Staff profile

Stefanie Kappler joined Durham University in 2015. She holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews. Stefanie previously acted as Director of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies (Liverpool Hope University). She is particularly interested in the contested and transformative nature of local imaginations of peace and has conducted fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Africa, Cyprus, Brussels, Northern Ireland, Kosovo and the Basque Country.

Her research interests include critical approaches to peacebuilding, specifially with respect to the Balkans, South Africa and Cyprus as well as the role of memory and art in peacebuilding. 

Her research is driven by an interest in what constitutes agency and how we can come to an understanding of peacebuilding agents that avoids their (colonial) essentialisation and takes account of their multidimensional character. To engage with this question, Stefanie has investigated the role that artists can play in peacebuilding processes to break through established categories and provide narratives that challenge dominant discourses.

Stefanie is working on externally-funded projects to investigate the connection between memory politics, cultural heritage and peacebuilding (see http://peaceandmemory.net/), the role of the arts in peace formation processes (https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/the-art-of-peace/home/about/) and decolonising peace education (https://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/about/news/?itemno=41641). 

• Cyprus
• Northern Ireland
• Peacebuilding
• the European Union and Peacebuilding
• Spaces and places of peace and conflict
• Research Methods in Peace Studies
• Peace and the Arts
• Memory and Conflict
• Narrative Approaches
• Bosnia-Herzegovina
• South Africa

Authored book

• Mannergren, J., Björkdahl, A., Buckley-Zistel, S., Kappler, S., & Williams, T. (2024). Peace and the Politics of Memory. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526178329
• Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2017). Peacebuilding and Spatial Transformation: Peace, Space and Place. Routledge
• Kappler, S. (2014). Local Agency and Peacebuilding. EU and International Engagement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus and South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137307194

Book review

• Kappler, S. (online). Cities at War: Global Insecurity and Urban Resistance. Global Policy,
• Kappler, S. (2018). Film review:" A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake". Michael Lessac (dir). New York, USA: Saboteur Media, 2014. Cooperation and Conflict, 53(4), 545-548. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718769696

Chapter in book

• Kappler, S., & Richmond, O. P. (2024). Conclusion: Artpeace and its Potential for Peacemaking. In B. Vogel, S. Kappler, & O. P. Richmond (Eds.), The Art of Peace Formation: Arts-based Social Movements, Opportunities and Blockages. Edinburgh University Press
• Kappler, S., Richmond, O. P., & Vogel, B. (2024). Introduction to Artpeace: Arts-based Social Movements, Peace Formation and Curation. In B. Vogel, S. Kappler, & O. P. Richmond (Eds.), The Art of Peace Formation: Arts-based Social Movements, Opportunities and Blockages. Edinburgh University Press
• Kappler, S., Richmond, O. P., & Vogel, B. (2024). Theorising Peace Formation and the Arts. In B. Vogel, S. Kappler, & O. P. Richmond (Eds.), The Art of Peace Formation: Arts-based Social Movements, Opportunities and Blockages. Edinburgh University Press
• Kappler, S., & McKane, A. (2022). Negotiating binaries in curatorial practice: modality, temporality, and materiality in Cape Town's community-led urban history museums. In U. Capdepon, & S. Dornhof (Eds.), Contested Urban Spaces. Monuments, Traces, and Decentered Memories (65-82). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87505-3_4
• Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2021). Spaces of Peace. In O. P. Richmond, & G. Visoka (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of peacebuilding, statebuilding, and peace formation (139-151). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190904418.013.9
• Kappler, S., & Lemay-Hebert, N. (2021). From Power-Blind Binaries to the Intersectionality of Peace: Connecting Feminism and Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. In L. McLeod, & M. O'Reilly (Eds.), Feminist Interventions in Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. Routledge
• Kappler, S. (2021). Privilege. In R. Mac Ginty, R. Brett, & B. Vogel (Eds.), The companion to peace and conflict fieldwork (421-432). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_29
• Kappler, S. (2020). Peacebuilding as a Self-Legitimising System: The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In O. Richmond, & R. Mac Ginty (Eds.), Local legitimacy and international peacebuilding. Edinburgh University Press
• Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2019). Peacebuilding and Spatial Transformation. In O. Richmond, & G. Visoka (Eds.), The Palgrave encyclopedia of peace and conflict studies. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_23-1
• Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2019). The Spatial Dimensions of State-Building. In N. Lemay-Hebert (Ed.), Handbook of intervention and statebuilding (210-219). Edward Elgar Publishing
• Kappler, S. (2017). The Securitization of International Peacebuilding. In T. Bonacker, W. Distler, & M. Ketzmerick (Eds.), Securitization in statebuilding and intervention. Nomos. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845285825-29
• Kappler, S. (2017). Positive Peace. In F. M. Moghaddam (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of political behavior (640-641). SAGE Publications
• Belloni, R., Kappler, S., & Ramovic, J. (2016). Bosnia-Herzegovina: Domestic Agency and the Inadequacy of the Liberal Peace. In O. Richmond, & S. Pogodda (Eds.), Post-liberal peace transitions : between peace formation and state formation (47-64). Edinburgh University Press
• Kappler, S., & Lemay-Hébert, N. (2015). Hybrid local ownership in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo: From discursive to material aspects of ownership. In S. Y. Lee, & A. Özerdem (Eds.), Local ownership in international peacebuilding : key theoretical and practical issues (74-92). Routledge
• Kappler, S. (2015). Retelling the City: Competing Spaces of Social Engagement in Cape Town. In A. Björkdahl, & L. Strömbom (Eds.), Divided cities : governing diversity (131-150). Nordic Academic Press
• Forde, S., & Kappler, S. (2014). Connecting the Local and the Global - Understanding International Relations through Global Networks. In K. Vaidya (Ed.), International relations and diplomacy for the curious : why study international relations and diplomacy. Curious Academic Publishing
• Forde, S., & Kappler, S. (2014). Connecting the Local and the Global - Understanding International Relations through Global Networks. In International Relations for the Curious High School & College Students: Why Study International Relations? (The Undecided Student's Guide to Choosing the Perfect Career Path). The Curious Academic Publishing
• Kappler, S. (2014). Everyday Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Spaces: The Creation of Social Legitimacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Cultural Arenas. In D. Roberts (Ed.), Liberal peacebuilding and the locus of legitimacy (11-38). Routledge
• Kappler, S. (2012). Liberal Peacebuilding’s Representation of the Local: The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In O. Richmond, & A. Mitchell (Eds.), Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism. Palgrave
• Kappler, S. (2012). Representations of Peace in the EU Peacebuilding Approach in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In K. Aggestam, & A. Bjorkdahl (Eds.), Rethinking Peacebuilding The Quest for Just Peace in the Middle East and the Western Balkans. Routledge

Edited book

• Vogel, B., Kappler, S., & Richmond, O. P. (Eds.). (2024). The Art of Peace Formation. Arts-based Social Movements, Opportunities and Blockages. Edinburgh University Press
• Chabot, J., Godin, R., Kappler, S., & Kasparian, S. (Eds.). (2015). Mass media and the Genocide of the Armenians: One Hundred Years of Uncertain Representation. Palgrave

Journal Article

• Cole, L. C., & Kappler, S. (2022). Soundscapes of Mostar: Space and art beyond the divided city. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 16(5), 641-658. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2022.2128592
• Bakonyi, J., Kappler, S., Nag, E.-M., & Opfermann, L. S. (2021). Precarity, Mobility and the City: Introduction to the Special Issue. Global Policy, 12(S2), 5-9. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12946
• Kappler, S. (2021). Curating (im)mobility: Peri-urban agency in the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum. Global Policy, 12(S2), 53-62. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12832
• Forde, S., Kappler, S., & Björkdahl, A. (2021). Peacebuilding, Structural Violence & Spatial Reparations in Post-Colonial South Africa. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 15(3), 327-346. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2021.1909297
• Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2019). The creation of transnational memory spaces: professionalization and commercialization. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 32(4), 383-401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-019-09334-7
• Kappler, S., & Lemay-Hébert, N. (2019). From Power-Blind Binaries to the Intersectionality of Peace: Connecting Feminism and Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. Peacebuilding, 7(2), 160-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2019.1588456
• Kappler, S., & McKane, A. (2019). ‘Post-Conflict Curating’: the Arts and Politics of Belfast’s Peace Walls. de arte, 54(2), 4-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2019.1613747
• Kappler, S. (2018). The Legitimisation of Post-Conflict Intervention: Narrative Frames of Backwardness and Progress. Political Geography, 66, 130-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.08.014
• Kappler, S. (2017). Sarajevo’s Ambivalent Memoryscape: Spatial stories of peace and conflict. Memory Studies, 10(2), 130-143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698016650484
• Lemay-Hébert, N., & Kappler, S. (2016). What Attachment to Peace? Exploring the Normative and Material Dimensions of Local Ownership in Peacebuilding. Review of International Studies, 42(5), 895-914. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210516000061
• Tellidis, I., & Kappler, S. (2016). Information and communication technologies in peacebuilding: Implications, opportunities and challenges. Cooperation and Conflict, 51(1), 75-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836715603752
• Richmond, O., Kappler, S., & Björkdahl, A. (2015). The ‘Field’ in the Age of Intervention: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority Versus the ‘Local’. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 44(1), 23-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829815594871
• Kappler, S. (2015). The dynamic local: delocalisation and (re-)localisation in the search for peacebuilding identity. Third World Quarterly, 36(5), 875-889. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1025740
• Vogel, B., Richmond, O. P., Mac Ginty, R., Tellidis, I., & Kappler, S. (2014). Peacebuilding. Peace Review, 26(4), 517-519. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2014.972255
• Kappler, S. (2013). Peacebuilding and lines of friction between imagined communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa. Peacebuilding, 1(3), 349-364. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2013.813177
• Kappler, S. (2013). Coping with research: local tactics of resistance against (mis-)representation in academia. Peacebuilding, 1(1), 125-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2013.756279
• Kappler, S. (2013). Everyday Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Spaces: The Creation of Social Legitimacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina's Cultural Arenas. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 7(1), 11-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2012.655614
• Kappler, S. (2012). Divergent Transformation and Centrifugal Peacebuilding: The EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Peacekeeping, 19(5), 612-627. https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2012.722001
• Richmond, O., Björkdahl, A., & Kappler, S. (2011). The emerging EU peacebuilding framework: confirming or transcending liberal peacebuilding?. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 24(3), 449-469. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2011.586331
• Kappler, S., & Richmond, O. (2011). Peacebuilding and culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Resistance or emancipation?. Security Dialogue, 42(3), https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010611405377

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Kappler, S., & Monroy-Santander, L. (2018). Colombia's troubled peace process and the lessons of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Kappler, S., & Mannergren Selimovic, J. (2021). Working with the cultural heritage of conflict for peacebuilding: Lessons learned from the Western Balkans