Reflections/My Barriers

Abstract

This chapter closes the book by reflecting on the tensions, contradictions, and barriers encountered when attempting to start from peace. Drawing together themes from youth work, peace studies, sociology, participatory inquiry, and dialogue based practice, the chapter examines how peace can be obscured by conflict centred narratives, institutional priorities, managerial systems, and dominant ways of knowing. It revisits the core commitments of the Sociology of Peace in Everyday Life (SoPiEL) and considers the challenges of sustaining peace conscious practice within contexts shaped by inequality, polarisation, and competing political interests. The chapter also reflects on positionality, the limits of dialogue, and the risks of reducing participation to symbolic inclusion without structural change. Particular attention is given to the relationship between everyday life, power, and peace, and to the difficulties of translating dialogue into lasting transformation. Rather than offering a final resolution, the chapter argues for ongoing critical engagement with peace as a lived, relational, and unfinished process. It concludes by reaffirming the importance of partnership, accountability, and young people’s voices in developing peace informed practice, while recognising that peace remains contested, partial, and continually remade through everyday life.