Feminist peace activists in the U.S. and the U.K.: navigating faith, identity, and practice

This thesis examines how self-identified feminist women peace activists living in the U.K. and the U.S. understand their activist lives. Although the topic of women peace activists is an established field, research explicitly on feminist peace activists is limited. Moreover, starting with my own life-story I take a holistic view of ‘peace activism’ as a mode of engaging with ‘everyday peace’ as well as specific oppressive practices, including but not restricted to war. I start by critically engaging with academic literature on feminist activism, peace activism, and women’s experiences of war and categorise key threads of identity, practices, feminism, community, and media. These ideas formed the basis of the thirty-seven semi-structured interviews I conducted with women feminist peace activists. In these conversations, the expected topics of identity and community emerged strongly, while I was surprised to discover the strength of faith and Christianity for most of the interviewees, given that religion was not a reference point for recruitment. My investigation thus evolved into the overarching question: How do peace activists navigate (practice) Christianity and maintain an activist feminist identity? For my interviewees, the path to peace activism was not always clear; however, for all of them the role of peace and feminism in their lives was a salient place of interconnectedness. This experience was often described in relation to family and community, especially faith-based groups. I identify the difficulties faced by the activists within traditionally masculine and conservative spaces, describing how they navigate these situations. I argue that their thoughtful holistic approaches can be theorised as a form of ‘queering’ as resistance, and that their belief in, and activation of ‘hope’ for sustainable peace is both a form of resistance to oppressive practices and a strategy for change.