Lechuza "The Research of Peace"

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Coordinator :

Béatrice Pouligny
Research Fellow, CERI (Sciences-Po)

"Re-imagining Peace after Massacres"seeks to develop a model for how best to intervene to help re-establish functioning societies and prevent the resurgence of failed states in locales that have experienced horrific acts of widespread killings and related atrocities such as mutilation, rapes, destruction of villages and mass deportations. Interventions in the aftermath of such violence have tended to focus on war crimes trials today, elections tomorrow, and selective interventions premised on Western health infrastructure- and institution-building models later. These conventional practices have given little consideration to the radical transformations in belief systems and codes of conduct that individuals and communities in these societies experience. Such a focus is crucial because the central belief systems of individuals, families, and communities, tattered or re-arranged, misused or forgotten, set the template for a host of reconstruction issues: identity boundaries and inter-communication, justice and 'reconciliation' issues, the redistribution of property, land and wealth, the writing of history, the rebuilding of trust, and the capacity to build a new political system. We are working cross-culturally and in multiple disciplines to identify those elements of violence that lead to personal and social change, and how these changes destroy or bend cultural categories and shared meanings.(more information)