Environmental cooperation is thought to help build peace, but it's still unclear how this actually plays out for the people involved. A new article in Environment and Security co-authored by SIS Professor Ken Conca applies relational thinking—understanding individuals, systems, and concepts through their interconnectedness and mutual influence—to the field of environmental peacebuilding with the goal of contributing to theory building.

Conca's research focuses on nearly 30 years of EcoPeace Middle East’s environmental peacebuilding over shared waters in Israel, Jordan, and Palestine from 1994 to 2022. Based on interviews with 83 people involved in environmental peacebuilding programming, the analysis highlights the different ways participants see and handle their shifting roles, responsibilities, and sense of control in relation to themselves, each other, and the environments they share.

The findings are interpreted in three analytical categories: stagnation, shifts, and transformations and suggests that the link between environmental cooperation and peacebuilding may have more to do with the process—how people connect and make meaning together—than with specific outcomes. Conca and his co-authors argue that the many different voices involved in environmental cooperation help shape ongoing, nonlinear paths toward peace and sustainability, even amid ongoing violence in the region.

Read the full article here.