Complex understandings of peace and science through the lens of critical peace studies

Abstract

Particularly in this time of multiple crises or polycrisis, the causes and solutions for social, economic, international and geopolitical, as well as ecological problems are highly complex. Critical peace research investigates the intersectionality of inequalities and oppression, and seeks to realise its normative objective. This requires an integrative, complex, multi-layered and broad analytical understanding of peace and science that reflects categories of political science while simultaneously expanding and transcending their inter- and transdisciplinary boundaries. This impartial and multiperspective examination of systemic structures underlying war and peace is a fundamental characteristic of critical peace studies, as this article demonstrates.