Turning pain to power: the City of Joy in Democratic Republic of Congo peacebuilding

• Grant number: 21/04480-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2021
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Suzeley Kalil Mathias
• Grantee: Maria Eduarda Kobayashi Rossi
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/01182-4 - Barriers to sustainable and inclusive peace: a study of root causes of conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

Sexual violence continues to be a challenge to peacebuilding in several countries around the globe, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo where reports published by the United Nations (UN), denounce high rates of rape and other serious human rights violations. However, among an oppressed logical that permeates all the global system we still can find points of resistance as the City of Joy, a community of transformation and leadership located in Bukavu (Democratic Republic of Congo), focused on survived women of the sexual violence. The present work proposes an investigation of the transformative and revolutionary process that is verified in the City of Joy, aiming to understand how the activities carried out by this institution corroborate the transformation of conflicts and the promotion of peace. It will be studied from the perspective of the turn local in peace studies, having John Paul Lederach's proposals as a reference. (AU)