V INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF PEDAGOGY

Presentation

The V International Conference of Pedagogy, with the title “Education and Culture of Peace: Memory, Truth and Forgiveness”, intends to constitute a space for reflection and sharing of ideas and experiences capable of contributing to a deepening of the paths leading to a more peaceful and harmonious society.

The current situation, marked by strong military, social, religious, and political conflicts, as well as by the growing wave of migrants and refugees, requires a deep thought about the driving role of education for the understanding and good relations between individuals and peoples. This dimension involves, at least, the three major vectors that constitute the main themes of this conference: (a) memory; (b) truth and (c) forgiveness.

(a)  Memory – individual and collective – situates us against the backdrop of our contemporary identity. Ignoring or distorting the memory could lead to the dangers of its antiquarian glorification or its belittlement and rewriting through anachronistic revisionism. Education must have an active voice in the non-forgetfulness of the past, against the abuses and manipulation implemented by autocratic political systems and/or radical, extremist, and populist movements. Furthermore, any reconciliation process requires acknowledgment of both past achievements and past mistakes. In this way, space will be created for encounters and memory healing to promote a just and sustainable peace.

(b)  Our era has been characterised by a phobia towards the notion of truth, whose clearest expression is materialised in the concept of post-truth. The idea that truth has ceased to be a central factor in our culture has gained enormous traction in recent decades. Truth has been progressively replaced by rival ideas that intend to constitute the goal and foundation of knowledge and human societies, such as those of entertainment and/or emotions. A well-told narrative, based on a manipulative culture of conscious and biased selective forgetting, seems to be more important than the facts, as it awakens emotions and enjoyment in us. However, how can a culture of peace sustain itself without the truth?

(c)  Forgiveness is an active reality that presupposes memory, truth, and the will to reconcile, as necessary points for the purpose towards which it tends: a peace that necessarily springs from/with/in justice. Only a dynamic of forgiveness, based on these assumptions, makes it possible to rehabilitate or heal a wounded, traumatic and resentful memory, leading to the reestablishment of the integrality of the person in their dignity, or of the communities, whether they are the victim(s) or the oppressor(s). Only through dialogue capable of forgiveness, in a simultaneous process and encounter in truth, which has justice as its necessary basis, between victim and oppressor, can both emerge restored and dignified in all their dignity and humanity. A humanist pedagogy of peace will promote the interiorisation of the action of forgiveness in society, overcoming radicalism and fragmentation and, consequently, the creation of a culture of peace.

This Conference therefore aims to facilitate the presentation and discussion of papers and research on the place and role of Education in promoting and implementing a culture of peace, particularly in the vectors of memory, truth – which demands justice –, and forgiveness.

Target Audience

The Conference is directed to academics and professionals, researchers and teachers, governmental and non-governmental organisations, civil society, educators and students, school administrators and directors and all those interested in the theme of Education and Culture of Peace.

Thematic Areas

1. Dignity, Truth and Peace

2. Identities and Interculturality

3. Education and Memory: Family and Intergenerationality

4. Forgiveness, Dialogue and Culture of Peace

5. Ecology and Peace: Emancipatory and Reconciliation Movements

6. Democracy, Truth and Populisms

7. Human Rights, Coexistence and Path to Peace

8. Diversity, Tolerance and Reconciliation

9. School, Indiscipline and Cultures of Peace

10. Contributions of the Society of Jesus to the Culture of Peace