Abstract Women are often at the forefront of high-risk struggles for peace and justice after war in contexts where the space for activism is severely restricted. This article explores how women’s organizations and activists involved in struggles for peace, justice and accountability in Sri Lanka navigate the repression and unpredictability that characterizes its hybrid post-war political order. Drawing on the concept of social navigation as an analytical lens, we show how women peace activists navigate risk and uncertainty through strategic decisions about and adaptation of how they organize; how they represent their activities and goals; and how they build networks with powerful allies who can provide protection and enhance their impact. These strategies enable activists to resist state surveillance, intimidation and repression and promote alternative, more inclusive and democratic forms of peace. Bridging scholarship on women’s peace activism and on civil society in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, we contribute to a better understanding of how state repression and uneven constraints on civil society shape women’s peacebuilding work, and respond to recent calls for more in-depth analysis of how civil society activists navigate constraints in contexts of restricted civic space.
Åkebo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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