Mending the New: A Framework for Reconciliation Through Testimonial Digital Textiles in the Transition to Post-Conflict Rural Colombia

尽管和解作为公民在日常生活中积极实践的进程在哥伦比亚具有重要意义，但迄今为止，大多数研究对这一进程采用了制度性的、自上而下的方法。协议后阶段需要自下而上地理解和解，这有助于将和解做法确立为一种持久的集体沟通、行动和学习行为，使社区能够就暴力的过去进行谈判，并将自己置于过渡的现在和充满希望的未来。拟议的项目将制定一个框架，以便与那些制作纺织品并受到武装冲突严重影响的社区达成和解。哥伦比亚的纺织工艺是一项广泛的活动，融合了传统的编织和缝纫技术，主要由农村地区的妇女团体组织。纺织工艺不仅仅是记录战争的记忆，它创造了共同反思的空间，并具有治愈、恢复和建设性的潜力，可以协商记忆和和解。该项目将特别阐明纺织工艺的这种新颖维度。2015年，来自Mampuján的Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz团体获得了国家和平奖，他们的一幅记忆挂毯在哥伦比亚国家博物馆展出。许多纺织工艺小组——包括所有将参与这个项目的小组——都是2016年启动的全国“编织者记忆与生活网络”的成员。对纺织工艺的研究提供了独特而非凡的机会，可以在日常实践、冲突现实、治愈的可能性和重建冲突后社会的社会结构的背景下研究和解。然而，纺织工艺通常被认为是一种具有代表性的活动，产生“集体记忆的视觉隐喻”。拟议的项目将采用一种原创的方法，而不是将纺织品视为产品，将纺织品工艺视为在战争背景下共同实现的制作过程。该项目将采用一种开创性的方法设计，通过纺织品工艺实践来阐明和解：(1)包括对工艺过程进行为期10个月的密集民族志研究(2)一系列公众参与活动，传播研究结果，促进和解和冲突后和解(3)开发一套原创技术，将数字组件添加到手工制作的纺织品中，并具有数字化的能力记录和复制和解故事。具体而言，该项目将设计一种组合材料-数字对象，一种证明数字纺织品，作为在冲突与和解的背景下进行研究的新方法，可以为艺术，人文和社会科学的研究实践开辟新的途径。项目的最终成果将是：-通过社区建设和社区工艺实现和解叙事和实践的框架-作为记忆和和解实践的纺织工艺的独特文档-设计一种新颖的技术对象，一种证明性的数字纺织品，记录武装冲突的故事和经历——实施一种创新的方法研究设计，用于调查纺织品工艺——创造空间，促进哥伦比亚不同社区之间以及哥伦比亚与英国之间的跨地方对话和交流——设计一个开放的、可公开访问的数字档案，记录战争与和解的口述历史——一系列学术会议；出版物和可公开获取的报告——项目成果的大型公开展览和展示

Despite the importance of reconciliation in Colombia as a process that is actively practised by citizens in their everyday lives, most research so far has deployed an institutional, top-down approach to this process. The need for a bottom-up understanding of reconciliation in the post-agreement phase can help establish practices of reconciliation as long lasting and collective acts of communication, of doing and learning, which allow communities to negotiate the violent past, and situate themselves in the transitional present and a hopeful future.The proposed project will develop a framework for reconciliation with communities which have been crafting textiles and have been severely affected by the armed conflict. Textile crafting in Colombia is a widespread activity that incorporates traditional techniques of knitting and sewing and is organised primarily by groups of women within rural areas. Rather than just documenting memories of war, textile crafting generates spaces of common reflection and has a healing, restorative and constructive potential that negotiates memory and reconciliation. It is specifically this novel dimension of textile crafting that this project will illuminate. In 2015 the group Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz from Mampuján won the National Peace Prize and has one of their memory tapestries displayed in the National Museum of Colombia. Many textile crafting groups--including all groups that will participate in this project--are members of the national "Network of Knitters for Memory and Life" launched in 2016.Research on textile crafting offers the unique and exceptional opportunity to investigate reconciliation in a context that brings together everyday practice, the realities of the conflict, the possibility of healing and the rebuilding of the social fabric towards a post-conflict society. However, textile crafting is often considered as a representational activity producing "visual metaphors of collective memory". Rather than conceiving textile pieces as products, the proposed project will implement an original approach, seeing textile crafting as a making process which is collectively realised within the context of war. The project will deploy a ground-breaking methodological design in order to elucidate reconciliation through the practice of textile crafting that (1) includes an intensive ten-month-long ethnographic study of the processes of crafting (2) a series of public participation events for disseminating the findings and promoting reconciliation and post-conflict (3) the development of a set of original technologies that add digital components to the handcrafted textiles with the ability to digitally record and reproduce reconciliation stories. Specifically, the project will design a compositional material-digital object, a testimonial digital textile, as a novel method for conducting research in the context of conflict and reconciliation that can open fresh avenues for research practice within the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The final outcomes of the project will be: -a framework for reconciliation narratives and practices that are achieved through community building and community crafting-a unique documentation of textile crafting as a practice of memory and reconciliation -the design of a novel technological object, a testimonial digital textile, that records stories and experiences of the armed conflict -the implementation of an innovative methodological research design for investigating textile crafting-the creation of spaces that foster trans-local dialogues and exchange between different communities in Colombia, and between Colombia and the UK -the design of an open publicly accessible digital archive of testimonial textiles that capture oral histories of the war and of reconciliation-a series of academic conferences, publications and publicly accessible reports-a major public exhibition and presentation of the project's results