Whose peace? Why context and local voices matter in reimagining peace education

This conceptual analysis examines the fluidity of peace as both an idea and a practice, and the shifting positionalities of those who teach and study it. While peace education is often promoted as a global model for social cohesion, its meanings and the legitimacy of those who invoke them shift with changing political climates. Drawing on critical and decolonial peace education scholarship and interpretive reflection on the Turkish case, the article conceptualizes peace as a fluid discursive terrain shaped by power, censorship, and appropriation. As regimes redefine what may be spoken in the name of peace, educators and researchers are continually re-positioned, sometimes as dissenters, sometimes as representatives of the state. The article introduces the concept of “fluid context,” as a theoretical lens for analyzing peace education under shifting regimes of speech and legitimacy.