“Working for Peace: Black Men Transforming Identities and Memories of Violence”
“Working for Peace: Black Men Transforming Identities and Memories of Violence” is organised by the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory (DAC), marking its 10th year of peace activism, and supported by Medico International e.V., celebrating 40 years of existence as a human rights organisation.
This conference comes at a time of great concern around the increasing rates of male violence against women and children, as well as violence against other men - particularly violence against the body and violent crime generally against the poor across South Africa. Just 13 years after their first elections, South Africans continue to rally efforts and resources toward tackling the historical and societal conditions that have helped to create the structures in which these current cycles of violence persist.
“Working for Peace: Black Men Transforming Identities and Memories of Violence” is an opportunity for many individuals and organisations working in the areas of sustainable post-conflict work and peace-building to review, share, and talk about their work. The conference will focus particularly on intervention strategies that have been developed and directed at black men living in communities created and legislated by the Apartheid state.
The outcome will be a broader knowledge on the intersection of history, identity, masculinity and violence, whilst improving the capacity and praxis of individuals, organisations, and networks striving to build peace in communities existing in, and recovering from, contexts of violence and trauma.
This conference is inspired by several successful initiatives, programs, and organisations across South Africa that have run intervention strategies defined by, and created through, direct dialogue with individuals affected by the violence. Among these organisations are the DAC in Cape Town, Sinani in KwaZulu-Natal, and Khulumani in Johannesburg.
The DAC recognises that there are still gaps remaining in the discourse on masculinities and violence. Pertinent questions to be asked include: How does context prevail in perpetuating these cycles of violence? How has it come to be that poor black men are in the centre of the violence both as perpetrators and as victims? How are multiple racial or ethnic identities of masculinity constructed socially during and after conflict? What role do we, as intellectuals, activists and professionals, play in perpetuating the negative social construction of black masculinities and what do we need to do to overcome this?
The purpose of this conference is to:
Begin to close these gaps in the public discourse by conducting a vigorous introspection into our collective post-conflict programs and endeavours to reduce the growing violence faced by local communities.
Bring together program participants, activists, intellectuals, government officials, and professionals working on peace building, trauma, identity and masculinity in South Africa to network, share their work and benefit from lessons learnt.
Highlight case studies of men’s experiences of conflict and recovery programs, and produce these results in a post-conference publication.
Build new theory and knowledge on how “cycles of violence” are mediated by the social, economic, political, cultural, spiritual, psychological and ideological mechanisms of transmission that impact on the tools of post-conflict rebuilding and recovery.
The conference will commence at 8.30 AM on Monday the 3rd. Proceedings will conclude at 5 PM on Tuesday the 4th. The public evening panel will be held on Monday the 3rd at 5:30 PM.