The issues of conflict, conflict resolution and reconciliation have been on the agenda for most of the second half of the twentieth century in general. The rise of the new media has transformed conflicts into global spectacles: images of conflicts from all over the world are brought right into the users' homes, be it on TV or the Internet, in the newspaper or on the radio. Images of conflict seem to be much easier to convey on these channels than images of reconciliation and peace. As we all know: only bad news is news. Recent conflicts in South Africa, Rwanda and East Timor have given rise to a reconciliation toolkit of truth commissions and law enforcement, justice and human rights, forgiveness and amnesty. These mechanisms are supposed to be the means not only to stop conflict and violence, but also to reconcile warring parties and create sustainable peace. Due to the often limited success of these approaches, people and organisations involved in developing conflict solving strategies have started to think about the integration of cultural factors into the reconciliation process. Kevin Avruch argues (1998) that no conflict can be understood and analysed, let alone sustainably solved, without taking its cultural context into account. The conference therefore aims to go beyond seeing reconciliation as a purely political process by exploring its socio-cultural contexts and promoting a more ethnographic reading of the reconciliation processes.
A lot has been said and written about violent conflict in Indonesia, investigating its different dimensions across disciplines. Unfortunately, reconciliation has caught much less attention by academics. Debates on reconciliation in Indonesia and East Timor focus on human rights issues, justice and law enforcement and are heavily influenced by international NGOs and agencies such as the UN. This conference strives to fill major gaps in reconciliation studies by exploring the cultural dimension of reconciliation in general and its specific forms in Indonesia and East Timor.
Scholars from different academic disciplines such as social anthropology, sociology, law, political science, history and others from Indonesia, East Timor and abroad will participate in the conference. Both empirical case studies based on original fieldwork and theoretical reflections will be presented. The conference will cover reconciliation issues that deal with conflicts on different scales, in different contexts, in different regions and in different phases of contemporary Indonesian history and the rather newborn East Timorese nation. The publication of selected papers of the conference will make a unique and new contribution to understanding 'the other' dimension of reconciliation and different cultures of reconciliation.
The conference accommodates ten panels, each one of them exploring other challenging aspects and dimensions of peace and reconciliation processes in various parts of Indonesia or East Timor:
PANEL 1 – Empowering Civil Society
PANEL 2 – The Role of Media in Reconciliation
PANEL 3 – Alternative Voices, Memory and Education
PANEL 4 – IDPs, Land Issues and Reconciliation
PANEL 5 – Religion and Reconciliation
PANEL 6 – Cultural Approaches to Reconciliation
PANEL 7 – Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
PANEL 8 – Local Concepts of Conflict and Reconciliation
PANEL 9 – Public Space, Performance and Peace
PANEL 10 – Gendered Perspectives on Reconciliation
The conference program will be fruitfully complemented by the screening of two films on the first and the second conference day – Sinengker: Sesuatu yang Dirahasiakan (Sinengker: The Unrevealed), a film by M. Aprisiyanto; and Merintis Jalan Pulang (Finding a Way Back Home) – thus also visualising the search for peace and the problems coming along with reconciliation processes.
For the tentative conference program and abstracts please see the links below.
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