Action Research in the Western Balkans: Music and Social Reconciliation

 
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Action Research in the Western Balkans: Music and Social Reconciliation

Ismar Porić, Founder/Director, House of Good Tones

04-03-2024

Can bringing young people from different cultures together, through arts-related experiences, help to promote understanding, communication, and peace building?

This is a question on the minds of many people working in the global field of arts for social change. Over the past few years, my program, The House of Good Tones in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has partnered with two other Balkan programs (SO-DO, in Zagreb, Croatia, and the Music Art project, in Belgrade, Serbia) on a research project designed to explore this question—a particularly important question in our part of the world. Srebrenica was the site of a 1995 massacre that has been officially classified as genocide, which makes this town an important symbol for two dominant nationalistic politics, Bosniak and Serb. Despite the end of that war, political tensions in the Western Balkans have always been in the “red zone.” Nationalism, division, and hate speech are key aspects of almost every political structure in this region.

Srebrenica music camp concert 2018

Our research has been based on previous summer camp collaborations that brought together over 150 youth musicians from our three programs during the summers of 2018 (in Srebrenica) and 2019 (in Zagreb).

What We Explored

Our research was focused on this question:

If: Convening young people from different places and cultures to strategize together (through arts-based experiences) about human rights, peace, and democracy is valuable for their social and ethical development and for the world in general—

Then: Is it particularly effective to hold such convenings in places like Srebrenica, where such issues have been traumatically embedded in local history? Is it good to bring young people out of their comfort zones (always with thoughtfulness and care)? Does it have a deeper impact on their perspectives?

How We Explored It

Our collaborative research with our partners included concert activities, staff training, mutual visiting, and promoting local resources. One key aspect of the research was our cooperation with Vienna Boys Choir music director Gerald Wirth, whose Wirth Method and “SMART” pedagogy we combined with our House of Good Tones educational model.

Camp participant

We explored whether participation in music workshops contributed to a lowering of prejudice and ethnic intolerance and an improvement of multi-ethnic relations among young people. In addition, young people were immersed in a culture of dialogue, media literacy, workshops on critical thinking, and sessions on the importance of inclusion. Research methods included survey questionnaire analysis, focus groups, and interviews with youth participants, parents, program staff, and community members.

What We Found

An important research finding was that a combination of cultural, artistic, and activist activities can open a space for the restoration of basic human values and for the establishment of new language defining common goals. Participants learned from each other, recognized common interests, and strengthened capacities for change. They became more involved in the problems of their peers in other places; at the same time, they discovered more about their own needs and interests.

In addition, the opportunity to hear lectures and workshops from activists in other cultures gave participants the feeling that they are part of a global community. A network was established for continuing communication among teachers and students in the Balkan region.

Moving Forward….

This research project is helping to strengthen our understanding of how to create social reconciliation interventions—that is, interventions specifically designed to foster intergroup understanding, strengthen nonviolent conflict resolution mechanisms, and heal the wounds of war and conflict.

Students at the House of Good Tones, Srebenica, Bosnia. Photo: House of Good Tones.

As my team and I have worked over the past decade to develop the House of Good Tones in Srebrenica, we’ve been inspired to imagine the creation of an international center for education and peace. That center is now close to a reality! We are in the final construction stages of The Ensemble House (no direct relation to this newsletter—but inspired by a similar vision!) in the nearby town of Potočari.

The Ensemble House will be open to all people ready to learn and share knowledge, to conduct research, and to promote values that guarantee good and bright futures for all. Importantly, everything people learn here will be experienced in the area where a genocide occurred. This means that the messages they take back to their countries will have an extra resonance, having been formed in a place where, less than thirty years ago, all human values—beginning with the right to life—were desecrated.

One thing we know is that any aspirations for developing long-term cultures of peace must place young people at the center. Young people are critical to building reconciliation, and because they are one another’s most important reference points, they must be given opportunities to interact across cultures.  

Another thing we know is that music, and all arts, will be vital to the project of The Ensemble House: expanding the space for reconstruction of social, cultural, and moral values for new generations.

April 2024, Bosnia, Croatia, Herzegovina, House of Good Tones Srebrenica, Potocari, Serbia, The Ensemble House, Vienna Boys Choir, Western Balkans, Youth Organizing and Movement-Building

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