Agonistic Memory and Peace : Colombia, Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine

Investigates memory initiatives in three of the world’s hardest to solve conflicts and how they can be invested with more constructive dynamics.

This is a book about the power of memory in fractured societies and initiatives that resist pressures to simplify history. It traces the intricate pathways of local dialogue initiatives in three of the world's most emotionally charged conflicts: Colombia, Israel-Palestine, and Northern Ireland. There, the past is always contested terrain—it is present, alive and deeply political. The book draws on agonistic peace theory, which proposes continued contestation, discussion and disagreement - in non-violent, constructive forms - as the most productive way to transform violent conflicts. Focusing on how local organisations can work to facilitate dialogue about conflict memory, the analyses rely on interview-based case studies where organisations working on bringing people together to juxtapose their memories of these conflicts are probed. The results underline that safeguarding dialogue spaces, stimulating counter-hegemonic forces and the circulation of memory between memoryscapes at different scales are crucial enabling factors for successful agonistic memory work.