ABSTRACT
Resumen La presente investigación tuvo como fin comprender las narrativas colectivas y memorias sobre paz y conflicto armado presentes en las familias que han vivido el desplazamiento forzado, y en sus hijos e hijas de la primera infancia. Particularmente, el artículo se focaliza en los relatos de las madres y abuelas de estas niñas y estos niños alrededor del conflicto armado, sus tránsitos y la resignificación presente, abriendo futuros posibles de paz. Este artículo presenta los resultados del trabajo de campo realizado en los Centros de Desarrollo Infantil localizados en Manizales (Caldas) y Villa Rica (Cauca) de Colombia. El estudio se desarrolló a través de talleres que propiciaron la emergencia de narrativas colectivas como base para la comprensión de las memorias y la transformación orientada a la paz. Mediante el análisis categorial de narrativas se concluyó que las familias han sufrido los efectos por el conflicto armado, como el desplazamiento forzado, la muerte de familiares, el miedo ante la propia muerte o la de otros cercanos, junto con la pérdida de sus territorios y de prácticas sociales y culturales asociadas a la ruralidad. Sin embargo, los tránsitos del territorio de origen al territorio de acogida también han favorecido aprendizajes y el surgimiento de prácticas de solidaridad, que les han permitido construir nuevos sentidos de sus historias para promover prácticas orientadas a la construcción de paz y a la apertura a posibilidades futuras. Las familias han encontrado en las relaciones, en la resignificación de los territorios y en el contacto con la naturaleza, modos de resistir a las violencias y de aportar a la construcción de la paz.
Abstract The present research aimed to comprehend the collective narratives and memories about peace-building and armed conflict present within families who have lived forced displacement, as well as those of their children in early childhood. The article focus is on life stories of the children's mothers and grandmothers, about armed conflict, its transits, and the new meanings of the experiences lived, opening possibilities for alternative futures of peace. The study took place through fieldwork, which used workshops to collect collective narratives in order to comprehend memories and transform practices towards peace-building. The results and conclusions came after categorical narrative analysis. We concluded that families have suffer negative effects due to armed conflict, such as forced displacement, lost of family members, fear to lose own's life or the one of other family members, as well as the lost of territories and of social and cultural practices associated to rurality. The transit from the origin territory to the host territory have also prompt learnings and solidarity practices. This has allowed families the co-creation of new meanings in the present to promote peace-building practices and the emergence of future possibilities. Families have found, in their meaningful relations, in the new meanings given to the territories, and in the contact with the environment, ways to resist to violence and to contribute to peace-building processes.
ABSTRACT
The current article attempts to broaden the individual-based concept of sense of coherence to the community level. We examine sense of community coherence and its connection with perceptions of collective narratives and acculturation tendencies in the social context of Palestinian Muslims and Christians living in Israel. Questionnaires that were developed and adapted for the unique population in this study were distributed to a representative sample of 1034 Muslims (455 males) and 720 Christians (354 males), all Israeli citizens aged 18 and up. As expected, sense of community coherence was negatively related to the level of acceptance of the out-group collective narratives and positively related to the level of acceptance of the in-group collective narratives. In the same vein, it was also positively related to the tendency for separation and negatively related to the tendency for integration and assimilation. The discussion focuses on the contribution of the research findings to the deepening of our understanding of the concepts of sense of coherence and sense of community coherence.
Subject(s)
Group Processes , Religion and Psychology , Sense of Coherence , Adolescent , Adult , Female , Humans , Israel/ethnology , Male , Middle Aged , Young AdultABSTRACT
Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.
