How do you create a frequent upcoming from a legacy of conflict? Perseverance goes a extended way, as the historical past of the EU displays – but constructing bridges is not easy. EU-funded scientists are analysing collective memories of earlier strife that nonetheless impacts local community relations currently, in a bid to support advance European integration.


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© sewcream #304603641, supply:inventory.adobe.com 2020

The EU-funded REPAST undertaking is checking out how societies deal with the extended shadow of earlier conflicts, in a bid to create insights and supply advice for policymakers and civil culture. Situation experiments are staying conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Kosovo, Eire, Poland and Spain.

‘We want to fully grasp what facets of various challenging legacies live on in a problematic manner currently and develop obstacles to the integration and relations of the various populations in Europe,’ says undertaking coordinator Dimitra Milioni of the Cyprus College of Technological know-how. ‘To do so, we are investigating how conflict discourses are staying formulated and disseminated in the public sphere.’

As of March 2020, the project’s large facts-selection exercising has been concluded, and the scientists have started to process the in depth product they have gathered. The will cause and characteristics of person conflicts may perhaps differ, but the scientists nonetheless expect to locate commonalities in the handling of distressing and potentially contested collective memories, Milioni explains.

Illuminating historical past

‘Our aim is to get there at some kind of typology of troubled earlier discourses currently,’ she says. ‘We’re analysing how persons in various cultures and nations came to bear in mind the sources of these conflicts and how they negotiate and ideally renegotiate the first triggers. And we also want to see how all this is linked to Europe currently, and European integration.’

Northern Eire, for instance, is just one territory exactly where the earlier is never ever significantly absent.

‘There’s a regular undercurrent of rigidity, in particular close to controversial issues,’ Milioni explains. ‘It is an case in point of how even a settled troubled earlier can re-emerge and could potentially also be revived, in particular as a result of political discourse, often as a result of media discourse, but also as a result of public discourse.’ In REPAST’s other scenario analyze nations around the world, the scenario is equivalent.

The project’s facts selection viewed as four locations of expression: politics, historical past – both equally oral and formal – and the media, as perfectly as art and society. It incorporated activities as various as interviewing locals about their own recollections of earlier occasions or about the memories that were being passed on to them by elders, checking out common and citizen media, scouring party manifestos and viewing phase performances.

‘In Cyprus, for instance, we found out that various artists are performing with political dance, which is not widely known,’ she says. ‘We noticed how this kind of creative action essentially attempts to recreate the earlier, and potentially also problems hegemonic representations of this earlier.’

Rapid forward

The emphasis in the undertaking, which is owing to finish in April 2021, will now change from facts selection to facts examination, and to the output of means and suggestions for policymakers – both equally in the REPAST scenario analyze nations around the world and at EU level – and civil culture organisations this kind of as non-governmental organisations invested in peacebuilding.

Other focus on audiences in locations with a bitter legacy include things like tourist guides, for whom REPAST intends to organise seminars and make e-learning components. A facts system will help any individual with an fascination to investigate, examine and distinction data collected by the undertaking and entry its various other outputs, Milioni notes. The associates are also planning to formulate methodology to facilitate upcoming investigation in the field.

One particular instrument beneath improvement is an on the internet activity that fosters players’ capability to assess historic data. Various diversifications of the activity, which is primarily supposed for schoolchildren, will be developed to suit different ages and nationwide contexts.

‘REPAST strives to express the thought that historical past as taught in educational institutions, for case in point, or as offered in public discourse, is always built,’ Milioni emphasises. ‘As citizens, we have to have to just take a action again, we have to have to establish the competencies to fully grasp that what is staying projected corresponds to a certain place of check out, to a certain entry place.’