Description
This paper aims to initiate a discussion on reimagining and reclaiming feminist peace and security in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in response to the epistemic injustice that resurfaced through Western feminist pacifist debates on the Russian 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine. These debates have imposed Western pacifist agenda as a common hegemonic idea of peace towards and over Ukraine and broader CEE, steering attention away from Russia as a colonial power and imperial aggressor. Challenging these enduring epistemic hierarchies by dismantling the double coloniality of both Western hegemonic tendencies and Russian imperial legacies has thus become urgent. Building on decolonial feminist approaches, this article explores the notion of feminist peace in CEE as plural and relational. I start by exposing the problematic understanding of peace in CEE as a result of the double coloniality using several examples: the historical instrumentalization of the peace narrative towards women by the Soviet and Russian empire, peace dilemma in post-Maidan Ukraine, East-West feminist positions towards NATO and the current regional approaches to the Women, Peace and Security agenda. I then discuss the decolonization of the peace narrative in CEE by centring the plurality of practical relational experiences and contextualized knowledges.
