Silent struggles: women education leaders’ agency for peacebuilding in Islamic schools in post-conflict Aceh

ABSTRACT This article engages with an under-researched field that specifically looks into the gendered nature of women education leaders’ agency in the context of Islamic boarding schools in post-tsunami and post-war Aceh province of Indonesia. The key aim of this paper is to understand various ways in which Acehnese women educators’ negotiate and navigate restricted, gendered and religiously orthodox spaces. We analyse the role of grassroots education actors in processes of societal transformation and peacebuilding through a gender-specific lens, to explore our contextual understanding of agency through a cultural political economy approach, complemented with insights from critical and decolonial peace education. By presenting the often silenced and marginalized stories of women leaders, educators and grassroots actors, we explore their views and experiences in – consciously or unconsciously – transforming or reproducing existing (in)equalities and potential conflict-triggers in contemporary Aceh.