NECR Webinar | Imaging Peace: Photography, Peacebuilding, and Conflict Transformation

In our accelerated visual world, images shape and drive politics. Images of war are everywhere, feeding a narrative that conflict is inevitable and pervasive, but peace is largely invisible. How can peace be built if we don’t know what it looks like?

In this talk, Tiffany Fairey will present findings from her ongoing visual peace research and multi-country study of peace photography with research partners and conflict-affected communities in Northern Ireland, Colombia, Nepal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, and Rwanda. Examining the methods, ethics, and strategies of innovative visual peace projects in different conflict and peace settings reveals how photography is being used by and with conflict-affected communities to resist and disrupt violence, to build resilience and heal, to nurture dialogue, to bridge division and rebuild relationships, and to inspire that peace is possible. While the effects of participatory peace photography initiatives are uncertain, the research highlights the central role that images and image-making play in not only depicting peace but creating the conditions for inclusive cultures of peace.
 

Speaker: Tiffany Fairey
Dr. Tiffany Fairey is a Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her research focuses on arts-based peacebuilding, specifically on visual peace and visual peacebuilding methods and practice, and examines how images and image-making can shape inclusive peace and dialogue, bridge division and transform conflict. With 20+ years of award-winning experience as a photovoice specialist, Tiffany has worked on over 50 participatory visual projects with partners all over the world. Her research has been published widely including in Peacebuilding (2023), Journal of War, Media and Conflict (2023), International Journal of Transitional Justice (2020), Visual Studies (2018) and in the forthcoming books, Imaging Peace (2025) and Participatory Peace Photography Guide (2024).

For further information please contact Kjerstin Pugh (kep2137 [[at]] columbia [[dot]] edu).

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