By: Nicholas Sherwood and Cam Cassar

On Friday, April 8th, from 9:30 A.M. - 11:00 A.M. EDT, MHCR staff and employees facilitated a roundtable discussion titled Who are Insider Reconcilers? Binding the Theory and Practice of Reconcilers Operating in their Own Communities at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution’s spring 2022 Peace Week. MHCR Associate Director, Nick Sherwood, took lead on convening and facilitating this panel. Other MHCR staff presenters include Antti Pentikäinen (Director), Hannah Adamson (Programs Officer), Cam Cassar (Communications Officer), Oakley Hill (Lab Manager), Belle Gjeloshi (Research Officer), and Merisa Mattix (Development Coordinator). In addition, our team was thrilled to two feature two of our Insider Reconciliation Fellows, Rowda Olad and Tecla Namachanja Wanjala, and the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Senior Expert, Reconciliation, Carl Stauffer, Ph.D.

MHCR staff present at the Carter School’s spring 2022 Peace Week on our insider reconciler study.

MHCR’s Insider Reconciler Study: A Team Effort

Once the Carter School decided on this semester’s Peace Week theme, Ideas and Action: Integrating Theory and Practice for Peace and Conflict Resolution, our team decided to convene this panel of staff and close collaborators to discuss MHCR’s flagship study, an exploration of insider reconcilers. First proposed by John Paul Lederach and Paul Wehr in 1991, the term ‘insider partials’ has been used to describe peacebuilders who both (a) are native to a particular conflict context and (b) are actively engaging in peacebuilding processes to manage, resolve, or transform said conflict. Since MHCR’s founding in fall of 2019, our staff have closely followed and tracked the experiences of ‘insider reconcilers’ (insider partials specifically engaging in post-conflict reconciliation work) across several global conflicts. In spring of 2020, MHCR’s research staff began devising a research study to understand the experiences of insider reconcilers, specifically: (1) how they define peacebuilding and reconciliation, (2) their experiences in the reconciliation field, and (3) the impact of reconciliation work on these folks’ mental health and wellbeing.

In spring of 2021, MHCR received IRB approval for this study, and we began interviewing Insider Reconcilers a few months later. Finally, in some capacity, all of our staff have contributed to the Insider Reconciler study:

Research study design (Nick Sherwood, Oakley Hill, Antti Pentikäinen, and MHCR alum Annalisa Jackson)
Conducting interviews (Hannah Adamson, Nick Sherwood, and MHCR alum Jena Kitchen)
Analyzing interview data (Belle Gjeloshi, Hannah Adamson, and Nick Sherwood)
Presenting preliminary findings at scholarly and practice-based conferences and meetings (all co-presenters on this panel)
Fundraising (Merisa Mattix, Nick Sherwood, and Antti Pentikäinen)
Communicating our successes and challenges (Cameron Cassar)
Administrative support (Hannah Adamson, Merisa Mattix, Monica Ghani, and Rafaela Lucioni)
Mentorship, guidance, and hands-on support for Insider Reconciler Fellows (Antti Pentikäinen)

In line with tenets of participatory action research, our team has engaged in reflective practice / research throughout this project, whether checking in with insider reconcilers about our research methodology and findings, ensuring our biases and positionalities are named and acknowledged throughout the research process, and ensuring our findings land in the hands of practitioners and policy-makers. In short, we want this project to both push forward the theory of insider partials, first proposed by Lederach and Wehr, and to empower and transform the practice of peacebuilding. Our team believes a deepened, compassionate interest in the experiences and strengths of insider peacebuilders can revolutionize the peacebuilding field as a whole. Insider reconcilers are more attuned to the nuances of local cultures and customs, often have deep and wide social networks to call upon during peacebuilding processes, and have a stronghold of wisdom and knowledge to draw upon in their journey to transform the destiny of their communities. MHCR believes accompanying these individuals, through our research and practice, can lead to a reconciliation field that is happier, healthier, safer, and more sustainable.

Key Insights from our Peace Week Panel

“We must continue to educate communities on the dangers of living in conflict and the beauty of living in harmony.” said Rowda Olad, our MHCR Insider Reconciler based in Somalia. This quote encapsulated her panel presentation. Rowda shared insights into her experiences working within Somalia, a country which has dealt with a lot of internal turmoil in its country over the past few decades. She discussed how she has facilitated dialogues between groups in conflict and how in some cases, they may come to some sort of agreement but the underlying issues are not addressed. She also highlighted the important role that women in these communities play and how they must be empowered and included because they have extreme changemaking potential. Rowda has done and continues to do amazing work in Somalia in terms of improving mental health and wellbeing in her community while also reconciling deep seeded divisions.

“Reconciliation has become professionalized, but conflict is as old as humanity. Before I entered a classroom to learn about reconciliation, I knew that communities had been in conflict.” said Dr. Tecla Namachanja Wanjala, our MHCR Insider Reconciler based in Kenya. Dr. Tecla is a world renowned peacebuilder and was once nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for her reconciliation efforts in Kenya. Dr. Tecla spoke on her experiences in conducting healing circles in Kenya to reconcile divisions between tribes who had engaged in violent conflict and how they helped reintegrate soldiers back into the community. She also continuously highlighted the importance of building trust amongst these communities and she explained that this is because without a certain level of trust and rapport, the attempts to bridge divides within these communities will be futile. Dr. Tecla provided our panel with so much knowledge and wisdom and we appreciate everything she brings to the MHCR team as an Insider Reconciler.

The panel provided many lessons for viewers and listeners to take away thanks to the amazing presentations and insights that were provided by all of our panelists. This panel will go a long way in informing peacebuilders and practitioners of what it takes to be an effective peacebuilder in post conflict contexts. The findings from the Insider Reconciler study will be the first of its kind and lay the foundation for an innovative way of binding theory and practice within the fields of reconciliation and peacebuilding.

You can watch our full presentation on YouTube here.