Project Director: Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Ph.D.
Institution: University of Cape Town
Start Date: 1-January-‘08 End Date: 31-DEC-‘11
1. ABSTRACT
The aim of this proposal is to develop the global use of narrative and dialogue as healing agents of reconciliation and forgiveness, and to foster education and serious scholarship in individual and community transformation through the work of the Centre for Narrative, Trauma and Forgiveness, to be located in the Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town.
Centre for Narrative, Trauma, and Forgiveness
The Centre for Narrative, Trauma, and Forgiveness has received the support and approval of the Research Council of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and is viewed as a project that could be regarded as a flagship program for the UCT’s internationalisation work in the 21st century. The aim of the Centre is to create opportunties to transcend cycles of hatred and violence and to liberate capacities of reconciliation and forgiveness through dialogue, research, and case studies. The Centre is a collaboration between the Psychology Department, the School of Languages at the University of Cape Town, ASU….. The Centre will lead programs with a focus on the following:
- International partnerships on the African continent as well as globally.
- Faculty exchanges and visiting scholar programs.
- Curriculum based programs with a wide range of UCT and external faculty collaborators.
- Student mentoring and leadership development.
- Research and scholarship addressing issues of memory and trauma, forgiveness and healing, and dialogue for social and community healing and transformation.
- The role of narrative, public witnessing and memorials in healing trauma.
The Center for Narrative, Trauma, and Forgiveness will become a focal point in the African continent, with global impact, for study and debate regarding narrative and testimony, and the impact of these processes in the growing field of forgiveness and reconciliation dialogue in the aftermath of mass trauma.
Pending collaboration and partnerships as of this writing, the project involves three major program components:
- I: Research through Dialogue Symposia (1 per year): The imagination here is to convene, once a year, a symposium that would involve select leaders of the field in bringing together actual victims and perpetrators from around the world. The Centre’s aim in holding such symposia is to conduct an in-depth and on-going examination (through dialogue, public events, and interviews) of the factors that lead to forgiveness when victims and perpetrators of mass atrocities encounter one another, individually and in groups. Leaders in the field would facilitate dialogue with South African and Rwandan children of victims/survivors and perpetrators of atrocities in these two countries, as well as other conflict regions of the world, and interviewing participants from Germany, Rwanda, South Africa and elsewhere about their experiences. Each symposium will be followed by a public event/conversation. Key elements of all dialogues, public conversations, and interviews will be recorded for further use. The 2008 Symposium will be coordinated with Reconciliation Day in South Africa. The 2009 Symposium will be held at the Fetzer Institute’s Seasons. The 2009 Symposium will be a gathering of a few scholars to reflect at the Rockefeller’s Bellagio Center in Italy.
- II: Visiting Scholars: From the leading researchers, teachers, and practitioners in the field, 2 per year will be chosen as Centre Scholars (6 in all). This will involve 3 2-month residencies for each Scholar. A Visiting Scholar will move from a 2-month residency at the University of Cape Town to a similar residency at Jena University and finally a similar residency at George Mason University in their Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Peace-Building. While in residence, each Visiting Scholar will teach a graduate seminar as a quarter course in an effort to expose the next generation of practitioners to leading figures on restorative justice and reconciliation from around the world. Each residency will also involve a public lecture/conversation which will be recorded for future use. The recorded symposia and Visiting Scholar lectures will be transcribed and edited into a book on the theory and practice of transcending cycles of hatred and violence and liberating capacities of compassion and forgiveness through dialogue, research, and case study. While the work of creating this book will happen during the time period of the project, the publication will probably occur in Fall 2009. The collaborators will serve as authors and/or editors of the work, assisted by a managing editor, consulting for the project.
- III: Visiting Students: In an effort to mentor a core group of students from Germany, South Africa, and other participating European institutions, five students each year, graduate or undergraduate, will be chosen to study abroad in South Africa for a semester with Pumla & Chris at the University of Cape Town while getting a different kind of community exposure through the Center at UCT. Their semester will involve working singly and together by taking course work with Pumla, working experientially within the community, assisting in research, and apprenticing in the work of the Centre at UCT. Five universities will each send one student each year for the three-year period. Tuition costs will be covered by home institutions and accommodations and living costs will be covered in South Africa by research assistantships at The University of Cape Town.
