The Role of Narrative in Managing Conflict and Supporting Peace
2021. Barcelona: Institute for Integrated Transitions.
This discussion paper was published by the Barcelona-based Institute for Integrated Transitions, a non-governmental organization that seeks to establish “brain trusts” of local community, business, and civil society leaders to better tailor international peacebuilding efforts to country-specific contexts. This source outlines the role of narratives in supporting or jeopardizing peace through the concept of the narrative tree – while simple narrative trees with few “branches” are continuously strengthened through repetition and oftentimes fail to capture the complexity involved in instigating factors of conflicts, complex trees share roots with one another and allow for the construction of complex, interwoven narratives that facilitate the construction of peace between previously-divided groups.