As we have learnt from several podcast guests (Emily Spiers, Will Slocombe & Matthew Brown and August Cole & Peter Singer), Futures Literacy is a skill or capability that we can all develop to help us imagine and discuss the future and make better decisions in the present. Traditionally, futures thinking has been done by a handful of ‘experts’ behind closed doors, with a particular focus on science and technology. However, momentum is shifting towards more creative and inclusive approaches, with storytelling proving to be a powerful tool that enables lots of different people to debate possible, plausible, preferable and not-so-preferable futures.
Over the course of our project, we have explored the power of many different storytelling genres – from ancient myths and centuries-old poetry to science fiction and fantasy – to engage audiences in important conversations about how we imagine and build peace, now and in the future. Visualising Peace students have researched the model of healing embodied in ‘narrative trees‘, storytelling as a psycho-social intervention in conflict transformation, ‘peace literature‘ in theory and practice, the capacity of some texts to centre marginalised voices, the tropes of anglophone ‘peace poetry‘, and representations of peace in fairy tales and Disney animations.
We have also experimented with autoethnography, to share our own visions or experiences of peace – as a way of stimulating conversation and reflection with others. And we have had a go at writing some ‘useful fiction’, to present scenarios through accessible, engaging narrative while posing important questions about how to foster peace for the future. You can read some of our efforts below.
Autoethnography
What does peace mean to me? My conceptualisation of and relationship with peace only began in a substantial sense three years ago. When I started attending Quaker meetings, I was challenged and enthralled by the idea of peace and pacifism – of course, I had heard of both before, but I had never been invited to consider what they meant for me. Growing up in Britain, I think it’s quite normal to have not given it much consideration. I cannot remember discussing “peace” at school or even colouring a picture of it at nursery; we never learnt of peace as a substantive concept. Instead, we learnt that very fragile peace came from punitive treaties imposed after total domination and that other people still fought other wars in different parts of the world. We never questioned why some peace was fragile and some was lasting, or what we could do about either of these. When I came to meeting, people started to speak in terms totally unfamiliar to me: a refusal to fight with “outward weapons”, “speaking truth to power”, and trying to “wage peace”. They were referencing the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, the Faslane Peace Camp and No Faith in War at DSEI. I met Friends who had been (and still are) deeply involved in Women in Black, Stop the War. All of these inevitably came with 12 accompanying acronyms that I had to remember as well! I saw people who were actively working for peace, rather than around for it with absent-minded pessimism (oft-rebranded as “realism”). Many of these Friends were women, who often felt literally impelled to carry out these witnesses for peace – I realised the value of telling the world that peace is possible. Going to meeting also convinced me that peace cannot be a slither of one’s life: it must be the entirety or none of it. Our testimonies to peace linked to testimonies to equality, to simplicity and to integrity. One cannot stop a war with lies, nor can one prevent violent conflict in a deeply unequal world (even if that weren’t a violent conflict anyway). My understanding of peace was infused with a 17th-century-yet-still-radical zeal and I was inspired to do something. I learnt simultaneously that peace is something chipped away at. Trust is built up slowly and lost quickly. For peace to happen it takes many, many hands. I visualise real global peace as a nearly eschatological image: the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. It is our task as Earth-dwellers to bring this about, even though I don’t believe we can do this by ourselves. True peace requires grace as much as anything humans can give. I never understood the pacifist motivations of some Christians until reading the Sermon on the Mount with an open mind. When being told to turn the other cheek, the sentence ends. There are no ifs nor buts, just an absolute moral commandment to not harm anyone else. Though one person’s actions may not influence this, each turned-cheek chips away at war. “be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one” – Fox, 1656 Like the eschaton, we have no idea what peace will look like – this is not a reason to grow despondent, but to try and find out what it does look like!
Writing from the perspective of a researcher in the field of peace education at the intersection with sustainable development, it can be challenging to let go of the ‘academic hat’ and immerse in a task that is as much academically valuable but less practiced. Autoethnography forces me to sit down with my thoughts in a critical way, approaching them as if they were one of my readings.
I am starting to have an informed understanding of what peace means for other people, but I have definitely not spent enough time reflecting and elaborating on my own views and opinions. A moment of peace that I personally experienced a couple of minutes ago inspired me to engage with this task: I was writing my journal -drawing, more precisely. That moment, to me, was peaceful because I knew I was doing something beneficial for my future. Whenever I journal, I provide my future self with the tools to understand herself and be coherent as an individual. Coherence is a cognitive state that is often associated with peace: inner peace, but also local and global peace when more and more people in the community are in a collectively coherent state. In the past couple of years, my mental health has been fragile, and I really came to understand what inner peace meant through the sudden and unbearable absence of it. And in the hardest times or at turning points in my life, I would turn to my journal for advice. I was able to remind myself through my past writings how and why I came to be who I am now, to reflect on my inner growth and what went wrong, to observe trends and understand myself better. Being in constant dialogue with my past and future self allows for that stability and cohesion which is reflected both neurologically and in practice, through peace. Writing my journal is doing something beneficial for future me: ‘future’ needed to be emphasised because it is in the principles of intergenerational solidarity and justice that visualising peace acquires social value for sustainable development. Creating premises for future peace is as important and urgent as peacebuilding missions on the grounds of active conflict. In creating these premises, individual and collective processes of value-creation become essential tools to move forward: it is not important to exactly know where we want to get, what truly guides action is having a clear purpose. To visualise this concept better, take the example of an internal conflict: in my second year of university, I was experiencing a crisis because I did not know if I was satisfied with what I was doing in my life, which led to increased vulnerability. Internal conflict arose due to uncertainty and vulnerability: I did not know what my future would look like exactly, but in any of the desirable and plausible future scenarios, the image I had of myself did not align with the current state. Acknowledging that change was needed did not motivate me to enact that change, nor it brought more clarity on how to exit the state of confusion and dissociation that was preventing me from thinking straight. After reading my journal, I still didn’t have an idea of how to move forward, but at least I gained greater understanding of my positionality in the chaos, embracing uncertainty and building resilience to shocks and stressors. Connecting inner peace to local and global peace, my reflection on journaling as a means to build long-term peace is functional to highlight the role played by media like storytelling, future scenarios’ co-creation, and collective memory production in promoting intergenerational peace.
I was 9 years old when I first observed how deep wounds heal. The persistent pain from the recent removal of my appendix was labeled “pain of procedure”, and over the following weeks, the three cuts on my belly turned into diligent scars. Naturally, wounds heal from the inside out and from the edges inwards. As the scar takes shape, the pain turns into a vague memory that only exists in the mind. I like to believe that this surgery was the first time my body experienced trauma. A sterile and controlled trauma, nonetheless. My mind wanders back to not just the pain from the surgery but also the process of healing whenever I imagine the future. You might wonder: what future? The list of lives that evidence the hurt, harm, violence, and traumas in the world seems endless. And the final push for despair is caused by the climate crisis. In light of this list, my traumas feel insignificant, and my voice unimportant. I feel like a mere casualty in the cosmic war against surplus value, radiation, air pollution, animal fat, and McDonald’s hamburgers. Thus, to imagine the future is an overwhelming task. Yet, the question begs for a deeper quarrel: to imagine the future is a privilege confined to the few. The wounds of the world are much deeper than I can imagine. My point of connection thus lies in the embodied traumas that I share with the world. Only from this point can I understand that others’ sorrows and scars, too, heal from the inside out. There is no other way. You can stitch the flesh together. You can cover the scar with make-up. You can drown the pain in paracetamol. But the healing starts within. This validates my traumas and asserts my voice. I refuse to have my scars removed and be reduced to a victim. I am warrior who might fight in subtle and silent ways but nevertheless, I fight. I urge that attention and recognition of this is the only way in which we can imagine a future that grows not just from but with and beyond the endless list of grieves. You might wonder: and then what? If we take our lives seriously but hold them lightly, we can take others’ lives seriously but hold a light space for them in our hearts. We are all grieving whether we are aware of it or not. Imagine a future in which we allow for our grief to be. This grants us all humanity. All our scars, all our stories, and all our lived traumas in the world look vastly different but living with and through it leads me back to the simple observation that I made when I was 9 years old. The healing towards a better future can only start within.
The Sky An autoethnography in the 3rd person Walking home from work late at night, she looks up to the sky for solace. A shift of ensuring that college students don’t drink too much and cleaning up the mess that they leave behind when they do takes it out of a person. She looks up to the sky of the tiny coastal town she lives in and tries to count all of the stars she can see. Vastly different from her polluted capital city back home she is mesmerized by the glimmering lights of all of the stars in the sky. It is bliss, it is peace. The streetlights don’t wash out the stars in the sky they shine brighter than any lamp on the road. To her the sky is peace. At night the stars provide a path to something different, a place with no worries or troubles that her reality might have. During the day, even in Scotland sunlight creeps from cracks in the clouds that warm her soul and encourage her to keep going. As the sun sets beautiful colors light up the sky. A number of oranges, pinks and purples fill the sky making it look more like a painting than real life. The beauty in the sky is unmatched. As she treads on home on another day, she looks up and realises that not everyone sees peace in the Sky. She thinks of people in Ukraine or Gaza who fear the sky. These people only relate the sky to warplanes, bombs and aerial strikes. How can something that she only believes is bliss cause so much turmoil for other people? Rather than waiting for night to see the stars by the beach, Gazans will fear the night because then its harder to see the planes as they fly so closely above their heads. A tear falls on her cheek as she thinks about this. She keeps these people in her mind every time she walks home now, counting her blessings that she finds peace in the sky and hoping that one day it is the same for everyone in the world.
Every so often, the feeling of peace hits me suddenly as I encounter a refreshing breeze and fresh salty air. In a town thousands of miles from my home, I can almost feel myself being transported to a different seaside town, one where I can see the Chesapeake Bay through tall pines, their needles and cones blanketing and spotting the ground. Each of my senses assembles a clear image of the peace I find in Deltaville, Virginia. The salty, muddy smell of the bay wafting in on a cool breeze, the sound of the waves washing up on the spit of sand in front of my grandparents’ house, the feeling of stepping onto a pine needle covered beach in my sandals, the taste of the meals shared there with family, the sight of the night sky after sunset. The memory of that place fills me with peace, calms my soul. I think that this little place has such a strong effect on my inner peace is because I can feel peace on multiple different levels all at once. In Deltaville, I know that I am safe, I am with people I feel comfortable with, and I am able to connect with nature. When I am in Deltaville at my grandparents’ hose, I feel a sense of safety. The quiet fishing town is far removed from the stressors of the world, protecting me outside conflicts. Even in violent weather, I know I will be protected by the house. I feel safe in the town, I know where to find food, how to get to the marinas, how to get home. At that house, I can truly relax and let my guard down. I feel safe in that place to be myself I also feel at peace in Deltaville because of the people there. I always go with my family. My parents, sisters, and grandparents. People I have grown up with. I know them and they know me. When we are there it’s just us, with no distractions. We play games together and eat together. There is a sense of routine and what we’re supposed to do when we’re there, but it’s a comforting feeling, rather than one that restricts. Time spent at that house with my family is time for laughing, bonding, and making new memories. It is a time for us all to be free and open with each other, doing nothing except having a good time. The little house in Deltaville also helps me to connect with the world around me. From the bench on the end of the dock, I can watch the sun rise over the bay in the morning and set over the river in the evening, painting the sky with vibrant, beautiful colors. During the day I can be in and around the water, exploring the shallow cove on the other side of the street that teems with life. From a kayak, I can see fish, rays, crabs, and snails among the water and grasses on the shore. Observing their coexistence shows me how peace can be found everywhere, especially among the seemingly insignificant and miniscule parts of life. Peace also comes to me as the stars come out at night, little pinpricks of light shining through a thick black blanket. There is nothing more peaceful in my mind than laying back to look at the stars. Thinking about the scope and beauty of the night sky brings me indescribable joy that brings me great peace. The safety, familial comfort, and immersion in nature I feel in Deltaville have all contributed to how I find peace during the times where I cannot be there. I feel peace when I feel safe to rest in my room at school. Being with a group of friends I trust brings me peace. Being in the outdoors also greatly contributes to my sense of peace. Any of these experiences by themselves is a moment worth savoring in a world lacking peace. But none of them can compare to the peace I feel when I am reminded of Deltaville.
Useful Fiction
This section of our ‘storytelling for peace’ includes fictional stories of conflict and conflict-resolution as well as retellings of well-known stories that imagine a more peaceful version of the story.
What do you do if danger is approaching? Chattering of teeth. You can hear it amongst the chattering of the party, in the distance of the corridor, but it is now growing louder and louder. It is overshadowing the loud music playing and it is barely possible to hear people chatting and laughing anymore. The room has no windows so the noise seems to be reverberating from its walls and ceiling. It gets colder. The noise grows loud enough for the host of the party to hear. She is a person of the masses, everyone adores her. When she said that instead of worrying about the future we should party and forget, nobody opposed. Right now, she seems quite annoyed to have been disturbed while partying. It takes her a while to decide to go to the corridor and leave the room that she has not left in weeks. But she decides to inquire to see who or what is producing the noise that is disturbing her festivities. Unlike the room of the party that she has spent the last few weeks (or months?) in, the seemingly endless corridors have windows. She can see the massive amounts of snow and icy cold winds banging across the windows of the building. She sees what she was trying to forget, massive amounts of snow covering everything under them, wind turning into icy snow storms and most importantly the fact that it is only the high-tech metal isolation between her and the snow. Only these walls separate her from the deadly, icy cold of the outside. She also notices how much more snow is falling, how much stronger the wind is and she knows that the weather has been getting much much worse, potentially more than the isolation of the building can handle. That's what she had been trying to get away from all along in her windowless room! With no windows and amongst parties and fun, reality is too far away for her to have to fully conceive of it. If she will die anyway, partying and having fun while she is still here seems like the best way to go. The noise of the chattering teeth getting very loud is what snaps her back into reality. Finally, she can see who or what is producing it and disturbing her party. The noise comes from another person, teeth clicking nervously, shivering. Unlike the host, he spends all his time in the corridors, looking at the windows and observing the weather. The weather conditions scare him, he sees that it has been getting colder and colder, and the storms have been getting more violent. He knows that the inside of the building will soon be overtaken by the cold, leaving all the inhabitants without protection. The fear of this almost paralyses him, he thinks about the end of the world all the time. He has thought about making plans on how to stop the cold from getting in, but before he can think of a plan, his mind gets overtaken by fear. He knows something has to be done and soon, or all will be doomed, but he just knows that it won’t work, that it will not be effective enough, that there will be no hope in the end. The outside and the cold coming in scares him so much. He can’t even put it into words, and especially not into actions. He just keeps shivering, his teeth keep chattering. He wants to shake her, yell at her, tell her that we either do something now or that we will never do anything again… But he doesn’t do any of that. He just keeps shaking, thinking about all the horrible consequences. But he is also annoyed. This woman has no understanding of the future and of what is coming! She is so ignorant and just partying while there is a disaster that is about to happen. She seems to not even understand the emergency that they are facing. The host, on the other hand, is also annoyed. This guy is neither answering any of her questions nor stopping his teeth from chattering. He seems to be scared of the outside, but aren’t they all? They all know the situation they are in, why does he have to be the only one that is so dramatic about it? This guy is not only overreacting, but also destroying the great fun she had at her party. What potential do you think a conversation between the two characters could bring? At their core, both people have a similar approach to the issue they are facing as well as a similar understanding of it. They know of the deadliness of the storm, they know it is approaching and they assume that they know how little of an impact they as individuals can have on its halting. Both have also lost all hope. Both seem to have given up on their own agency as well as on their desire for the future. Between the extreme urgency and the seriousness of the issue, they are either paralysed with fear or are trying to forget. I personally believe that there is a lot of potential that the people in the story are missing. One of them has knowledge on weather phenomena, how they change and how they can impact the building and the people within it. This person has the potential to look into solutions, to think about what people can do if not to halt the storm then to make sure that people can stay alive and comfortable even when the storm arrives. The other one seems to just be a guy who hosts parties and tries to forget about his problems. But has the people behind him, he is a popular party host. He was the one who first managed to get people to forget about the urgency of the problem, he can get them involved and get people to act, he can motivate them to help with whatever is needed. I wrote this piece thinking about how people behave with regards to the climate crisis, but I honestly believe that it can be applied to a variety of scenarios. Not only are the behaviours the ones that people exhibit a lot of the time, the ending is also what usually happens with regards to climate conversations. People often do not listen to each other and try to understand the fact that they come from similar positions. This harsh caricature is both applicable to how people seem to react, but also how I can feel myself react when thinking about the future. Sometimes it is just so much easier to slip into one of these roles and take away my own agency for the sake of convenience or for the reason of fear.
Retelling Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989), to visualise a more sustainable peace Ariel, a 16-year-old mermaid princess fascinated by the forbidden/foreign/othered human world, rescues the human Prince Eric from a shipwreck and falls in love with him. She sings to him after dragging his body ashore, but leaves as he regains consciousness to protect her identity. After being turned away by the King, Ariel seeks help from the exiled sea witch Ursula. Ariel agrees to a deal: an exchange of her voice for a human body, on the condition Eric and her share a true love's kiss within the next three days. If Ariel fails, she will transform back into a mermaid and belong to Ursula. On the second day, to prevent Ariel's success, Ursula disguises herself as a young woman named Vanessa and appears to Eric singing with Ariel's voice, which he instantly recognises. The next day, Ariel discovers that Eric will be married to Vanessa, and heads towards the wedding. * CUT TO: OCEAN Ariel kicks furiously at the water, fuelling her desperation into her unfamiliar limbs. She can just about make out the top of Vanessa and Eric’s heads walking down the aisle atop the boat deck. * CUT TO: DECK OF ERIC'S BOAT OFFICIANT: Yes, um, do you Eric, take Vanessa, to be your lawfully wedded wife, for as long as you both shall live? Vanessa picks at her hands, glancing at the setting sun. ERIC: I do. BISHOP: Eh, and do you... Ariel uses the oars hanging by the side of the boat and claws herself up the hull. She hoists herself across the side deck, bringing with her a barrage of seawater. Vanessa’s face flushes white. Ariel runs through the procession, and snatches Vanessa’s necklace, hurling the shell to the ground. The magic shell breaks open and Ariel’s voice returns to her. ARIEL: Ursula? Why are you doing this? The sun sets as Vanessa's eyes widen and Ariel’s legs turn back into a tail. VANESSA: (out of breath) You're too late! You're too late! Vanessa’s tentacles seep through her dress as she lets go of her disguise. The crowd gasps in shock. She grabs Ariel and dives into the ocean. * CUT TO: UNDERWATER ARIEL: Ursula, wait! I don’t understand…You were there for me when I needed you. When no one else was. URSULA: I am sorry, sugar. I wish I didn’t have to do it like this. ARIEL: Is it my father? Ursula is silent. For a moment, Ariel sees a glimpse into the past that left Ursula so embittered. ARIEL: I understand. You just want to be heard. Ursula scoffs. But the brazen earnestness that rings through Ariel’s voice does something to disarm her. The childlike simplicity reveals a crack in Ursula’s armour. URSULA: Yes, I guess you may be right. Their momentary tranquillity is abruptly interrupted by King Triton who arrives in a whirlwind. KING TRITON: Ursula! Get away from her! Triton points the trident at Ursula, fires and misses. ARIEL: Daddy, no! Triton does not listen. He aims again. ARIEL: Daddy, please listen to me! Triton fires. Ariel dives in front of Ursula. The beam hits Ariel’s fin, tearing it off. URSULA: Put your trident down! Both of them rush to Ariel’s side and Ursula begins to use her magic to heal Ariel’s wounds. ARIEL: (faintly) Please listen to her. Triton shakily nods his head. URSULA: Do you see how many of your citizens come to me for help, Triton? They are not happy. You live in your mighty castle and you don’t see or care about your people. Even if you kill me, there will be a hundred others to take my place. As Ursula speaks, holding his daughter gently in her arms, Triton sees the evil caricature slip away and truly begins to listen. * Triton appoints Ursula to his council, and creates a third-party representative advisory board. They establish a transparency scheme to better communicate with the citizens of the sea kingdom, and start to rethink the structure of governance to integrate and further empathy across the divides. Ariel becomes a mediator and liaison to the human world.
A walk in the park She pushed the pram down the newly resurfaced tarmac. Finally, the scaffolding from the last few weeks had been moved, meaning that she could take the shorter way home, rather than the additional 5 minutes added onto her route. The streetlamp lightly flickered overhead, reminding her of the lateness of her journey. She glanced at her watch. Just enough time to grab a bottle of wine before book club. Winding through along the path in the park, she stared mindlessly at the dark trees, wondering what kind of species they were. Elm? Spruce? Pine? She was jolted back to life as the pram hit a bump in the road. Immediately, the baby began to cry, having been rudely awakened. Shushing, she gathered the baby into her arms and glared down at the small hole that had appeared in front of her. Damn. This means more scaffolding to come. Propping the baby onto her shoulder, she pulled out her phone and made a note to email the council tomorrow. There, it’ll be fixed next week. While staring at her phone, there was a sudden sound of rushing feet behind her. Paralyzed with fear, she pulled the baby closer and quickly slid her phone away. This action was irregular nowadays in this park, but when she was a little older than her baby now, she had been grabbed in this very park, and the attacker attempted to whisk her away, a story that her mother tells around the dinner table too regularly for her liking. Relief washed over her, as two joggers in hi-vis passed her raising a hand in acknowledgement. While an incident such as her own had not happened in several years, there was always a lingering fear. There is no need to fear. After ensuring that the baby was thoroughly comforted and swaddled, she placed it back down into the pram. The watch beeped, informing her of the minutes she had wasted. Curse. Her friends will laugh at her when she tells them why she is late. And she hadn’t even gotten the wine yet. Keeping a keen eye out for any more bumps, she set off at a brisk pace, eager to get to the shop. Exiting the park, she navigated around the bike racks, until she saw her destination on the other side of the road. The pram moved smoothly over the lip in the road, and thankfully, her baby stayed asleep. She clicked the button and the door opened automatically, before pushing the pram up the ramp. The baby stayed by the front door, as she rushed to the back and grabbed her favourite bottle of Malbec. That’ll be enough to satisfy the girls.
The calm during the storm We brought them into the classroom one by one, they sat in their usual seats; following the arrangement they chose themselves. There was silence in the air, it was heavy but not in the suffocating way. Like a blanket, the silence was a comfort. Normally this type of calm only used to exist before a storm. This peace used to be loaded with significance and importance. A minute silence for the wars. A minute silence for the terrorist attacks. Soon there was too much to be silent about, too many to mourn. But something started happening in these moments, silence gave rise to attention. We spoke less and thought more. No one liked the way things in the world were going, most of us realized we were all on the same side. We wanted a world of diversity, a world of differences and collaboration. We all wanted a piece of peace to be help by everyone. So when we call them in from break and ask them to take two minutes to return in silence, to walk in calmly one by one and think about all they are grateful for, the giggles lull and the laughter placates but the smiles do not fade. We learned to show gratitude for where we are and what we have, this small moment of silence helped people focus on themselves and act from within. It changed the narrative. Silence in the classroom is not a tool of punishment anymore, we do not teach them to fear it but instead be at one with it. A minute silence for peace.