Recovery from conflict can take many different forms. It might involve physical rebuilding or the restoration of civic infrastructures. It might involve inner healing, a coming to terms with trauma, or a search for forgiveness. It might focus simply on ‘putting things right’ – or it might lead to ‘post-conflict growth’. In this part of our museum we look at different ways in which individuals and communities have tried to recover after conflict. The stories below raise important questions, such as: how do inner healing and wider reconciliation or restoration processes relate to each other, and how does post-conflict recovery relate to peace itself?
Paper Cranes at Downside School
In November 2024, staff and students at Downside School (near Bath in the UK)…
Reimagining Human Nature through the Bonobo
In African Genesis (1961), journalist Robert Ardrey approaches human nature from an evolutionary perspective….
The White Helmets: Beacons of Hope in the Midst of War
In peacebuilding processes, many different actors play a role. One important role in peacebuilding…
Peace at What Cost? The Amnesty Dilemma
Governments frequently use transitional justice mechanisms to restore peace and justice following widespread human…
Architecture for Peace: The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, designed by the Japanese architect Kenzō Tange, lies in…
The Place of Neutrality in Peace Work
‘Family reunification, DR Congo. Trying to locate people, and put them back into contact…
‘I Have a Message for Germany’: Inglourious Basterds, Retributive Justice, and Peace
Inglourious Basterds is the seventh feature film from American writer-director Quentin Tarantino. Released in…
The Hidden Costs of Unification
Kartarpur Corridor
When India and Pakistan were Partitioned in 1947, the state of Punjab, the homeland…
Stopping Bullets With Paper
Trigger warning: violence against children, psychological trauma “The LRA know they don’t have a…
Twenty-Five Years of the Good Friday Agreement and the Challenges of Grassroots Peacebuilding
Versions of Antigone: Sophocles’ Classic Heroine as an Anti-War Symbol
Sophocles’ Antigone Written in around 441 BC, this ancient Greek tragedy has been around…
The ‘Wolfe Tones’: Rebel Songs and the Rhetoric of Peace in Ireland
Peace on the Airwaves
Trigger warning: gendered violence, psychological trauma The aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in…
“Get Your Brits Out”- ‘Kneecap’, Activism and Antagonism in Northern Ireland
‘Morning Light’ and Peace After Radicalisation
Trigger warning: violence against children Situated 130 kilometres from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad,…
As If It Had Seen Something Real: Peace and Possession (1981)
Trigger warnings: blood, body horror, self-harm, suicide ‘When I was a boy, my dog…
(Imperfect) Justice via Gacaca in Rwanda
Gacaca courts, from Flickr Rwanda experienced one of the deadliest conflicts in the second…
Peace in Faith and Practice: Visualising Peace as Relief from Suffering
‘Almost always there is, behind the physical need, something much less concrete, a damaged…
Andromache’s search for post-conflict peace
‘As Neoptolemus had once promised, she married Helenus. The Trojan prince had a knack…
Douglas Gillespie’s ‘Path of Peace’
In 2022, Sir Anthony Seldon published The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front…
Sierra Leone Peace and Cultural Monument
The Sierra Leone Peace and Cultural Monument, part of the Sierra Leone Peace Museum,…
Little Gidding
The dove descending breaks the airWith flame of incandescent terrorOf which the tongues declareThe…
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Od bless ye, lad! I hae ither matters to mind. I hae a’ thae…
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…
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…
‘Of Ordinary Things’: Iraqi Women, Art, War and Peace-building
https://www.iwaw19.com Several items in our museum feature examples of ‘artivism’ – art that works…
How do children visualise ‘Life after Conflict’?
Since 2013, the charity Never Such Innocence (NSI) has been giving children and young people a…
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….
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…
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…
Education: a force for sustainable peace
‘Educating a girl will create equal and stable societies, and educated refugees will be…
‘Lament for Syria’ by Amineh Abou Kerech
‘Oh Syria, my loveI hear your moaning in the cries of the doves’ You…
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Trigger warning: descriptions of gore, body parts, corpses ‘I wanted to hand him over…
Mother Night: Guilt and Recovery
Trigger warning – discussion of the Holocaust “We are what we pretend to be,…
Trauma, Peace, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Du musst Caligari werden. (‘You must become Caligari.’) Fittingly, perhaps, accounts of the production…
‘The Ash that Travelled’ by K. H. Miris
‘The city that was burntWas reborn on another coast’ Despite popular belief that the…
‘Jasmine’ by Nora Nadjarian
“… But the garden was not hers, she was told. Nor was the aroma,which…
Make Me A Channel of Your Peace
Make me a channel of your peaceWhere there is hatred let me bring your…
Unlearning War
These children will need to learn something as basic as how to play normally,…