The Applied Peace Research Project of forumZFD is firmly rooted in our commitment to being a learning organization. As such, we aspire to constantly develop our existing skills and fields of expertise as well as incorporate new insights and approaches into our work. Applied Peace Research aims to do that by linking forumZFD’s project work with current academic research and by using research processes to better understand the changing context and find solutions to challenges of our daily work. The findings of our research projects are used to improve project designs and enhance our overall intervention.
Apart from internal learning and organizational development, the applied peace research conducted by forumZFD also aims to strategically communicate our work and lessons learned to outside actors. This includes contributing to academic conference and publications to further develop the field of conflict transformation. Sharing insights and experiences made in the Philippines also serves to influence local and international discourses on the peace and conflict situation in the Philippines and beyond.
We are further committed to designing participatory research processes that build on the strengths of the communities we work with and focus on developing solutions rooted in the context. Such action-oriented, community-based research processes can in themselves contribute to changing social conditions and working towards our vision.
Past topics of applied peace research include:
- Moving Beyond: Towards Transitional Justice in the Bangsamoro Peace Process (2014)
- Indigenous Self-Governance and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of the Philippine Province Agusan del Sur (2020)
- What it Takes to be an Indigenous Woman Leader (2020)
- Countering Historical Revisionism in the Philippines: A Peace Education Approach (2021)
- Non-Islamized Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Non-Discrimination in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (2022)