Women as Community Peacebuilders in Protracted Refugee Settings: A Mixed-Methods Study from Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda

Abstract

Protracted refugee settlements are often portrayed as spaces of vulnerability, humanitarian dependency, and recurring conflict. However, less attention has been paid to the everyday community processes through which displaced and host populations negotiate coexistence and sustain social relationships. This article examines how refugee and host-community women contribute to community peacebuilding and social cohesion in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda. Using a mixed-methods design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, structured questionnaires, participant observation, and document analysis involving South Sudanese refugees and Ugandan host-community women and men. The findings indicate that participants perceived women as important actors in shaping community dynamics through informal practices, including caregiving and motherhood, information sharing and mediation, psychosocial and spiritual support, participation in community structures, and relationship-building across refugee and host communities. Participants associated these practices with trust-building, social cohesion, and the management of everyday tensions. However, the study does not measure direct peace outcomes or establish causal effects.

Women’s community engagement was also shaped by gendered social norms, unequal access to education and economic resources, and limited recognition within formal humanitarian and peacebuilding structures. The article argues that understanding peacebuilding in protracted refugee settings requires greater attention to the informal institutions and everyday practices through which communities manage tensions and sustain social relationships. It contributes to scholarship on everyday peace and gender-responsive peacebuilding by demonstrating how women’s context-shaped roles and relationships intersect with informal community processes in a protracted refugee-hosting setting. The findings underscore the importance of recognising women’s informal leadership while addressing the structural constraints that limit their participation in formal peacebuilding processes.