About Irene

Irene works for peace by peaceful means through trainings, teaching, research, networking, book publishing and our Writers’ Residence. We believe that people can create a better world without violence, but that this requires knowledge, skills and analysis.

Our publications cover the areas of nonviolent action, peace, resistance, social change and related issues. We also organise our Writers’ Residence as a service to everyone who is writing about topics related to nonviolent resistance, peace, conflict analysis, civil disobedience, political activism etc. You don’t need to publish your writing with us in order to visit.

We develop trainings for grassroots organisations because preparing resistance to oppression and injustice with nonviolent means is crucial for changing the world. In addition we teach in educational institutions – ranging from secondary schools to universities – about how to understand nonviolent revolutions, conflict resolution, media, peace, war and many other subjects. We offer everything from a short public speech and one day training to longer courses.

As part of our research, Irene gathers information and develops theory about nonviolent resistance and social change alone or together with other activists and academics. We are active in a number of networks and participate in the public debate.

Irene is run by Jørgen Johansen and Majken Jul Sørensen, both of us academics and nonviolent activists. We are based in Scandinavia in a small village called Nössemark, a few hours from both Gothenburg and Oslo. Most of our work is done in Europe, but we travel all over the world. We write and speak in Swedish, Norwegian,Danish and English.

We work for many different types of organisations, such as non-governmental organisations, municipalities, schools and universities.