The path to intersectional peacebuilding: an ontology of oppression. ASEAN and Myanmar

Abstract

Peacebuilding emerged in the 1990s as an institutional response to global human rights challenges. It coincidentally materialized after the rapid decolonization in the latter half of the 20th century. The peacebuilding sector quickly became a billion-dollar industry amidst its recurrent failures that ended in neo-colonial bloodshed. Peace researchers searched for answers to make more effective models, but they could not sustain their theories. Broken theories are connected to the traditional western peacebuilder profile is white, cis-gendered, middle class, and heterosexual. This is a similar profile to the historic colonizers who rewrote world history in their favor and did not experience their own domination. Pervasive domination rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonization cast a long shadow into contemporary society–mostly marginalized societies in peripheral countries with human rights abuses. This research challenges the traditional profile and models of peacebuilding by observing Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color’s (QTBIPOC) resistance movements, scholarship, and history. It emphasizes Black resistance and Indigenous practices to reveal how society can achieve total liberation, not through top-down or bottom-up approaches reliant on conditional funding, but through intersectional praxis and mutual aid. These are the profiles who have endured modern colonial reign in society that carry the key to freedom. Intersectional peacebuilding is a new model created by QTBIPOC scholars that will demonstrate how to dismantle the ontology of oppression using studies in the US, Somaliland, Somalia, and Myanmar. The intersectional peacebuilding model and ontology demonstrate how important colonial history truly is, why it cannot ignore the peace process and human rights agenda, and that the most urgent focus should be on those living under the most oppression.