ABSTRACT
Peace is too often portrayed as an end point, as simply negative peace, the absence of war. Instead, geographers have been adopting the idea of positive peace, as an ongoing process that varies across time, place, and scale. Peace also means different things to different groups, even in the same time and place. Peace is multifaceted, precarious, and built and rebuilt every day by every one of us. There can be spaces and moments of peace made even in the midst of armed conflict. In Colombia, this might be achieving food security via the presence of an international accompanier so you can work your crops with less chance of attack. In Ukraine, this might be receiving support from a network of volunteers on WhatsApp as you flee the bombing and occupation that orients you, as a single woman, so that you are less likely to face sexual assault while you are staying in strange places. Peace is also built in Ukraine by modifying street signs to confuse invading troops – or by pointing all street arrow signs to The Hague to send a message about the consequences of their actions to encourage individual defections or sabotage. As these examples show, peace activists are enabled and motivated, and constrained and challenged, by their geographic settings and by multiscalar spatialities (including the role of technology). Peace(s), and peace activism(s), are shaped in and through the spaces and times in which they are made, as they too shape those spaces.
