PEACEption: Being, Becoming, and Doing Peace Across Fragmented Spaces

PEACEption: Being, Becoming, and Doing Peace Across Fragmented Spaces examines how peace is understood, negotiated, and sustained across communities shaped by different histories of violence, exclusion, political transition, and insecurity. Rather than treating peace as a settled condition achieved through agreements or the absence of armed conflict, the volume approaches it as a lived and contested process shaped by institutions, relationships, public trust, and struggles over power, participation, and security. Drawing on research from Bangsamoro, Sulu and Basilan, Caraga, Masinloc, urban communities, and Cotabato City, it considers how poverty, displacement, weak governance, livelihood insecurity, political exclusion, and unresolved historical grievances continue to influence how people experience peace in everyday life. It also examines the roles of women, civil society, religious institutions, local authorities, and community actors in building, mediating, and sustaining peace across different settings.

The volume is especially relevant as the Bangsamoro transition enters a critical phase and the Philippines faces a wider security environment marked by maritime tensions, democratic strain, economic vulnerability, and increasingly fragmented public discourse. Its central contribution is to connect peacebuilding with governance: who participates in defining peace, whose knowledge and experience are recognized, how institutional legitimacy is built, and whether political settlements can translate into justice, accountability, equitable services, and durable public trust. For policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and advocates, PEACEption offers a grounded account of why peace takes different forms across places and why effective peacebuilding must be locally rooted, politically aware, and responsive to the communities expected to sustain it.

About the editor

Jennifer Santiago Oreta is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Ateneo de Manila University and Dean of the Ateneo School of Government. She previously directed the Ricardo Leong Institute for Global and Area Studies and consults for key Philippine government agencies on peace and security management. Her research covers security governance, peacebuilding, violent extremism, women, and community security.