PEACE FESTIVAL: Sharing Creative Methodologies for Unearthing Hidden War Stories for Peace

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Wars and conflicts shape societies worldwide. In the last two decades, Latin America's truth and reconciliation projects, and its attempts at transitional justice, have often been used as model for states just entering their own post-conflict scenarios. Latin Americanist scholarship has shown, however, that the voices of marginalized peoples have too often been absent from official 'truths'. Creative methodologies have been adopted in order to integrate the voices of women, indigenous people, young people and rural residents into discussions about the history of wars. In order to foster an inclusive transition, we start from the premise that it is essential to amplify voices from such local initiatives working with marginalized populations (indigenous, women, youth, rural). While existing initiatives have been important they have in most cases remained isolated from one another, impeding the exchange of know-how and knowledge. As a result, their chances of having an impact in the struggles over the narratives of the war in order to achieve reconciliation and peacebuilding, can be limited.This project proposes to tackle these challenges by creating a space for dialogue across methodologies, actors and countries regarding the methodological challenges and possibilities, the alternative narratives that subvert the already established accounts of the war and the strategies for the preservation of these non-official stories.We are an interdisciplinary team: the PI is Professor Matthew Brown, a historian of Latin America based in the School of Modern Languages, and the CI is Dr Karen Tucker a political scientist based in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. The RAs are Goya Wilson, a Peruvian researcher who has recently completed a PhD on memory in the Graduate School of Education at UoB; and Maria-Teresa Pinto, a Colombian researcher who is working on a doctoral thesis - supervised by the CI - on historical memory in the Colombian peace process. Our diverse backgrounds are fused together in this project, which aims to bring to bear the extraordinary moment taking place right now in the Colombian peace process, to compare it with the Peruvian experience, and to share experiences and innovations globally.We will identify outstanding examples of projects in Peru and Colombia that have been able to amplify the voices of marginalized peoples, and to incorporate their stories into historical memory. Projects such as:-Colombia:1) Ruta Pacifica. 2) Hijas e hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (Daughters & sons for Identity & Justice against Oblivion & Silence).. 3) National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE). 4) Association of Indigenous Councils Nasa Çxhãçxha. 5) Peace Village of San José de Apartadó (Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó) Peru:1) Lugar de la Memoria, la Tolerancia y la Inclusión Social (LUM). 2) Movimiento Ciudadano Para Que No Se Repita (PQNSR). 3) Coordinadora Regional de Organizaciones de Victimas de la Violencia Politica en Ayacucho (CORAVIP)4) Coordinadora Contra la Impunidad (CCI). 5) H.I.J.O.S. de Peru (a.k.a. HIJXS). We will bring participants from those projects into dialogue by means of a three-day Peace Festival, to be held in Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia. Participants will present their own project, learn about other complementary projects, and discuss how to overcome the challenges that face their work and the endeavours of projects like them.We will analyse the discussions from the Peace Festival, and disseminate our findings through academic articles, traditional press and broadcast media, and through social media. The lessons learned will help Colombians and Peruvians to identify marginalized voices, and to incorporate their stories into post-conflict societies.