Pearl of Peace: Unmuting Women’s Voices in Peacebuilding

Abstract

The meaningful participation and leadership of women was key in the success of the Bangsamoro peace process in the Philippines. This study focuses on the communicative aspect of the sensemaking experiences of seven key women peacebuilders and explores the unmuting of women’s voices in peacebuilding from the lenses of gender, language, and tradition using hermeneutic phenomenology as research methodology. By integrating the different frames of narratives and conversations with these women peacebuilders, five major themes were derived in the synthesis of meanings, “making sense” of the sensemaking of the women peacebuilders. Integrating and refining the five interwoven themes using the hermeneutic circle has led to an illuminating “epiphany”: The overarching dimension of the sensemaking and communication experiences of women in peacebuilding is power.

Power, both internal and external, has the capacity to impact change in consciousness, culture, and political processes. This study contributes the Kite Flying Model in Place Communication for a deeper appreciation of how power interplays with peace in the meaningful engagement and leadership of women in peace processes. It also presents the Quadrant Matrix of Peace Communication that is useful for elvating peace communication approaches from simply engendered to “engendered.” Like the grain of sand that shifts the inner composite matter of the oyster to painstakingly give birth to an iridescent pearl, this study is paradigm-shifting as it navigated an unexplored terrain in the male-dominated seascape of peace and security to re-discover the pearl of peace.