Beyond Indices of Peace and Sustainability: Everyday Perspectives from Nepal

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS) at Hiroshima University for the financial support provided to the data collection for this paper, Riyaz Karki of Peace Perspectives in Nepal for the local consultation and FGD facilitation, and John Lee Candelaria of Hiroshima University for the research assistance provided during the conceptualization phase of the research project. The scoping workshop participated by members of the NERPS research cluster on “Sustainable Peace and Peaceful Sustainability in Conflict Affected Societies” was instrumental to the conceptualization of the research for this paper. The author is also grateful to Peace Review’s editorial team and two anonymous referees for their constructive feedback throughout the review process.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Three FGD sessions with community members of Kushaha village, with eight participants in each session, were facilitated in October 2021 in collaboration with a local non-profit organization in Nepal. The FGD sessions, each lasting for 2 h and all scheduled in one day, were balanced in terms of gender and socio-economic status to ensure an open and comfortable discussion among the participants. The facilitators ensured that participants had equal time answering or discussing the questions. No domineering attitude was observed within the group dynamics, especially regarding gender. However, it was noted that older participants tended to have more insights to share during the discussions. The facilitators, including the older participants, had to encourage younger participants to express their views to ensure balanced perspectives. The FGD questionnaire, which consisted of open-ended questions about their concerns related to peace and environmental sustainability, was designed in consultation with a local counterpart. A briefing and debriefing were held between the facilitators and the village committee head to check that the objectives of the FGDs were met. All the ethical aspects of this research have been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation at Hiroshima University. The data collection described here is part of a broader project on positive peace and environmental sustainability, with Nepal, Afghanistan, and the Philippines as case studies (see Simangan et al. 2023).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dahlia Simangan

Dahlia Simangan is Associate Professor at Hiroshima University’s Center for Peaceful and Sustainable Futures of The IDEC Institute. She contributes to the research activities of the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS) and teaching activities of the International Peace and Co-existence Program. Prior to that, she was a Kanagawa University Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow for research in Japan, nominated by the United Nations University – Center for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in International, Political and Strategic Studies from the Australian National University. Her research interests in peace and conflict include topics on post-conflict peacebuilding, the relationship between peace and sustainability and international relations in the Anthropocene. E-mail: [email protected]