Making peace with oneself. Finding healing after trauma. Starting a conversation with ‘the enemy’. Asking for forgiveness. Overcoming divisions. Negotiating a ceasefire. Designing a peace treaty. Promoting ‘truth and reconciliation’. Campaigning for social justice. What do you think ‘peace-making’ involves? The items in this ‘room’ encourage us to look at conflict resolution, peace-making and peace-building from lots of different angles. They ask us to consider how inner peace connects to peace-making in the wider world. And they get us thinking about differences between ‘top-down’ peace-making, involving governments and international bodies, and ‘bottom-up’ peace-making, facilitated by ordinary people from the ‘grassroots’. We hope you enjoy exploring!
Paper Cranes at Downside School
In November 2024, staff and students at Downside School (near Bath in the UK)…
Hope across the Wall: The Organisations Assisting Migrants along the US-Mexico Border
Along the southern border of the United States, thousands of migrants wait in camps,…
Reimagining Human Nature through the Bonobo
In African Genesis (1961), journalist Robert Ardrey approaches human nature from an evolutionary perspective….
Peace or Stalemate: the Never-ending Korean War
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 with an invasion by the Soviet-supported…
Peace at Home: Civil Society Organisations in St Andrews
When imagining peacebuilding organisations, our first thought may often be of large, international groups…
The Sound of Peace: The Transformative Influence of Rock Nacional in Argentina
Between 1976 and 1983, Argentina was plunged into a period of darkness and conflict….
Pilgrimage to Peace on the Camino de Santiago
Every year, thousands of people from around the world flock to Portugal, Spain, and…
Peace at What Cost? The Amnesty Dilemma
Governments frequently use transitional justice mechanisms to restore peace and justice following widespread human…
Gastrodiplomacy: food and culture in peace-making
‘We’re using food as an entry point to help people explore cultures that aren’t…
Peace and Transcendence: Mundane Experiences
‘Day-to-day things, the mundane, are what keeps the motor running. How extraordinary the ordinary really…
Waging war against nature – The Lord of the Rings
Treebeard stands in silence, like a lonely, gnarled tree in the midst of a…
Polarisation in Canada: the Difference between Disagreement and Partisanship
Former Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson once said that “the genius of our Canadian…
The Place of Principled Impartiality in Peace Work
EAs help with olive picking near Anabta Checkpoint (Tulkarem)Photo: Sara avMaat, 2010, EAPPI https://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedchurchcda/12839921063/…
Building Trust from the Inside Out: The IFRC’s Comprehensive Building Trust Programme for COVID-19 Response
Trust is essential for NGOs to do effective work serving individuals around the world….
Picturing Peace in the DRC
Award-winning photographer Hugh Kinsella Cunningham has spent the past five years in the Democratic Republic of…
The Hidden Costs of Unification
Peace and Transcendence: Awe-Inspiring Experiences
Have you ever reached the top of a hill; emerged from a tree-lined bend…
Twenty-Five Years of the Good Friday Agreement and the Challenges of Grassroots Peacebuilding
Truth, Justice, and a Hard-Boiled Egg: Peace and Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch
“Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re…
Chintu Ka Birthday
Chintu Ka Birthday (lit. Chintu’s Birthday) is a 2019 Hindi-language film which follows a…
(Un)Natural Altruism?
Trigger warning: references to genocide and ethnic violence As ethnic and political violence erupted…
Place is the Path to Peace
How would you describe the landscape of peace? The landscape of war, propagated by…
Pockets of Peace in St Andrews
As my research on peace has developed further in the direction of taking love…
Peace on the Airwaves
Trigger warning: gendered violence, psychological trauma The aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in…
The Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage to South Sudan
A Christmas service in Darfur, South Sudan. Between the 5th and 7th of July…
‘Morning Light’ and Peace After Radicalisation
Trigger warning: violence against children Situated 130 kilometres from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad,…
(Imperfect) Justice via Gacaca in Rwanda
Gacaca courts, from Flickr Rwanda experienced one of the deadliest conflicts in the second…
Screenplay: No Love Lost
This summer I went with a group of friends to a nightclub in Edinburgh….
Generation Peace: the power of story telling in peacebuilding and the heroes it can produce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5f3Qhzf7U4 This podcast hosts Rob Burnet, founder and CEO of Shujaaz Inc, a multimedia youth platform…
Taking love and care seriously in classrooms
Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to look deeply at our body, feelings,…
Creating Peace in Post-Conflict Society: The use of Intergroup Contact Theory
In 2022, the Visualising Peace team at the University of St Andrews set up…
Screenplay: String Theory
‘If the world were ending, I’d hope that all my friends were in my…
Collapse of the Peace Treaty in 2002 in Sri Lanka: the role of international organisations.
The Sri Lankan Civil War, officially spanning from 1983 to 2009, was fought between…
The Power of Comics in Peace Education
‘Āśā’, by Harris Siderfin and Maddie McCall (2022). You can download read the full…
Addressing Ahmadinejad: Music, Comedy, and Peace
“I know you say there’s no gays in Iran, but you’re in New York…
Cambridge Union Debate: Where Does Northern Ireland Belong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4T2Var1zdY The full debate is available to watch on the Cambridge Union Youtube Channel….
Dad’s Army: Pockets of Peace and Humour?
Still from Dad’s Army (1971), directed by Norman Cohen; timestamp 1.20.00-1.27.52, accessed via BoB…
Fractured Peace: a visual representation
Inspired by our discussions of different methods of visualising peace – and in particular,…
Journey: visualising peace through gaming
Fig. 1 – The Traveller in front of a statue of the past Designed…
Om Shanti – An invocation for peace – ॐ शान्तिः
Sinderen in the Netherlands, 2021 If somebody is a real symbol of non-violence, love,…
Colombia: The long road to peace
‘I’ve come to realise that a peace treaty is only the beginning of a…
The Magnus Archives: When Does Peace Begin?
Trigger warning – cannibalism, suicide, gore ‘As I walked alongside them, I knew that…