Frieden fühlen? Emotionale (Be)Deutungen von innerem Frieden nach Konflikt und Flucht

While the nexus of conflict and displacement has been intensively studied, peace remains neglected. Our research addresses this gap and focuses on peace perceptions and practices of displaced people in Germany. Interlocutors ascribe particular importance to inner peace—and thus to feeling peace. By analyzing through an emotional-affective approach and migrant-situated knowledge, we demonstrate that inner peace is shaped by their intersectional experiences of conflict, violence and displacement and is interdependently linked to hope, experience and action. They associate inner peace with various emotional attributions, such as happiness and contentment, and describe it as the basis for their hope for a normal life, their coping with traumatic experiences, and their motivation for individual and collective action. The analysis therefore shows how inner peace is emotionally linked to the past, present and future, and how it affectively shapes motivations for action.