Engagements with difference in peacebuilding are characterized by interrelated patterns of identitiarian and de-essentializing thought that tend to crystalize or minimize difference. In response, this article theorizes difference as simultaneously relational and essential, and thus as a phenomenon that continually re-forms in the world and is crucial to life itself. A relational-essential approach is sketched by drawing upon ideas from conflict resolution and feminism, and illustrated through a micro-case of peacebuilding intervention in Aboriginal Australia. This way of theorizing difference promises pathways beyond European-derived forms of thinking and into exchange with the world and diverse peoples.