Working Papers

CAPAZ Working Paper: “Territorial Peace: Connecting Moral Imagination and Geographic Imagination”

Cover of the CAPAZ Working Paper 5-2019

Abstract:

Based on the concepts-practices of social organisations, peace is a political process that consists of (re)appropriating a geographic space to develop an economic-cultural project of dignified life, which is ecologically sustainable, and protected from violence and war. The search for peace is territorial because the purpose of dealing with violence is translated into the goal that the territory -that materially and symbolically appropriate living space- will again -or for the first time- fulfil the collective functions that it has lost through the armed conflict. Communities have two interconnected resources with which to restore the collective functions of the living space: their moral imagination and their geographical imagination. The document shows what these two dimensions consist of and how they are connected, arguing that this understanding of territorial peace as a conjunction of moral imagination and geographical imagination is a political-epistemological innovation in the field of peace studies.

Keywords:

Territorial peace; geographical imagination; moral imagination; peacebuilding in Colombia; social movements.

Author/researcher

Luis Peña

PhD in social geography and researcher at the Jena Centre for Reconciliation Studies. Researcher and professor at Universidad Externado de Colombia. Co-founder and member of the Critical Geography of Latin American Root group Georaizal. Contact: luis.b.pena@uni-jena.de

Click here to read CAPAZ Working Paper 5-2019 (in Spanish)

Peña, L. Paz territorial: conectando imaginación moral e imaginación geográfica (Territorial Peace: Connecting Moral Imagination and Geographic Imagination). CAPAZ Working Paper 5-2019. Bogotá, November 2019, 52 p. ISSN: 2711-0354

(Text: Claudia Maya, Text in English: Tiziana Laudato)

CAPAZ Working Paper: “Remembering, forgetting, talking, silencing. Social management of conflictive pasts”

“Remembering, forgetting, speaking, silencing. The social management of conflictive pasts” is the third working document published by CAPAZ in 2019. Its author is Tatjana Louis, researcher and associate professor at the School of Social Sciences at Universidad de los Andes. Her research emphasis focuses on the development of historical awareness, and the teaching and learning of history.

Abstract:

In societies in transition, historical memory is an instrument for the symbolic reparation of victims, the clarification of truth, and the goal of social reconciliation. However, the work of memory in a society goes beyond the time limits of transitional justice and presents a challenge for different generations. Based on the analysis of manuals for teaching history in various historical periods, this text addresses the long-term social management of painful pasts in two different contexts: in Colombia, the period of La Violencia; and in Germany, the Nazi dictatorship and the legacy of the German Democratic Republic. The manuals show what society considers necessary to teach future generations. At the same time, they serve as a mirror of today’s society. An analysis of training processes in schools can therefore shed light on the social development of a historical memory.

Louis, T. Recordar, olvidar, hablar, silenciar. El manejo social de pasados conflictivos. Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz – CAPAZ, Bogotá: 2019, 41 p.

Read the CAPAZ working paper 3-2019 (In Spanish).

(Text: Claudia Maya. English version: Tiziana Laudato)

CAPAZ Working Paper: “Civic education in Germany: Development and aspects of the current discussion”

The working document entitled “Civic education in Germany: Development and aspects of the current discussion” is CAPAZ’ most recent publication (Working Document 2-2019). Its author is Prof. Dr. Bernd Overwien, professor of civic education didactics at the University of Kassel, Germany. In the introduction, Prof. Dr. Overwien brings us closer to the definition of the concept in the German-speaking context:

“‘Politische Bildung’ is the term used in German-speaking countries to refer to school and extra-curricular learning activities that prepare or accompany students in the management of politics by acquiring appropriate knowledge and skills. In this respect, political education moves in a relationship of tensions between pedagogy and politics. (Fischer 1972; Mambour 2007, p. 9). Political education is by no means limited to certain age groups: natural and social science classes in primary school prepare students at an early age (6-10 years) to deal with political and social science issues. Civic education as a whole has, in recent decades, resorted to social science knowledge and methods. However, civic education is older and the corresponding lines of progress are drawn and developed in this working paper. The central debates will be outlined on this basis, and finally discussed with a view to current discussions in Colombia”.

Read the CAPAZ working paper (2-2019) (in Spanish)

Overwien, B. Educación cívica en Alemania: desarrollo y aspectos de la discusión actual. Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz – CAPAZ, Bogotá: 2019. 30 p.

(Text: Claudia Maya, English version: Tiziana Laudato)

CAPAZ Working Paper: “The right to the progressive access to the land ownership”

The German-Colombian Peace Institute CAPAZ  recently published its first working paper in 2019 entitled: “El derecho al acceso progresivo a la propiedad de la tierra” (The right to the progressive access to the land ownership), written by Diana Carolina Sanabria Ramírez, doctoral student of public law in the University of Konstanz in Germany.

The paper analyzes the extent of the Article 64 of the Political Constituttion of Colombia, which refers to the fundamental right of the farmers progressive access to land. The document also discusses the problem of  high tenure concentrations in fewer hands as an obstacle for the compliance of the Article 64 and it analyzes if the current legal system privileges the right to property of people who concentrate the land.

This working paper is the first of the editorial plan of the CAPAZ Institute in 2019 and contributes to the consolidation of the research area of territorial peace and social inequalities.

CAPAZ Working Paper 1-2019 (available only in Spanish).

Further information is available in the publications section of the CAPAZ website.

First Working Paper in 2018 published by CAPAZ

Portada del documento de trabajo CAPAZ 1-2018

Salas Salazar, L.G., Camelo, F.E., Wolff, J. (noviembre de 2018). Dinámicas territoriales de la violencia y del conflicto armado antes y después del acuerdo de paz con las FARC-EP. Estudio de caso: municipio de Tumaco, Nariño. Documento de trabajo 1-2018. Bogotá, Colombia: Instituto CAPAZ, 68 p.

Documento de trabajo CAPAZ 1-2018 (en español)