TY - JOUR
T1 - Present-oriented reconciliation and reparative futures in the making: the case of Rodeemos el Dialogo in Colombia
AU - Gomez-Suarez, Andrei
N1 - Funding Information:
I am grateful to the members of Embrace Dialogue, who over ten years have helped me seeing the world through different lenses, and to Professor Simon Keyes (Winchester) for our stimulating discussions on reconciliation. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments, they were extremely useful. I owe special thanks to Gwen Burnyeat, my companion in life and thought, whose feedback improved this article no end. The mistakes remain my own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/10/26
Y1 - 2023/10/26
N2 - Today, policymakers and practitioners are encouraged to see reconciliation as a future- oriented process. While liberal peace paradigms conceive of reconciliation as something that lies ahead of us, achievable and measurable in linear processes, I contest teleological notions of reconciliation by drawing on evolutionary theory and neuroscience. I contend that reconciliation is a present- oriented process that cannot be produced through long-term planning and measured in log- frames, but instead requires unleashing the human brain’s capacity for wonder and awe. Over the last ten years, Anglo-Colombian peacebuilding organisation Rodeemos el Diálogo has organised peace breakfasts, non-workshops, and memory initiatives, I argue that this is a form of present-oriented reconciliation, which keeps the imagination focused on reparative futures, and is nurtured by efforts that reframe the past. New identities emerge through imperfect collective processes committed to ending the recycling of violence and mending relations in the present. Present-oriented reconciliation cannot be measured or controlled; it can only be lived and experienced by being fully present in the unfolding of the universe, as the Tao Te Ching suggested almost three thousand years ago.
AB - Today, policymakers and practitioners are encouraged to see reconciliation as a future- oriented process. While liberal peace paradigms conceive of reconciliation as something that lies ahead of us, achievable and measurable in linear processes, I contest teleological notions of reconciliation by drawing on evolutionary theory and neuroscience. I contend that reconciliation is a present- oriented process that cannot be produced through long-term planning and measured in log- frames, but instead requires unleashing the human brain’s capacity for wonder and awe. Over the last ten years, Anglo-Colombian peacebuilding organisation Rodeemos el Diálogo has organised peace breakfasts, non-workshops, and memory initiatives, I argue that this is a form of present-oriented reconciliation, which keeps the imagination focused on reparative futures, and is nurtured by efforts that reframe the past. New identities emerge through imperfect collective processes committed to ending the recycling of violence and mending relations in the present. Present-oriented reconciliation cannot be measured or controlled; it can only be lived and experienced by being fully present in the unfolding of the universe, as the Tao Te Ching suggested almost three thousand years ago.
KW - Colombia
KW - Reconciliation
KW - Dialogue
KW - Peacebuilding
KW - Memory
KW - Historical memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85174918683&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/a962e841-1cde-3c07-9730-11a4d6147b2c/
U2 - 10.1016/j.futures.2023.103273
DO - 10.1016/j.futures.2023.103273
M3 - Article
VL - 154
JO - Futures
JF - Futures
SN - 0016-3287
M1 - 103273
ER -