Peacebuilding : scoping an empathic design approach through speculative fiction

Abstract

Despite an apparent period of geopolitical stability following the establishment of the UN in 1945, questions of war and peace remain as perennial concerns. . This paper presents an attempt to scope a design approach for peace building. It grounds its approach on Johan Galtung’s notion of positive peace as justice and John Paul Lederach’s middle-ground theory of peace building but underlines the importance of an empathic dialogue that brings parties in conflict together to find common ali ties and develop skills useful in post-conflict societies. The paper scopes an approach through a piece of speculative fiction about a design curator who builds an exhibition to foster dialogue. Three pieces from her fictional exhibition are discussed as potential sources of peace building: the first explores craft clubs; another peace games, a third—resource hubs. The paper builds its observations from these fictions and then identifies a few general observations about requirements for a design-based peace process. We conclude with a discussion on the pros and cons of speculative fiction as a method.