Pockets, Peace, and Possibility

How might we cultivate a global community committed to peace?
​
​I recently gathered with a group of amazing women at UPEACE NY, Inc. to explore answers to this question and envision possibilities for peace. In this article, I share highlights from our discussion and add some insights it inspired for me when thinking about feminist peace.

To start, we reflected on and shared our superpowers. I invite the reader to pause, think about your superpower, and name it. This might be something not on your CV or resume, a skill you engage that helps you to do the amazing work you do in the world. For example, I shared my artwork, "Superpoderosa", created during my artist residency in Ras de Terra, reflecting how existing materials and creative practice can be used for imagination and innovation as keys to building peace.

​After sharing our superpowers, we next turned to pockets.
Before reading on, briefly reflect on your experience with pockets.

---

Women's pockets are designed to be smaller than men's pockets.
In a 2018 study, Diehm and Thomas found that 10% of pants pockets designed for women can fit a hand that otherwise fits in 100% of pockets designed for men. While inequitable pockets are likely not an intentional design outcome, and gender is not a binary - noting the pocket inequity inspires a critical curiosity about design in peacebuilding contexts.

What do pockets have to do with peace?
​Design processes to develop programs, products, and interventions can have un/intentional impacts. The design justice approach aims to ensure equity and justice are centered in the design process so that outcomes are also rooted in those same values.

I applied design justice as a framework in my PhD design research study and peace innovation project at the Global Center for Peace Innovation at the University for Peace with the Green String Network (GSN), a Kenyan NGO focused on healing-centered peacebuilding. Together, we explored the role of the adapted framework to support their organizational culture change process while developing a digital peace-tech and health equity platform, Ustawi, meaning “to thrive” in Swahili.

Our efforts resulted in engaging a collaborative design (co-design) process that enabled a framework intertwine with GSN's own Wellbeing and Resilience approach. Our process supported agile adaptation amidst unexpected change, improved GSN's network governance process, and provided essential peer-resourcing support tools. The study was engaged as a relational project rooted in values and actions of justice, equity, and healing. While the framework is not a blueprint for change, nor explicitly a feminist approach, the story provides an example of a how a co-design process can have positive impacts.

Possibilities for peace
​Some topics we discussed included data justice, data feminism, and design justice as key tools to build feminist peace. While there are many women and feminists doing multi-generational work related to peace, social justice, and ecological wellbeing - we noted the work of two in particular: 
​

• ​Chandra Talpade Mohanty, an American scholar born in India now at Syracuse University who writes about the interwoven processes and impacts of many "-isms" (capitalism, sexism, racism, etc.) that are a part of a global, social fabric - noted in her book Feminism Across Borders, 2003.
• Nawal El Saadawi نوال السعداوي, an Egyptian activist and medical doctor who worked to stop female genital mutilation and highlighted that the term 'Middle East' is colonial language since Egypt was located geographically in the 'middle' to the British colonizers, while it is actually in North Africa or West Asia.

​Taking into account our positions and privileges within the social fabric and noting the power of language, we reflected and shared about the following questions:

• How do I show up in my leadership role as a woman - as a woman who cares about peace?
• What is an issue in my community that is important to me?
• What is 1 action step I can use my superpowers to make happen? ​

We​ envisioned possibilities and actions through artistic activism, holding community spaces, mediation and dialogue, cultivating curiosity and awareness, challenging gender and violence bias in AI, connecting the dots in complex (digitized) contexts, and saying YES to synchronicities.

For me, this looks and feels like focusing on my on breath, prioritizing relationships, rematriating and connecting with the water and the land, engaging in activities focused on creativity and pleasure, mothering myself, BIPOC/queer/disability/fat/etc. solidarity, continuing to learn about and practice anticapitalism, antiracism, and related decolonization practices. 

For motivating inspiration on saying YES, check out Andrea Gibson's spoken word poetry "Say Yes".

---

How might we envision a feminist future in a peacebuilding context? 
I reflected on the above question to expand on the insights gleaned from from my time with UPEACE NY Women. I came across some artwork (pictured below) which visualized an answer for me.

Windows, Jerusalem 2022, was painted by Rawan Anani, a Palestinian artist from Al-Bireh, capital of Raamallah and al-Bireh Governorate of the State of Palestine. Rawan was born in Jerusalem in 1978. This piece symbolizes the land, productivity and resilience from the feminist tradition of collective creation (Palestinian Feminist Collective, 2023). You can see more of her work here. 

https://palestinianfeministcollective.org/calendar/

https://www.instagram.com/rawan_anani_artgallery/

​If you identify as a feminist, and whether or not FREE PALESTINE resonates with you, this is an opportunity to shift the narrative that women are "emotional" and check in with your emotions.

What does observing the painting stir up in you? 
I was struck by the brilliant colors and the insinuated movement of gathering and collecting water that, for me, emulates joy and connection while highlighting heritage, ancestral memory, and collective power of gathering. I noticed my mournful yet hopeful yearning to continue gathering and collaborating with groups who are truly engaging equity, justice, and healing as values and actions. 

Peace is not just the absence of violence. It means equitable access to resources, education, democracy, celebration, joy, and more. Essential to this process is considering asymmetrical power dynamics caused by structural oppressions with disproportionate impacts on people whose gender, skin color, body type, etc. do not fit the dominant status quo. Hence the importance to engage equity-based frameworks and processes that center local context and culture through co-design approaches.

---

I engaged with UPEACE NY as a PhD Candidate and Anu and Naveen Jain Family Foundation Peace & Health Innovation Fellow with the Global Center of Peace Innovation at the University for Peace on Huetar Territory in Costa Rica. To develop the research, I drew from my consulting practice supporting leaders and teams to navigate conflict and culture change processes. Article content originally posted on LinkedIn on 06 November, 2025. ​--> Contact me to learn more.