Description
The research explores the aesthetic representation of post-conflict narratives as a way of broadening understandings of contemporary reconciliation challenges, especially in postcolonial societies where deep-rooted antagonism is still vivid. By taking the everyday as ‘(a) site where language, performance and agency […] contribute to the remaking of world politics’ (Björkdahl et al. 2019), the study zooms into creative performances as an everyday practice where narratives are portrayed in a way that is difficult to be captured in written texts. Working with data collected through observations and focus groups from conflict resolution classes (2023-2025), the research contests that aesthetic approaches to peace and war have political potentials to go beyond mainstream narratives by offering two main contributions: first, aesthetic narratives open up a locus to challenge ‘us versus others’ perspectives though empathetic practices that allow multivocal narratives to coexist. Second, performances as everyday aesthetic space reveal hidden narratives expressed through emotional dynamics, often overlooked in official narratives. The originality lies in suggesting critical approaches to understanding reconciliation narratives, practiced and empowered through aesthetic means, for developing inclusive historical narratives with others, rather than against them, and this by bringing lights into ‘everyday narratives’ (Stanley and Jackson 2016) in postwar societies.