Mobilization of local actors in the promotion of peace: the case of the Favela da Paz Institute in São Paulo

Abstract

This research aims to contribute to debates that include manifestations of armed social violence and the role of unconventional actors, such as the local agency (bottom-up), in their daily practices of resilience and conflict transmutation. As an alternative to the vertical peace promotion agenda, we examine the case of the Favela da Paz Institute, a project conceived and coordinated by local residents that aims to establish, on multiple activities, a sustainable community guided by a culture of peace in the neighborhood Jardim Ângela, considered by the UN in the 1990s as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. We start from the premise that debates that reflect violence beyond the immediate contours of the state are still limited in conventional peace studies literature and, however, deserve more attention. Based on research carried out by triangulating official data, interviews and specialized literature, it was observed that the practices of the Favela da Paz Institute intuitively converge with Oliver P. Richmond's Peace Formation approach, by emancipating local actors, connected in transversal and transnational networks, in the promotion of peace on its own terms.