Peace under attack: interview with Oliver Richmond. Peace-washing and the recentralization of violence in the new Authoritarian International Order

Abstract

Oliver Richmond (1970) is a renowned British academic in International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies, a professor at the University of Manchester, and holds chairs at institutions in Ireland, Korea, Scotland, and Cyprus. His work has shaped contemporary discussions on critical, post-liberal peace and local forms of agency in war and post-war contexts. Awarded Distinguished Scholar by the International Studies Association in 2019, Richmond combines a solid academic career with extensive fieldwork in conflict-ridden regions, from Timor-Leste to Colombia. Editor of the Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies series and Peacebuilding magazine, his thinking proposes a reinterpretation of the international architecture of peace and the lessons that emerge from below, in community resistance and practices. In this interview, the author reflects on the challenges of imagining futures of peace beyond hegemonic models, addressing both the cracks in the global order and the social creativity that insists on opening horizons for coexistence.