Silvia Danielak, an assistant professor at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, is the author of Peace Infrastructures: How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability (MIT Press, April 2026), the first comprehensive account of infrastructure building in United Nations peace operations. Danielak’s work focuses on sociospatial and infrastructure planning in conflict settings and as part of peace efforts, as well as its coalition with climate and environmental efforts.
What inspired you to write the book?
I wrote Peace Infrastructures because I was struck by how rarely infrastructure shows up in conversations about peace, even though it shapes everyday life in conflict zones in very visible ways. While studying UN peace operations, I kept encountering roads, bases, power systems, and utilities that were treated as technical background rather than as part of how peace is made and maintained. I wanted to understand how peace operations became infrastructure builders, and what their material footprint means for communities living with conflict long after international missions arrive—and leave.
Was there anything that surprised you in your research for it?
What surprised me most was how ambitious peace operations have become as infrastructure actors, even though this role is often underplayed or described as secondary. I was also struck by how much attention goes into building infrastructure, and how much less attention is paid to its afterlife—how it is maintained, repurposed, contested, or abandoned once a mission draws down. But I have also come to appreciate the UN’s willingness to reconsider practices, to innovate and improve.
How do you anticipate people will use this book?
I hope scholars will use the book to rethink how peace, conflict, and intervention are studied, by taking material systems seriously rather than treating them as background. For practitioners and policymakers, I hope it offers a vocabulary and set of questions for thinking more carefully about infrastructure decisions—who they serve, what risks they create, and how their impacts unfold over time. I am grateful to MIT Press for including Peace Infrastructures in its open-access program, making it freely available worldwide, including in places that experience the spatial footprint of peace operations. More broadly, I hope the book encourages readers to think about reconstruction not as a technical task, but as a deeply political part of building a durable peace.
What are you working on now?
I’m continuing to think about conflict risk through material and spatial lenses, particularly in relation to environmental hazards and urbanization. I’m interested in how infrastructure interventions designed to mitigate risk can create conflicts but also offer opportunities for dialogue and social cohesion. My current work explores what responsible infrastructure planning might look like in contexts marked by compounding environmental and conflict risk.