Covid-19, climate change, populism, and not least the Ukraine war make the question of how and whether reconciliation is possible highly topical and relevant. The new Bonner Zentrum für Versöhnungsforschung (Center for Reconciliation Research) at the University of Bonn bundles research on this topic in cooperation with partner organizations. The center’s aim is to analyze reconciliation practices in an interdisciplinary and comparative way looking at different cultural, social and regional contexts. The center has now been ceremoniously opened in the University’s Festsaal.
At the new Bonner Zentrum für Versöhnungsforschung (BVZ), scholars are working on the outstanding social significance of reconciliation. They come from a wide range of disciplines, since the comprehensive analysis of reconciliation processes takes many different approaches into account - including sociological, cultural anthropological, historical, theological, philological, philosophical, as well as literary, media, legal and political science. The center is organizationally anchored in the Faculty of Philosophy.
The BZV contributes significantly to the profile building of the University of Bonn and thus connects with the University’s cross-faculty Transdisciplinary Research Areas "Individuals and Societies" and "Present Pasts", with which it closely cooperates. Currently, four faculties are involved - the Faculties of Philosophy, Protestant Theology, Catholic Theology, and Law and Political Science - as well as the Cluster of Excellence Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies and the Centre for Historical Peace Studies at the University of Bonn.
The German Development Institute (DIE), the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (KWI) are also involved. The cooperation between university and non-university institutions is intended to ensure that the center’s research also flows into policy advice at national and international levels.
International cooperation partners include the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) centers in Israel and Japan and the Democracia y Derechos Humanos Research Institute at the PUCP of the University of Lima.
Impressions from the opening ceremony:
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