How Food, Sports and Arts Can Change the World

While peace and conflict scholars have long focused on “hard power”, such as security, political, and economic domains, soft power, or “the ability to get what you want through attraction”, is especially important for building peace in contexts of group-based conflict.  Food, sports and arts are promising soft power spaces since they are central to group identity, universal experiences, ways to communicate without words, and hold strong emotional connections to memory, but are commonly overlooked by peacebuilders. In response, this mixed-methods research examines the efforts of “everyday ambassadors” — such as coaches, athletes, chefs, food festival organizers, orchestra directors, and museum curators — who use food, sports and arts to build inclusion, belonging, and peace in contexts of group-based conflict globally. By examining the pathways through which these cultural spaces may effect social change, as well as the techniques that make positive change most likely, this research makes a much-needed contribution to expanding the repertoire of strategies to build peace.