Exchanges and dialogues during Geneva Peace Week 2019

During the Geneva Peace Week 2019 the r4d Social Conflicts projects presented findings and enabled dialogues. Highlights were the premieres of the research documentary "Inequality and Conflict - Beyond us and them" in Geneva, Switzerland, and Guatemala City, Guatemala.

The Geneva Peace Week 2019 External Link Icon(#GPW19, @genevapeaceweek External Link Icon) brought together people from around the world working for peace, rights and well-being. The 8th Geneva Peace Week offered an opportunity to connect and highlight the work of these actors and to expand the spaces for building peace and resolving conflict through dialogue and negotiation. Geneva Peace Week recognises that peacebuilding occurs in many different contexts and cuts across disciplines and sectors. In this sense, Geneva Peace Week breaks down professional silos in order to enable creative responses to violence, exclusion and insecurity.

Against this background, researchers and r4d programme staff presented and debated research findings. Highlights of the week were the premieres of the film "Inequality and Conflict - Beyond us and them: A research documentary from Guatemala, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Switzerland" at Cinémas du Grütli, Geneva, on 4.11.2019, and at Centro Cultural de España en Guatemala, Guatemala City, on 7.11.2019.

The research documentary is the product of a two-year synthesis process of participatory filmmaking spanning boundaries between places and people and their different knowledges and experiences in working through inequality and conflict. It contextualises findings and presents solutions for more peaceful, just and inclusive societies as stated in SDG16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

On 5.11.2019, in our #GPW19 session on Participatory filmmaking for SDG16+: The making of a documentary External Link Iconthe two protagonists, Amina Ahmed from Nigeria and Marta Juana López from Guatemala, r4d researchers, the filmmakers and enablers benefited from exchanges with the numerous session participants. Making use of selected film sequences we reflected on how visualisations of abstract concepts and storytelling in the film enabled scholars to overcome disciplinary divides. The contributions of non-academic partners in the role of protagonists, sharing their life experiences, as well as the images of inequality created connections between contexts, scales, concepts and research results that were not there before.

Through the participatory filmmaking process, selected results emerging from the diverse methodological approaches of the three r4d Social Conflicts projects on dealing with and mitigating social conflicts across the globe connected with and complemented each other. The research documentary tells stories and makes findings accessible for diverse professional audiences and an interested public.

The next official screening date in Switzerland is at cinema Cinématte, Bern, on 21 April 2020 . Other screenings at various institutions are planned in January and February 2020 and upon request.

Please contact r4d@snf.ch External Link Iconin case you would like to organise film screenings with your own target audiences.

"Inequality and Conflict - Beyond us and them"

A research documentary from Guatemala, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Switzerland