“We write the peace together”, Artwork: Des-tejiendoMiradas/(Un-)Stitching Gazes
Beyond Eurocentric models of peace
In this new entry in the Virtual Encyclopaedia "Rewriting Peace and Conflict" of the Postcolonial Hierarchies Network, Nijmeh Ali explores decolonial peace as a theory of resistance and justice.
Nijmeh Ali is a fellow at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago. She has previously been a guest at the ABI and has been featured in the interview series [in dialogue] by the Postcolonial Hierarchies Network. Her video interview is available on YouTube. Ali contributes to the Virtual Encyclopaedia with an entry on decolonial peace and resistance theory. Challenging dominant narratives of peace, she strives to reimagine peace as a dynamic and ongoing process of resistance, repair and transformation.
She critiques liberal, Eurocentric models of peace that prioritise state-building and political order while overlooking structural violence and colonial legacies that continue to define the lived realities of colonised and formerly colonised peoples. In response, she advances decolonial peace as a framework grounded in justice, historical redress, and indigenous epistemologies: "Decolonial peace is neither utopian nor prescriptive; it is a living, evolving theory of resistance, justice and radical possibility. It rejects the restoration of colonial orders masked as stability, and instead demands the centring of silenced epistemologies, repressed histories and insurgent imaginaries. Rather than offering technical fixes or policy frameworks, it calls for a fundamental reordering of the world – socially, politically and ontologically."
Using the Palestinian-Israeli context as a case study, the entry highlights how decolonial perspectives can expose and challenge enduring structures of dispossession and epistemic violence. The entry is available on the Virtual Encyclopaedia website.