The latest article on Art & Reconciliation research is now out and available for free download. Featuring in a Special Issue of The International Journal of Transitional Justice, guest edited by Cynthia Cohen, on ‘Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice: Contributions of Arts and Culture’, the article by Tiffany Fairey and Rachel Kerr discusses two arts-based initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. You can download the article here.
ABSTRACT
Scholars and practitioners of transitional justice have begun to seek alternative approaches in the arts and culture as a means to pursue core goals of peace and reconciliation. This Special Issue asks what creative approaches can do that conventional transitional justice mechanisms cannot, and invites us to reflect on the possibilities, and the potential challenges, risks and constraints. In response, this article discusses two arts-based initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one involving a national museum, the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one with a Bosnian peacebuilding organization, the Post Conflict Research Centre, that provided opportunities for plural, dialogical and localized forms of transitional justice. Analyzing the question of what worked in these two distinct initiatives, we highlight four common qualities and offer them as non-prescriptive ‘good-practice principles’ in strategic arts-based peacebuilding practice: iterative working over time; carving space for plural, locally driven narratives; amplifying the capacities and networks of local actors; and context-driven project design.
