Bonn Center for Reconciliation Studies 

The BCRS is seeking answers to these questions:

• How is reconciliation understood in different societies, cultures, and political contexts, and what factors influence the significance of reconciliation? 
• What other terminologies are used in other societies, cultures, religions – beyond the Christian or secular, political, Western term reconciliation? 
• What social, political, and economic structures enable or impede reconciliation? 
• What is the role of federal institutions, NGOs, and international actors in supporting reconciliation? 
• How do power structures, hierarchies, and inequalities between groups influence the possibility and limits of reconciliation? 
• What social practices, rituals, and mechanisms of conflict resolution are used in different societies to demand reconciliation? 
• What is the role of justice in processes of reconciliation? 
• How, when, and why can reconciliation– after a cease fire or a public declaration of peace – be reached? 
• How, when, and why are the terms reconciliation and peace used, and in which political, cultural, and historical contexts?
• How do collective memory, narrative, and discourse influence the possibility of reconciliation?
• What conditions aid the success or the failure of approaches to reconciliation?
• Can processes of conflict transformation result in permanent reconciliation?
• All questions are discussed considering a spectrum between reconciliation and irreconcilability.

At the basis of some scientific approaches lies an anti-paternalistic working definition of reconciliation which enables forms of dialogue and cooperation that are oriented towards the future, enabling engagement with development policies as well as consulting on policy making. Moreover, reconciliation research is continuously challenging the sociological, theological, philosophical, theoretical, and political tradition of its terminology.

Members of the BCRS assume that speaking of reconciliation rather that peace adds value: while peace treaties usually aim at formally ending armed conflicts and stopping immediate violence, reconciliation is considered a more complex and lengthy process containing attempts to rebuild destroyed social relationships. Processes of reconciliation are thus seldom linear, but rather defined by competing terminologies, perceptions, power structures, and memory cultures, in the public as well as the private sphere.

Researchers at the BCRS work from a minimal definition which presupposes reconciliation as the transformation of enduring hostility between groups (e.g. nations) into free relationships of recognition, which are defined by trust and friendship. However, the specific characteristics of reconciliation depend on the case study:  the particular historical, political, social, and cultural context of moving from conflict transformation into processes of reconciliation therefore need to be considered. The BCRS is hence not seeking a universal formula of reconciliation, but observing, comparing, and analyzing social dynamics, institutional frameworks, and the significance of reconciliation in various contexts, all while using methods of the social sciences that are continuously updated. This work necessarily includes the cooperation with national and international partners.