Building Trust Through Care: A Feminist Take on Inclusion in Multi-Track Mediation

Abstract

Inclusion is seen as a ‘golden standard’ in conflict mediation, and multitrack peace processes as a tool to operationalize it. However, when non-official (Track Two and Three) actors do not have faith in the official (Track One) peace process, a critical tension emerges, undermining the underlying logic of multitrackness. This article examines this tension, applying a feminist lens to the peace processes in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh. It calls for a re-thinking of the hierarchical logic of a multitrack peace process, predominant in much of the literature and practice, and to (re-)centre practices of care, relationship and movement-building, and social reproduction.