Theorizing Peace Processes as a Political Field: The UN Peace Process for Syria

This article demonstrates how peace processes can be theorised as complex, liminal political fields. Based on 15 months of multi-sited fieldwork, it draws on the UN peace process for Syria to show how this framework allows us to identify a so far invisible order of peace processes. While Political Science and International Relations largely focus on how external actors, i.e. foreign states and mediators, can create leverage in peace processes, this article highlights how Political Anthropology can meaningfully contribute to current peace process research by a close analysis of the dynamics within negotiating delegations and their local-to-international networks. Speaking to a gap of under-theorising in peace process research, this article hopes to contribute to enabling systematic, comparative peace process research in the future that is centred on actors from the country at war.