact with imaginaries of peace (Jeffery, 2024). Rather than viewing culture as a static repository of tradition, it analyses how cultural and creative practices act as frameworks through which communities negotiate meaning, belonging and transformation in conflict-affected contexts (Mkwaanzi & Cin , 2022). 
Expected outcome ​
The project is expected to generate original conceptual and empirical contributions by examining how cultural heritage and creative practices inform and influence understandings and expressions of peace in conflict-affected contexts. By centring artistic, heritage-based and creative practices, it will explore how communities/ and collectives (rural, semi-urban, urban) use creative mediums such as storytelling, theatre, music, craft, film, fashion - among others - to negotiate memory, social cohesion and social relations and envision futures beyond violence. Methodologically, the project will develop a decolonial and participatory framework that recognises cultural interpretation as a mode of peacebuilding in itself. Through comparative case studies, it will identify the diverse ways in which creative expression interacts with building and sustaining peace at different levels. The project will deepen interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts, humanities, and peace studies, positioning cultural practice as a key component in understanding and sustaining peace. 
 
Suggested readings
  • Adegoke, D., & Alvarez, G. R. (2025). Peace ontologies, narratives, and epistemes among indigenous communities of Nigeria and Bolivia. Frontiers in Political Science, 7, 1502731. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2025.1502731
  • Akinyoade, D. (2012). Ontology and epistemology for peace and conflict studies. Apresentado Na International Conference on the Security Sector and Conflict Management, Institute of African Studies, Abadan, Nigeria, 14.
  • Anyeko, K., & Shaya Hoffmann, T. (2019). Storytelling and peacebuilding: Lessons from northern Uganda. In Peacebuilding and the Arts (pp. 235–251). Springer.
  • Bollaert, C. (2019). Anchoring Concepts: Sustainable Peace, Identity, Culture and Worldview. In C. Bollaert, Reconciliation and Building a Sustainable Peace (pp. 47–81). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03655-3_3
  • Coombes, A. E. (2003). History after Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384922
  • Golding, D., & Fontan, V. C. (2025). Decolonizing Peace: Possibilities for Pluriversality. In M. Hallward, J. Kim, C. Mouly, T. Seidel, & Z. Wai (Eds), The Sage Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781036204440.n20
  • Jeffery, R. (2024). Addressing psychosocial trauma in post-conflict peacebuilding: Emotions in narrative and arts-based approaches. Cooperation and Conflict, 59(2), 171–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231184721
  • Mac Ginty, R., & Richmond, O. P. (2013). The Local Turn in Peace Building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly, 34(5), 763–783. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.800750
  • Mkwananzi, F., & Cin, F. M. (Eds). (2022). Post-conflict participatory arts: Socially engaged development. Routledge, Taylor & Franics Group.
  • Murithi, T., 2006. Practical peacemaking wisdom from Africa: Reflections on Ubuntu. The journal of Pan African studies, 1(4), pp.25-34.
  • Opiyo, L.M., 2015. Music as education, voice, memory, and healing: Community views on the roles of music in conflict transformation in northern Uganda. African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, 5(1), pp.41-65.
  • Sandoval, E. (2016). Music in peacebuilding: A critical literature review. Journal of Peace Education, 13(3), 200–217.
  • Silva, J. E., & Menezes, I. (2016). Art education for citizenship: Augusto Boal’s theater of the oppressed as a method for democratic empowerment. JSSE-Journal of Social Science Education, 40–49.
  • Te Maihāroa, K., Devere, H., & Ligaliga, M. (2022). Affirming Methodologies in Peace and Conflict Studies. In Affirming Methodologies (pp. 173–186). Routledge. ​