Toward place-responsive pedagogies in higher education: insights from post-Conflict Sri Lanka's academic practice

This study examines how faculty in Sri Lankan higher education institutions (HEIs) implement peace education in post-conflict contexts. Despite the integration of peace education into school curricula, its uptake in universities remains underexplored. Framed by Critical Place Inquiry (CPI) and critical peace education, the research investigates how faculty develop place-responsive pedagogies that address histories of violence, spatial inequalities, and institutional constraints. A qualitative multi-sited case study was conducted across three provinces with 13 faculty, drawing on semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Findings highlight diverse practices, including ecological learning, Indigenous knowledge integration, critical media literacy, and experiential approaches to sensitive topics. Faculty adapted pedagogy to contested geographies while negotiating surveillance, ethnonationalism, and curricular silences. The study demonstrates CPI’s value for analysing peace education as a context-embedded practice and underscores the need for decentralised, multilingual, and place-responsive policies. These insights contribute to comparative debates on higher education’s role in reconciliation and justice.