Epistemic capture and afterlives of liberal feminist peace: lessons from the Armenian–Azerbaijani context

This article examines how three decades of women-led peacebuilding in the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict were gradually absorbed into liberal feminist peace infrastructures, and how the 2020 Karabakh war exposed the limits of that project. Drawing on decolonial feminist theory, archival and policy analysis, and autoethnographic reflection, it develops the concept of epistemic capture to explain how women’s epistemic labour has been included, managed and depoliticized within liberal and post-liberal architectures of peace. The article traces this process through the non-governmental organization (NGO)-ization of peacebuilding, the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, and the rise of a transnational peacebuilding class embedded in donor-driven governance structures. It argues that the recent triumph of authoritarian peace is not a rupture from liberal peace but its afterlife, sustained through the same logics of epistemic capture. Yet feminist anti-war resistance emerging after the 2020 war demonstrates that capture is never total, and their practices reclaim insurgency from its ruins.