This study was conducted in Shelleng and Yola South Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, both significantly affected by recurrent farmer–herder conflict. Agriculture and livestock rearing are the primary livelihoods in these regions, where Fulani pastoralists and sedentary farming communities depend on shared land and water resources. Climatic variability, the shrinking of grazing reserves, and population growth have intensified competition over natural resources, resulting in periodic clashes that disrupt social and economic stability.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), in collaboration with local partners, has been active in these LGAs through its Stabilization and Reconciliation (STaR) and Social Cohesion programs, which integrate livelihood recovery, mediation, and community dialogue to rebuild trust among conflict-affected groups. Pastoralists who participated in this study reside in communities where these peacebuilding initiatives are implemented, including dialogue platforms, community peace committees, and capacity-building activities designed to foster trust, communication, and collaborative problem-solving among community members. The study area therefore provides a meaningful context for examining how herders interpret and experience peacebuilding interventions aimed at restoring coexistence in mixed farming-pastoral systems. Further details on the key components of the CRS Stabilization and Reconciliation (STaR) programme are provided in Supplementary Material S1.

This study employed a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological design to explore the lived experiences of pastoralist herders participating in community peacebuilding contexts. Phenomenology focuses on understanding how individuals interpret and assign meaning to their lived experiences (van Manen, 1990), making it particularly appropriate for examining how herders perceive and navigate peacebuilding processes within their socio-cultural and livelihood environments. Following the hermeneutic tradition (c), interpretation was understood as a reflexive and co-constructed process between researcher and participants, shaped through dialogue, context, and reflective analysis.

This approach aligns with the study’s central aim: to explore not merely what peacebuilding interventions entail in pastoral settings, but how they are experienced, interpreted, and given meaning by pastoralists living within conflict-affected environments.

Two analytical frameworks informed the interpretation of participants’ narratives. The Human Security Framework (UNDP, 1994), further elaborated in subsequent scholarship (Tadjbakhsh and Chenoy, 2007), emphasizes the protection of individuals from fear, want, and indignity, highlighting dimensions such as livelihood security, community security, and dignity. In parallel, CRS’s Social Cohesion Framework emphasizes trust-building, intergroup cooperation, and collective resilience as pathways to peaceful coexistence.

These frameworks were used as interpretive lenses to help contextualize how participants described experiences of inclusion, safety, and intergroup relations within their communities. They did not serve as causal explanatory models but rather as conceptual tools for understanding how pastoralists themselves interpret social cohesion and security in everyday life.

A purposive sampling strategy was used to identify participants who self-identified as herders and resided in communities where CRS-facilitated peacebuilding initiatives had been implemented. Community leaders and CRS field staff assisted in identifying individuals familiar with local conflict dynamics and community dialogue processes. Participants were drawn from pastoral communities with varying levels of exposure to CRS peacebuilding initiatives, ranging from direct participation in dialogue meetings and community activities to indirect awareness of programme efforts through broader community engagement. This variation reflects the uneven geographic reach of interventions across pastoral settlements and provides insight into how peacebuilding initiatives are interpreted differently within pastoral communities. Participation in the study was voluntary, and participants were informed of the purpose of the discussions before contributing their perspectives.

The study conducted nine focus group discussions (FGDs), each comprising 6-8 participants, across the two LGAs, yielding a total of approximately 60 participants. FGDs allowed participants to share experiences collectively, revealing relational dynamics around trust, cooperation, and perceptions of inclusion.

Data were collected through semi-structured FGDs conducted in Hausa or English, depending on participant preference. Discussions were held in neutral, community-based locations considered safe and accessible. Each session lasted 60–90 min and was audio-recorded with informed consent. Field notes were taken to capture group dynamics, tone, and environmental context.

Facilitators were trained in conflict sensitivity and cultural competence to ensure an atmosphere of respect and trust. Questions focused on herders’ experiences of peacebuilding, perceptions of safety, and evolving intergroup relations.

Data were analyzed following interpretive phenomenological procedures. Transcripts were read repeatedly and coded line-by-line. A codebook was developed iteratively, combining inductive codes emerging from participants’ narratives with sensitizing concepts derived from the Human Security and Social Cohesion frameworks (e.g., trust, belonging, recognition, agency, exclusion).

A second cycle of pattern coding grouped related codes into broader themes capturing shared meanings. Throughout the process, the researcher maintained reflexive memos and analytic notes to document interpretive decisions and enhance transparency. This phenomenological analysis made it possible to understand peacebuilding as an experienced, negotiated, and relational process.

The study followed Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) criteria for ensuring trustworthiness:

Credibility through triangulation across sites and member checking of emerging themes;

The researcher engaged in continuous reflexivity regarding positional dynamics, language use, and interpretation when working across cultural and occupational boundaries with mobile pastoralist groups.

Ethical approval was obtained from [Institutional Review Board name, protocol number], and permission to engage participants was granted by local authorities and CRS program leads. Informed consent (written and verbal) was obtained from all participants. Participation was voluntary, with the right to withdraw at any point. All personal identifiers were removed from transcripts, and digital files were stored securely on encrypted drives to protect confidentiality.

Across all sites, herders interpreted peace not as a technical achievement but as a relational process, a reweaving of everyday life through apology, restraint, and shared livelihoods. Their language of peace is grounded in tangible interactions, livestock, greetings, markets, and forgiveness. These narratives reveal how pastoralists interpret peace through the ordinary practices of pastoral life, where coexistence is continually enacted and reaffirmed through daily encounters.

Herders do not passively receive peace; they practice it, negotiate it, and embody it. Through their lived experiences, peace becomes inseparable from the rhythms of pastoral life. The findings thus highlight that pastoral inclusion is central, not peripheral, to achieving sustainable coexistence in agrarian frontiers of conflict.

Through participants’ narratives, herders perceive themselves not as passive recipients of peacebuilding but as custodians of everyday peace. Social cohesion, in their view, is practiced through restraint, dialogue, caregiving, and apology. Leadership is expressed not through formal authority but through everyday moral example within pastoral communities. These accounts reveal how participants interpret their role as sustaining coexistence through patience, mentorship, and relational responsibility. Their moral agency challenges prevailing deficit narratives about pastoralist groups, demonstrating that peace is not delivered to them but continually nurtured through daily practices of coexistence.

Herders interpret inclusion not as a procedural checkbox but as a lived transformation in how they are perceived, heard, and valued within their communities. Participants’ narratives reveal that inclusion becomes meaningful when pastoralists experience recognition, participation, and emotional safety in everyday interactions. When they are acknowledged and integrated into community life, peace becomes tangible; when they remain excluded, it reinforces longstanding experiences of marginalization and distrust.

For herders, inclusion signifies affirmation, the restoration of dignity, visibility, and moral standing within shared social spaces. Their experiences suggest that peacebuilding achieves authenticity only when pastoralists are not merely invited to participate but are recognized as co-authors of community life, shaping decisions, relationships, and shared futures.

Herders in this study described peace as a deeply relational and experiential condition, grounded in apology, trust, and mutual recognition rather than institutional or legal markers of stability. Their reflections, such as “we now call each other brothers,” illustrate what Lederach (1997) terms the moral imagination of peace, where transformation begins through empathy and relationship-building. This aligns with Mac Ginty’s (2014) concept of everyday peace, emphasizing the informal interactions and subtle gestures that sustain coexistence amid fragility.

In the context of farmer–herder conflict, such relational rebuilding is critical. Decades of mistrust and retaliatory cycles have fragmented communities (Okoli and Atelhe, 2014). The herders’ emphasis on everyday reconciliation shows that peace cannot be reduced to ceasefires or policy frameworks; it must be felt, practiced, and performed through shared routines. As Chan et al. (2006) argue, social cohesion rests as much on emotional proximity and mutual obligation as on institutional capacity. These everyday acts of reconciliation illustrate how trust and mutual recognition are gradually rebuilt through routine interaction. From a social cohesion perspective, such practices reflect the rebuilding of horizontal relationships between groups and the strengthening of shared norms that enable communities to manage conflict collectively.

A major contribution of this study is the reframing of herders from conflict actors to moral agents and informal peacebuilders. Their daily acts of restraint, patience, and mentorship, such as “walking away from insult” or “teaching youth to be calm,” reflect a moral economy of coexistence. These findings affirm Mac Ginty’s (2021) argument that everyday peace emerges from below, often enacted by marginalized actors through micro-gestures of negotiation.

This challenges dominant securitized narratives that cast herders primarily as perpetrators or victims of violence (Benjaminsen et al., 2009). Instead, they appear as custodians of moral order and community wellbeing. Through their own agency, herders shape the texture of coexistence, offering a form of vernacular peacebuilding that complements, rather than opposes, formal interventions. This insight has significant implications for policy: it suggests that pastoral communities should not merely be targeted as beneficiaries of peacebuilding, but recognized as partners and co-producers of it.

Herders interpreted inclusion not as formal participation but as recognition and emotional safety, being greeted, consulted, and heard. This mirrors feminist and decolonial critiques of participation (Cornwall, 2008), which stress that inclusion must be experienced as dignity, not documentation. Their statements, “They now see us as part of the community,” reflect the affective dimension of belonging that underpins durable peace.

At the same time, the study revealed spatial and institutional inequalities in access to peacebuilding initiatives. Communities such as Wuro-Yanka were excluded entirely, revealing how geography and mobility intersect to shape marginalization. This mirrors Richards’ (2005) critique of uneven NGO reach, where logistical or administrative limitations create “zones of invisibility.” As Krätli and Toulmin (2020) note, most peacebuilding models assume sedentary populations, rendering pastoral mobility an obstacle rather than an adaptive livelihood strategy. Such bias perpetuates both physical and epistemic exclusion, herders are left unseen and unheard in policy frameworks designed for fixed settlements. Recognizing mobility as a productive, not disruptive, social reality is essential for inclusive peacebuilding.

For herders, peace was inseparable from their livelihood systems and mobility practices. Shared grazing, freedom of movement, and secure access to markets and water points were all cited as evidence of peace. This confirms findings by Benjaminsen et al. (2012) that livelihood security and social stability are mutually reinforcing.

Peace, therefore, is not an abstract condition but a lived and negotiated process, continuously enacted through mobility, cooperation, and ecological stewardship. Viewed through the Human Security Framework, these experiences highlight how community security and livelihood security are deeply intertwined in pastoral contexts, where access to grazing land, water, and markets directly shapes perceptions of safety and stability. In this sense, the CRS peacebuilding interventions were not simply reducing violence, they were rebuilding the moral and material foundations of pastoral life.

This study contributes to the emerging scholarship on phenomenological peacebuilding, which emphasizes subjectivity, affect, and meaning in post-conflict recovery (Millar, 2016). By examining pastoralists’ lived experiences through the Human Security and social cohesion frameworks, the findings demonstrate how peacebuilding processes are interpreted at the intersection of livelihood security, social recognition, and relational trust. By centering herders’ narratives, the study demonstrates that peace must be understood through lived experience, how people interpret recognition, belonging, and dignity within their everyday environments.

It also expands inclusion theory by showing that participation extends beyond gender or ethnicity to include occupational and mobility-based identities. Herders’ sense of belonging was shaped not by formal roles but by how their livelihoods and knowledge were respected within community processes. This insight invites a reorientation of agricultural and peacebuilding policy toward recognizing pastoralists as legitimate social actors whose ecological and moral labor contributes directly to stability.

Ultimately, the herders’ voices in this study reaffirm that peacebuilding becomes meaningful only when it touches identity, alters relationships, and restores belonging. Sustainable peace in pastoral regions therefore requires approaches that recognize pastoralists not only as stakeholders in conflict management but as central actors in the production of social cohesion and human security within rural landscapes.

Translating these insights into policy requires designing inclusive, mobility-sensitive peacebuilding frameworks. Programs should:

Integrate pastoral associations and women’s cooperatives into community dialogue and local governance.

By institutionalizing pastoral participation, peacebuilding can evolve from a temporary project to a durable system of coexistence rooted in justice, equity, and shared livelihoods.

This study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, participants represented pastoral communities with varying levels of engagement with CRS peacebuilding initiatives. While some participants had direct involvement in dialogue platforms, livelihood activities, or community peace processes, others described more indirect exposure or limited awareness of programme activities. In this study, participants’ narratives were analysed collectively rather than as analytically distinct groups based on their level of engagement with specific interventions. While this approach aligns with the hermeneutic phenomenological aim of exploring shared meanings and lived experiences, it limits the ability to examine how differing levels of programme exposure may shape participants’ interpretations of peacebuilding processes. As a result, the analysis cannot determine how varying degrees of programme exposure may have shaped participants’ interpretations of peacebuilding processes. The findings should therefore be understood as reflecting shared experiential narratives of peace and coexistence within the broader community context rather than evidence of differential programme effects.

Second, although the study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, the use of focus group discussions may have limited the depth of individual experiential narratives that are typically associated with phenomenological inquiry. Group dynamics can shape how experiences are expressed, and the interpretations presented here reflect the researcher’s analytical engagement with shared accounts rather than exhaustive exploration of individual lifeworlds. These limitations highlight the value of future research using longitudinal or in-depth individual interviews to further explore pastoralist experiences of peacebuilding.

This discussion underscores that peace among Nigeria’s pastoralist communities is not simply the outcome of external intervention but the reconstruction of moral, social, and ecological relationships. Herders in Adamawa State described peace as something lived and negotiated daily through care, reciprocity, and mutual respect. Their narratives suggest that peacebuilding in agrarian conflict zones must begin with the communities who already practice these forms of coexistence in their everyday lives.

Drawing on a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this study explored how herders interpret peace, inclusion, and their evolving social roles within conflict-affected rural environments. Participants described peace not through institutional frameworks or project indicators, but through relational transformation, emotional safety, and the restoration of dignity within community life. Inclusion, in their accounts, was experienced through recognition, dialogue, and participation in shared livelihoods rather than through formal representation in governance structures.

At the same time, the findings revealed uneven access to peacebuilding interventions. While many herders reported increased trust and cooperation with neighboring farming communities, others, particularly those in geographically peripheral or mobile settlements, remained excluded from intervention activities. These patterns highlight how spatial marginalization and pastoral mobility continue to shape access to peacebuilding opportunities.

These insights carry important implications for peacebuilding policy and practice. First, interventions should move beyond technical outputs and engage with the relational and experiential dimensions of peace, supporting everyday practices of dialogue, cooperation, and mutual care that already exist within pastoral communities. Second, inclusion frameworks should extend beyond gender or ethnic representation to recognize occupational and mobility-based identities, particularly those of transhumant pastoralists. Third, peacebuilding programs must address the structural biases that often privilege sedentary populations by adopting mobility-responsive approaches such as decentralized dialogue platforms, community-based mediators, and outreach mechanisms that reach pastoral settlements along transhumance routes.

More broadly, this study contributes to emerging scholarship on phenomenological approaches to peacebuilding by demonstrating how lived experience and meaning-making shape how communities interpret inclusion, belonging, and security in post-conflict settings. By centering pastoralist voices, the findings challenge dominant narratives that portray herders primarily as drivers of insecurity and instead highlight their role as active agents in rebuilding social cohesion.

Future research could further examine pastoral peacebuilding dynamics through longitudinal and comparative studies across pastoral regions, particularly exploring how mobility, generational change, and shifting ecological pressures influence experiences of inclusion and coexistence. Recognizing and amplifying the everyday practices through which pastoral communities cultivate dialogue, restraint, and cooperation offers an important pathway toward more inclusive and sustainable peacebuilding in agrarian frontiers of conflict.