| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the notions of 'healing' and 'reconciliation' as they are used in the literature on peacebuilding. It argues that these notions are used vaguely and that they are deployed to discriminate between 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' approaches to peacebuilding. As such, they render invisible complex connections between the psycho-social processes associated with healing and the political processes associated with reconciliation. Numerous programmes and processes of peacebuilding are conceived upon the distinction between healing and reconciliation. The article examines the effects of this distinction and argues that where healing and reconciliation are disconnected, peacebuilding produces experiences of secondary victimization that undermine peace. The case of post-genocide Rwanda is used to support this argument.
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