In January 2020, the DisTerrMem project published four literature reviews, surveying existing knowledge and research on the respective roles of nation states, regional organisations, civil society groups and cultural practitioners in managing memories of disputed territories. Here, the University of Bath’s Shauna Robertson introduces and summarises work by Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz, Umber bin Ibad and Joanna Wawrzyniak exploring the role of cultural practitioners.

Part 2 of 2: Memory and cultural heritage - from reconciliation and peace building to pilgrimage and tourism

In part 1 of the review David Clarke explores the relationship between memory, territoriality and cultural practice and highlights the importance of considering how history, geography and culture intersect in the management of memories in post-conflict societies.
In part 2, Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz, Umber bin Ibad and Joanna Wawrzyniak make connections between research on memory and cultural heritage with that on peacebuilding and reconciliation. Through various examples, they explore the role of art-based educational programmes and socially engaged cultural practices, particularly at community level, in addressing the trauma of conflict and in providing alternative narratives about the past as well as the future.

How might artistic and cultural interventions be best used in the management of memories of disputed territories?

Artistic and cultural practices offer the potential to help bring attention to forgotten pasts and injustices in ways that can contribute to overcoming trauma, challenging dominant regimes of memory, and helping communities to revisit historical social relations and imagine new possibilities. However, art and culture equally have the potential to be used, and indeed have been used, to maintain and exacerbate conflicts and divisions. So what can we learn from both theory and practice to date?

Here, we survey three strands of literature in order to explore approaches that might help overcome historical antagonism in disputed territories, and instead foster mutual understanding:

Literature on reconciliation and peace building.
Literature on heritage and reconciliation.
Literature on diasporas, pilgrimages and tourism.

Art and culture in reconciliation and peace building

Despite the known links between culture, identity and conflict, artistic and cultural interventions have traditionally been viewed as a ‘soft’ area of peacebuilding, and reconciliation efforts have been underutilized in these fields. However, since the 1990s, there has been a greater awareness of the importance of culture in conflict and research on the role of culture in conflict resolution and post-conflict recovery is growing. Most is being published in the form of reports and analyses prepared under programs run by international organizations (such as the UN, EU and Council of Europe), and by research institutes and NGOs. They focus on specific case studies from around the world and provide concrete recommendations for practitioners and researchers in various fields.

This emerging interest in the role of culture is directly connected to new understandings of a specific type of conflict: identity-based, ethno-political conflict, as distinct from conflicts based on competition for resources or other tangible interests. Where identity-based, ethno-political conflict is a feature, then cultural practices are seen as key to reconciliation. Here, ‘reconciliation’ must go beyond political efforts to halt hostile action and resolve differences, and extend into processes in which understanding and tolerance lead to a renewed readiness among communities to live together in a framework that acknowledges contrasting perspectives, experiences and memories of the past.

There are many models of how people heal and forgive, and of how to facilitate these processes. Peace processes that are driven by the international community often focus on resolving violent conflict through the implementation of new political structures, decommissioning of weapons, reforming justice systems and building consensus in order to move towards a ‘shared’ or ‘agreed’ future. This focus on consensus building as a way to foster reconciliation between communities is critiqued by some for overlooking, or suppressing, major clashes between groups. As a result, antagonisms are often played out through cultural expressions such as commemorations, flags, symbols and rituals. Reconciliation, therefore, is not necessarily about establishing a common past and building consensus, but providing a platform for a different future - one which allows space for multiple, and contrasting, perspectives.

Art is being seen as an increasingly important way to explore and express issues around war and conflict. We can make a distinction between individual works by artists and cultural activities involving art; in the latter case, artistic programmes actively engage and involve the affected communities. While both approaches clearly have something to offer in the process of reconciliation, they operate on different levels. Cultural activities that directly engage the wider community in artistic and performance endeavours go deeper and can be a vital part of long-lasting transformation within that community. Of special importance in promoting reconciliation are ‘people to people’ activities that bring together ‘ordinary society members’ from both sides to meet and/or work together on various projects that aim at solidifying reconciliation.

Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash

There is also a growing field of research on narrative versus affective and embodied approaches to dealing with trauma, which is of direct interest here. In the process of reconciliation, a successful outcome requires a radical outlook on the past from multiple perspectives. From this position, reconciliation implies that both parties not just get to know, but truly acknowledge what happened, including recognizing that there are different narratives of the conflict.

However, people in post-conflict trauma seldom use language to analyze conflict; instead, they use various metaphors and images to make sense of their violent experiences. The use of ritual, drama, writing, painting, movement and storytelling in trauma recovery enables survivors to engage with their experiences while creating enough distance from the traumatic event to prevent retraumatization, thus enabling healing to begin. This, in turn, helps to restore people’s capacity to participate in reconciliation processes.

Exploring heritage and reconciliation

The review also looks specifically at cultural practices in relation to heritage sites, including the subject of contested heritage where sites, buildings, monuments and places can bring people face to face with parts of their history that are painful or shameful by current standards. Historic statues and sites can be revered by some, while becoming symbols of injustice and a source of consternation for others. Researchers working from a peace education perspective bring to the discussion the concept of ‘sites of conscience’: places of memory that could offer far more life-affirming lessons about transcending destructive conflicts than official war memorial sites and museums tend to.

Heritage of Cebu Monument, Mandaue City, Cebu, Philippines by Bei Ayson on Unsplash

The field of heritage studies has, in addition to its expertise in preservation and conversation, developed a growing interest in the role of cultural heritage in post-conflict societies. However, the existing literature on the subject does not yet offer a clear picture of what types of heritage management might be decisive in peace building and reconciliation. Although recent policy documents by international heritage experts recommend forms of heritage management that give space for expressing diverse memories, in reality this goal is often only superficially addressed. In the museum sector for example, in current practice some museums are effective ‘sites of persuasion’ contributing to cosmopolitan human rights discourse, others are open for dialogue, and many remain sites of national self-centrism.

A useful typology of diverse cultural heritage practices has been proposed by Andersen, Knudsen and Kølvraa (2019) who identified four main modalities: repression, removal, reframing and re-emergence. Repression typically involves the rejection of heritage but at the same time also its ‘lingering existence’. Removal means active elimination of the unwanted heritage. Reframing changes the meaning of what is being presented, depoliticizing and commodifying heritage. Re-emergence sees “a lost opportunity from the past that returns to offer itself for creating alternative futures”.

Discussions around the various meanings of responsible curating argue that ‘difficult knowledge’ should not be pushed towards linear narratives of recovery and truth. The goal is rather to set in motion ongoing conversations that give spaces for uncertainties, understanding and empathy.

On diasporas, pilgrimages and tourism

Religion is also interesting to consider as an important framework for memory activism, as it can play a significant role in shaping both cultural memories and a sense of territorial belonging. Literature on diasporas and pilgrimages to sacred sites gives various insights on these issues.

Diaspora and its relation to territory is driven by several opposing ideas, from diaspora culture as a ‘third space’ or a ‘hybrid reality’ between globalization and localization, to the view that diasporas deliberately seek to increase their political clout with Western governments while simultaneously pursuing nationalist projects related to their country of origin.

Given such tendencies and tensions, diasporas’ pilgrimages to sacred sites in the land of origin are worth studying since they have the potential to either escalate memory conflicts at a global scale or to offer the power to heal the wounds of traumatic memories.

Pilgrimage itself can carry varying intentions, from a celebration of common humanity, to an attempt to control pilgrims and pilgrimage sites by way of highly structured ritual systems, to promoting a utopian blueprint for the reformation of society.

Further interesting areas of discussion relate to the blurred lines between pilgrimage and tourism. At any well-visited shrine or sacred monument, visitors on a given day may represent a gradient from the highly pious and seriously prayerful, to purely secular visitors with very little understanding of the religious meaning of the place.

On the whole, there is a need to further explore aspects of religious tourism in the context of national and religious state ideologies, capitalist policies, diasporic engagement, local agencies and the contradictions inherent to those parties and processes that may end up increasing an antagonistic content rather than fostering a multi-perspectivist and agonistic sensibility in post-conflict societies.

Remaining questions

Other remaining questions for further exploration include:

How does the international community perceive the role of cultural practitioners in conflict transformation?
How does this perception align with artists’ aims and objectives at a local level?
How can artistic practices create space for the memories and experiences of conflict that often remain silent, such as those of women and refugees?

View / download the complete literature review report at www.disterrmem.eu/publications.

Investigating the role of cultural practitioners in managing memories of disputed territories (part 2)