Insights from Brazil on the role of care, empowerment and social change
Brazil, youth, peace, violence, power, empowerment, structural violence
Drawing on conversations with Brazilian high school and undergraduate students, this entry explores how young people understand peace, violence and power in their everyday lives. While peace is often imagined as tranquillity or an inner state, students also highlight the importance of respect, recognition and dignity in social relationships. Their reflections reveal violence as a multidimensional phenomenon rooted in inequality, racism and gender discrimination. At the same time, many perceive power primarily as domination, raising important questions about youth empowerment and the possibilities for collective social change that may foster peace.
Roberta Holanda Maschietto is a research associate at the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (CCP/NUPRI) of the University of São Paulo. Her research interests include: peacebuilding and local empowerment in Mozambique and Timor-Leste; peace, violence and the youth in Brazil; human security, memory and Covid-19 in the Brazilian peripheries; peace and democracy; peace studies and knowledge production in the Global South.
Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Brazil. His research focuses on the impacts of organized crime and state violence on peace in Brazil and South America.
Juliano da Silva Cortinhas is a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia and a professor at the University of Brasilia (since 2016). As a professor, he is involved in many teaching and research initiatives, including the coordination of the Study and Research Group on International Security. His research has been concentrated on Peace and International Security, National Defense, and U.S. Defense Policy, with a focus on civil-military relations.
Gilberto Carvalho de Oliveira is a professor and researcher at the Institute of International Relations and Defense – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil. His main research interests are related to Peace and Conflict Studies (peace operations, critique of liberal peace, non-violence, conflict resolution, and conflict and peace in Somalia), Critical International Relations Theory, Securitization Theory, and Aesthetics and International Politics.
Available in English: Dignified Anger
ABSTRACT
Based on focus groups and written activities involving 207 students from various Brazilian municipalities, this entry presents these young people’s perceptions of the notions of peace, violence and power. For many of these students, differently from mainstream conceptions that define peace as the absence of war or a state of institutional stability, peace is defined primarily as an internal state of ‘tranquillity’ or a temporary removal from a stressful external environment. Perceptions of peace also carry a significant relational dimension centred on respect, empathy and human dignity. Moreover, peace is also understood as the presence of care, and the freedom to exist without fear of judgement. Relatedly, violence is perceived as a multidimensional phenomenon that extends beyond physical aggression. Students frequently highlight structural and symbolic violence, including poverty, racism, gender-based discrimination and state negligence. In many urban areas violence is normalised as a recurring feature of daily life, with policing often viewed as a source of fear rather than security. As for power, students largely view this concept in a negative light, as a tool for control, manipulation and hierarchy. This perspective is often tied to social inequalities, where power is seen as the domain of those with financial and social privilege. Because state institutions are frequently associated with institutional violence, many young people express a profound sense of powerlessness, which can hinder their belief in collective agency for social change. These perceptions gathered from Brazilian young people invite us to rethink peace not as a fixed state defined by the absence of war, but rather as a plural, dynamic and deeply embodied experience. The analysis suggests that peace initiatives focused primarily on institutional change often remain alienated from the realities of those in need, as they fail to address the underlying structures of everyday violence based on racism, gender and social class. Ultimately, the research concludes that for a peace agenda to be authentic and effective it must be reappropriated from within, a process that requires listening to and empowering those who live these realities, especially young people.
introduction
Peace is a disputed concept. While particular conceptions have dominated the policy realm, as well as academic debates, there are different understandings of what peace entails. Acknowledging that the predominance of so-called ‘traditional’ approaches has shaped how peace has been pursued in both policy and practice, this entry draws on a growing body of scholarship that challenges these perspectives. Indeed, as several studies influenced by post and decolonial perspectives have shown, the current dominant paradigm of peace – often referred to as ‘the liberal peace’ – is not only unrepresentative of the vast diversity of societies that exist across the world, it also hides important dimensions of conflict and structural domination that keep certain segments of the world population at the margins of power.
In the following paragraphs we first offer a brief overview of peace as a complex, multifaceted and disputed concept. We then turn to the views of a population that is often unheard in this debate: the youth. Our key assumption is that engaging with the youth is a vital first step in thinking of and building a more peaceful and just world.
We argue that peace must be discussed not only in relation to its opposite (violence), but also in relation to power and empowerment. If peace is something to be accomplished and experienced on an ongoing daily basis, it depends on agency, on proactive subjects that feel empowered and motivated to bring about social change. With this in mind, our empirical analysis considers not only youth views on peace, but also on violence and power.
The data we present are based on a series of activities conducted with young students in different cities in Brazil. Through an engaged dialogue on the concepts of peace, violence and power, we found that while their views on peace partly resonate with elements of mainstream peace scholarship (for instance, stressing the role of security and also engaging with structural aspects of violence), they also stress aspects related to care, affect and recognition, elements that are mostly marginalised in the literature on peace and especially in the policy domain.
Moreover, their views on power reflect a bias toward a conflictual perspective associated with the exercise of control, influence or authority, as opposed to power as a means to enact agency cooperatively to tackle structural injustice. We will argue that this limits the envisioning of entry points for action and diminishes their sense of empowerment.
Peace: a disputed concept
Understandings of peace vary across individuals, cultures and societies. When a researcher tries to interpret these different understandings, their own ideological assumptions or political compromises blur the discussions even more. As a product of these disputes and interpretations, peace is not only a multifaceted concept, but a disputed one.
For starters, the philosophical and cultural nuances of peace have been the subject of extensive scholarly enquiry (e.g. Bose, ; Galtung, ; Dietrich, ; Pynn, ). For example, Galtung () argued that different social cosmologies in the West and the East have generated distinct approaches to peace. While Western perspectives are based on the idea of separation between in-group and out-group (us/them) and have a tendency to universalisation, Eastern traditions have often reflected a more self-contained perspective, centred on the intrapersonal domain.
Scholars from Africa and Latin America have also pointed to the different assumptions behind the idea of peace across Indigenous populations. For instance, Appiah-Thompson () shows that among the Akan of Ghana the concept of asomdwoe refers not simply to the absence of conflict but to a broader condition of harmony, moral balance and communal well-being sustained through shared ethical norms and oral traditions. Likewise, Adegoke and Alvarez () demonstrate how Indigenous communities in Nigeria (the Youruba) and Bolivia (the Aymara) also articulate peace through culturally embedded ontologies that emphasise relationality (where the collective plays a crucial role), spirituality and ecological balance. In this encyclopaedia, many other entries also dive into the plurality of meanings of peace (e.g. Fitzgerald, ; Jakubchik-Paloheimo & Shuar Kakaram de Buena Esperanza, ; Lozada & Garrido, ).
In a major effort to systematise different cultural approaches to peace, Wolfgang Dietrich () has shown how these differences reflect distinct ontological assumptions about peace, as well as different epistemological approaches. In turn, this translates into different priorities and aspirations about the peace that is pursued.
Comparative empirical evidence further illuminates these differences and their practical implications. An extensive study based on grounded theory methodology (Malley-Morrison, Mercurio, & Twose, ) shows significant regional variation in how peace is understood across societies. The study identifies differences along three key dimensions: the negative aspects of peace (what peace is not), the positive aspects of peace (what peace is or should be), and perceptions of its attainability. These variations are not merely conceptual but also suggest different priorities for action. For instance, respondents in Western Europe tended to emphasise negative peace – understood primarily as the absence of direct violence/war – whereas participants in African contexts more often highlighted positive peace, particularly access to resources and improved social conditions. Such findings indicate that distinct understandings of peace may lead to different pathways for pursuing it in practice.
Notwithstanding this vast conceptual variation, specific connotations of peace have prevailed (or were actively imposed) at specific moments in time, thereby shaping international politics and national policies more broadly (Young, ; Richmond, ; Azarmandi & Pauls, ). This dispute is not merely conceptual; the term ‘peace’ carries strong political legitimacy, and has often been mobilised to justify specific forms of political action (including violence), with states playing a central role in shaping the dominant narrative (Kühn, ). From this perspective, the dominant conceptions of peace over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have not been a random occurrence. On the contrary, as Nigel Young () explains, prior to World War I conceptions of peace were largely secular. After the war different movements advanced distinct understandings of peace, including secular antiwar and antimilitarist activism, religious traditions opposing war such as the Quaker movement, and the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolent resistance. These movements helped to shape several dimensions of the global peace agenda, including coordinated action for social change, nuclear disarmament campaigns and the promotion of a culture of peace (Young, ).
Nevertheless, when we look at the political spectrum and the allocation of financial and material resources, the dominant idea of peace that shaped international state action was very specific, commonly referred to as ‘the liberal peace’. Forged after World War II and consolidated as a discourse in various international documents over time, such as An Agenda for Peace (1992) and numerous reports from international organisations and donors, the liberal peace is broadly rooted in ideals of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, (neo)liberal development practices and market-oriented forms of governance (Richmond & Mac Ginty, ). It is also predicated on principles of universality and social engineering which have dictated the international peacebuilding agenda, including peacekeeping operations, state building practices and donor conditionalities.
Since the net effects of these practices have been subject to extensive critique, we will not discuss them in this entry (see e.g. Pugh, ; Richmond, ; Maschietto & Cavalcante, ; Duarte & Souza, ; Fitzgerald, ). That said, it is important to mention that the liberal peace tends to privilege particular representations of peace while sidelining alternative understandings and experiences. This further shapes whose experiences are recognised and whose priorities inform peacebuilding policies. For this reason, engaging with the perspectives of different social groups becomes essential to reveal overlooked priorities and potential pathways for social change (see, for instance, the discussion by Gill, ).
This is the intention of the analysis presented in the following sections. Considering that young people are not only potential agents of change, but also the main victims of violence in Brazil (Maschietto, Ferreira, & Cortinhas, ), it is vital to bring their voices into discussions about peace.
What Brazilian youth say about peace, violence and power
This section draws on a series of written activities and focus groups carried out with young students in high school and undergraduates in public institutions in Brazil.1The data we present here has been examined across a series of publications, where we have discussed different aspects of the findings (Maschietto, Ferreira, & Cortinhas, 2022; Oliveira, Maschietto, Ferreira, & Cortinhas, 2025; Maschietto, Oliveira, Ferreira, & Cortinhas, forthcoming). In this entry we revisit and synthesise this material, focusing on how it reflects the contested nature of peace and the need to think of peace in relation to power and the empowerment of marginalised groups. The purpose was to grasp their views and experiences around peace, violence and power/empowerment. While peace and violence are usually seen as related opposites, we found that power was also a crucial aspect to explore, as we wanted to get a sense of whether these students felt empowered to take action towards social change that could foster peace. We understand empowerment as a ‘dynamic process whereby actors perceive their situation as unfavourable to their interests and change their attitudes in order to transform it’ (Maschietto, , p. 71). This implies questioning a current reality while expanding the boundaries of what is deemed possible – which further implies the recognition of the subject’s personal power ().
The sample comprised 13 mixed focus groups totalling 207 participants (113 female and 94 male), aged between 16 and 25 in the municipalities of Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais), João Pessoa and Baía da Traição (Paraíba) (between August 2019 and March 2020), and Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro) (between September 2023 and March 2024). The participant profile was diverse in terms of race, sexual preference and economic condition. Moreover, the municipalities were also very different in terms of violence rates and socio-spatial dynamics. João Pessoa and Baía da Traição are both located in one of the more violent regions in the sample, with the latter also characterised by rural–urban dynamics and land-related conflicts involving Indigenous populations. Rio de Janeiro presents a different profile, where high levels of inequality coexist with intense, spatially concentrated violence linked to organised crime and militias. In contrast, Ouro Preto is a smaller historical town situated in a comparatively less violent region, though still shaped by the broader impacts of mining activities. Overall, the sample captures youth from diverse contexts with distinct experiences of violence.
The activities were conducted in classrooms and included: 1) a short written task where students wrote about the first idea that came to mind when thinking about peace, violence and power; 2) a focus group that lasted on average 30 minutes, split into three blocs (peace, violence and power); and 3) a final opportunity for additional anonymous writing so that students could share further thoughts or personal stories related to their experiences of peace, violence and power.
Notably, the thematic discussions unfolded with distinct dynamics. Violence emerged as the most vivid and frequently articulated topic, with students drawing on concrete and often personal experiences from their everyday lives. In contrast, peace was often depicted as a more subjective and internalised topic, sometimes even utopic, frequently expressed through feelings and visions of an ideal future. Finally, reflections on power required greater prompting and collective elaboration during the discussions. These differences in how students engaged with each theme already point to important dynamics in how peace and violence are experienced, imagined and interpreted by these young people, as well as how they perceive their own ability to change society.
Peace
When asked about what peace meant to them, most of the students initially referred to concepts that indicated a more inward and subjective dimension of peace, with the word tranquillity being the most quoted. Related words such as calm, happiness, harmony, well-being and lightness were also frequent. Many participants evoked moments of solitude or sensory experiences – listening to music alone, feeling the warm sun at the end of the day, swimming in the sea or enjoying the smell of cake and coffee – indicating that peace is often experienced as a temporary withdrawal from a stressful or violent external world.
‘Oh, yes… I have an experience of peace. I think it’s when the sun is setting on the beach and we take a nice dip in the sea… I feel extremely peaceful.’
Undergraduate student, Rio de Janeiro
The next most important aspect that students highlighted was the relational domain of peace. The second most frequent term in the written activities was respect, pointing to a concern with the quality of social interactions. Students associated peace with empathy, kindness, reciprocity, love and the absence of prejudice, suggesting that peacefulness also depends on recognition and dignity within social relationships.
The relationship between the inner and outer world was also connected in several instances. In the words of a student from Rio de Janeiro: ‘It’s no use wishing to have a calm day if outside a bomb is falling, right?’ Ultimately, inner peace also depends on the perception of fair treatment and recognition in society.
‘Peace. When I am in a place where judgement, disrespect and lack of empathy are not present. A place where people are not afraid to be who they really are.’
High school student, Ouro Preto
While less frequent than the previous connotations, there were also many references to peace as a state of no violence, no conflict and safety. The idea of safety (or lack of it) was further explored when discussing violence since it touches the everyday lives of many of these young students, reflecting the sad and high violence rates in Brazil. However, it is interesting to note that the concept was not related to Brazil’s relations with other countries. Since Brazil has not fought wars with its neighbours for more than 150 years, students do not speculate about this possibility; their sense of peace is more related to their daily lives than to world affairs. When they were asked whether Brazil is at peace, no wonder the students directly associated the question with domestic affairs, and loud and ironic laughter eased the transition to the discussion on violence.
Violence
The activities with the students revealed that they understand violence broadly as a multidimensional phenomenon that extends far beyond its most visible physical manifestations. Although many participants initially associated violence with direct aggression (such as homicide, assaults and armed crime), their reflections quickly expanded toward structural and symbolic dimensions. In this sense, their interpretations resonate with broader debates in peace studies that distinguish between direct, structural and cultural/symbolic forms of violence.
For many students, violence is strongly associated with everyday insecurity and with the routine presence of crime in their communities. The latter is particularly important in settings such as the urban areas of Latin America. Participants from peripheral urban areas frequently mentioned armed confrontations, drug trafficking and police operations as part of their daily environment. Violence is therefore perceived as a recurring condition shaping everyday life. This normalisation produces a complex relationship with violence: while it is clearly condemned, it is also perceived as an unavoidable feature of the social environment in which many young people grow up.
‘[…] The police have guns, they have complete freedom to use violence against others, and they bring security to some people, but for others they are the main symbol of fear.’
High school student, Ouro Preto
At the same time, students often expanded their definitions of violence beyond physical harm to include social inequalities and systemic injustices. Structural violence emerged in their narratives through references to poverty, unequal access to education, racism and social exclusion. These elements were frequently described as underlying causes of more visible forms of violence. Several participants emphasised that crime and interpersonal aggression cannot be understood without considering the broader social conditions that limit opportunities for them. This perspective reveals an intuitive understanding of violence that aligns with critical interpretations of social injustice, especially inequality and state negligence towards this group.
Symbolic and cultural dimensions of violence also appeared prominently in the students’ reflections. Gender-based violence, racism and discrimination related to sexuality were recurrent themes in both focus group discussions and written testimonies. Female students in particular reported experiences of harassment and unequal treatment, while others pointed to machismo and racial prejudice as pervasive forms of violence embedded in everyday social interactions, including at school, at home and even during transportation between home and school. In these accounts violence is not only about physical harm but also about disrespect, humiliation and denial of dignity, in a way that males experience less than women.
‘As women, we are often “invaded” both psychologically and physically every day. I have been in situations where men have made comments about my body without my permission, or even cases of abuse, using force to hurt or touch my body without permission. For me, this is an act of violence.’
Female undergraduate student, Rio de Janeiro
Another notable element in the students’ perceptions is the recognition that violence can be reproduced through institutional practices. Participants frequently criticised policing strategies centred on repression and militarisation, arguing that these approaches often exacerbate tensions rather than addressing their underlying causes. Such criticisms suggest a scepticism toward purely security-oriented responses to violence, especially those focused on law enforcement rather than social transformation.
Overall, these youth perspectives reveal a sophisticated understanding of violence as a layered social phenomenon. Their narratives challenge narrow definitions centred exclusively on criminality or interstate wars, and instead highlight the complex interplay between inequality, discrimination, institutional practices and everyday experiences. By articulating these connections, our young participants demonstrate an awareness that violence is deeply embedded in social structures and cultural norms, thereby pointing toward the need for more comprehensive approaches to its reduction, focused not only in institutions but also in a new approach towards social relationships.
Power
It is our view that understanding how individuals perceive and experience power is fundamental in thinking of strategic pathways to foster social change and therefore peace. In Brazil, as in other places, youth movements have played a crucial role in pushing for political change, resisting dictatorship and pressing for changes in the education agenda through the occupation of schools. At the same time, young people represent the most victimised share of the population when it comes to violent death rates, including death by the police. According to the last census 42.06% of the Brazilian population are young people (between birth and 29 years old) (IBGE, ). At the same type, 48.5% of the victims of intentional violent deaths belonged to this group (FBSP, , p. 16). It is also worth mentioning that the highest percentages of victims during police operations also belong to this group, reaching 2.3 (between 12 and 17 y/o), 9.6 (between 18 and 24 y/o), and 7.3 (between 25 and 29 y/o) per 100,000 people (FBSP, , p. 69). In this regard, the views of our group of students regarding power in society – and their own power in it – are revealing of the potentials and limitations of their agency.
Most of their answers pointed to a predominantly negative view of what power is and how it operates in society, which may be related to their perceptions of their limitations as agents. Overall, power was defined as one person’s ability to ‘control’, ‘manipulate’, ‘influence’ or ‘command’ another person, i.e. as a top-down and asymmetric feature driven by some kind of material and/or moral superiority. Words such as ‘hierarchy’ and ‘authority’ were used. ‘Money’ and other material elements were frequently mentioned, but there were also references to emotions, including ‘fear’, as well as to ‘force’.
‘It is worth remembering that today power has colour, gender, and financial condition: it’s rich white and straight men.’
High school student, Ouro Preto
This emphasis on power as emerging from the capacity to dominate/impose stems from a conflictual view of power, where no mutual gains can exist. This mirrors part of the sociological and political science literature, to the detriment of views that see power as co-constituted through a minimum degree of consensus. This difference is not just a matter of semantics or conceptual disagreement, it has very practical implications: if power is oppressive, then empowerment is only feasible through resistance and conflict. But what about cooperation, collaboration, autonomy, mutual gains?
In the focus groups, while some students noted that power is ‘a force that can be used for good or for bad’, there were more references to how it is often misused, fostering asymmetries through ‘manipulation’, ‘greed’, ‘abuse of power’, ‘politics’ and ‘corruption’. As one participant recalled, ‘nowadays, when we hear the word power, we immediately think of the worst things’.
Everyday examples were provided to illustrate these dynamics, and special attention was given to the state and its institutions. In this context, several students emphasised the role of violence as a key dimension of power. Many participants expressed the view that state institutions are not representative of the population as a whole – on the contrary, they often contribute to existing asymmetries. This understanding further shaped their views regarding the spaces for agency and change. The need for institutional change, especially within the justice system, was mentioned repeatedly. But how to change these structures and thus promote a peace that is inclusive, representative and attuned to the youth?
‘The authority of the state is often exercised through violence.’
Undergraduate student, Rio de Janeiro
In a few instances some students mentioned the relevance of collective effort and mobilisation, but in other cases a feeling of powerlessness and inability to change these entrenched structures prevailed.
Disputing peace: bringing in care and empowerment
The perspectives gathered from Brazilian youth invite us to rethink peace not as a fixed state defined by the absence of war, but as a plural, dynamic and deeply embodied experience. Coming from a country that has maintained peaceful relations with its neighbours for more than a century, their accounts reveal that every effort to generalise an idea of peace will lead to inconsistencies. In fact, peace operates simultaneously across several registers: the direct (freedom from physical harm), the structural (access to fair institutions, education and economic opportunity), and the symbolic (freedom from racism, sexism and homophobia). Each of these registers was translated in an effective and relational way by our respondents.
When young people in Ouro Preto, João Pessoa, Baía da Traição or Rio de Janeiro speak of peace, they invoke tranquillity, empathy, respect and the freedom to be whoever one decides to be without fear of judgment. These are not peripheral concerns but constitutive elements of what peace means in their lives. Peace, in this reading, is not merely the absence of something, but the presence of care.
This centrality of care and relational quality in the students’ accounts draws attention to a significant blind spot in mainstream peace scholarship and policy. The liberal peace framework, with its emphasis on institutional design, market integration and formal rule of law, has largely presumed that the repair of structural conditions would naturally produce a relational peaceful coexistence. The youth perspectives presented here challenge this assumption. Structural transformation, while necessary, does not automatically generate the recognition, dignity and mutual respect that these young people identify as preconditions for feeling genuinely at peace. In this sense, their views converge with approaches that emphasise everyday social relations, affect and embodied experience at the centre of peacebuilding thought and practice, a challenge that remains largely unmet at the level of international policy.
The entanglement between violence, racism, gender inequality and institutional reproduction that appears so vividly in the students’ testimonies also points to a structural critique that the liberal peace tends to obscure. For these young people, racism is not a cultural anomaly to be corrected at the margins of an otherwise functioning order; rather, it is an organising principle of social life, embedded in institutions, policing practices and everyday life. The same applies to gender-based violence and economic exclusion. These are not residual problems that can be solved by economic growth or electoral democracy, but the terrain on which violence is reproduced. This understanding, articulated spontaneously by our group of adolescents and young adults in public schools, resonates with postcolonial and decolonial critiques that have long contested the universalising pretensions of liberal peace frameworks (e.g. Cruz, ; Azarmandi & Pauls, ).
Another important contribution of this work addresses the relation between peace and power. The section on power reveals the political consciousness of these young people, both in relation to their capacity to propose complex solutions to achieve peace and to their perception on the limitations of their agency. Their understanding of power as inherently dominating and asymmetric reflects a lived reality shaped by state violence and negligence, as well as political disillusionment. When power is understood exclusively through the lens of coercion and conflict, the possibility of collective actions and cooperative agency tends to recede from view. Resistance appears futile in the face of entrenched structures. This creates a tension that is politically significant, in which the same youth who demonstrate sophisticated understandings of structural injustice often express a profound sense of powerlessness in relation to changing it, suggesting that critical awareness alone is insufficient to generate transformative agency. Between knowing that structures are unjust and believing that the possibility for change is minimal, they perceive that power is a key condition for the emergence of a peace-oriented society.
Taken together, the Brazilian youth perspectives analysed in this entry make a compelling case for expanding both the conceptual vocabulary and the policy horizon of contemporary peace debates. Care, affect, relational quality and empowerment are not soft supplements to a realist or liberal agenda; they are the dimensions through which peace is either experienced or denied in everyday life. A peace agenda that fails to address the racist, gendered and class-based architectures of everyday violence, or that relies mostly on institutional change, will remain alien to the realities of those who need peace most. If peace is to be more than a policy concept deployed from the outside, it must be reappropriated from within, which begins, as this entry has tried to show, with listening to and empowering young people.
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How to cite this entry:
Quintana, L. (2025, December 16). Digna Rabia – Dignified Anger. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. BMFTR – Network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18672427. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/digna-rabia/
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