Angela Jill Lederach's Books

When Blood and Bones Cry Out

Journeys through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation

By: John Paul Lederach,Angela Jill Lederach

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

When Blood and Bones Cry Out

Journeys through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation

By: John Paul Lederach,Angela Jill Lederach

Around the world communities that have suffered the trauma of unspeakable violence--in Liberia, Somalia, West Africa, Columbia, and elsewhere--are struggling to recover and reconcile, searching for ways not just to survive but to heal. In When Blood and Bones Cry Out, John Paul Lederach, a pioneer of peace-building, and his daughter, Angela Jill Lederach, show how communities can recover and reconnect through the power of making music, creating metaphors, and telling their extraordinary stories of suffering and survival. Instead of relying on more common linear explanations of healing and reconciliation, the Lederachs demonstrate how healing is circular, dynamic, and continuing, even in the midst of ongoing violence. They explore the concept of "social healing," a profoundly important intermediary step between active warfare and reconciliation. Social healing focuses on the lived experience of those who have suffered protracted violence and their need to give voice to that experience, both individually and collectively. Giving voice, speaking the unspeakable, in words and sounds that echo throughout traumatized communities, can have enormous healing power. Indeed, the Lederachs stress the remarkable effects of sound and vibration through tales of Tibetan singing bowls, Van Morrison's transcendent lyrics, the voices of mothers in West Africa, and their own personal journeys. And they include inspiring stories of transformation: a mass women's protest movement in Liberia that forces leaders to keep negotiating until a peace agreement is signed; elders in Somalia who walk between warring clans year after year to encourage dialogue; former child soldiers who run drum workshops and grow gardens in refugee camps; and rape victims in Sierra Leone who express their pain in poetry. With equal measures of insight and compassion, When Blood and Bones Cry Out offers a promising new approach to healing traumatized communities.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

282

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

019991222X

ISBN 13

9780199912223

Feel the Grass Grow

Ecologies of Slow Peace in Colombia

By: Angela Jill Lederach

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Feel the Grass Grow

Ecologies of Slow Peace in Colombia

By: Angela Jill Lederach

On November 24, 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia signed a revised peace accord that marked a political end to over a half-century of war. Feel the Grass Grow traces the far less visible aspects of moving from war to peace: the decades of campesino struggle to defend life, land, and territory prior to the national accord, as well as campesino social leaders' engagement with the challenges of the state's post-accord reconstruction efforts. In the words of the campesino organizers, "peace is not signed, peace is built." Drawing on nearly a decade of extensive ethnographic and participatory research, Angela Jill Lederach advances a theory of "slow peace." Slowing down does not negate the urgency that animates the defense of territory in the context of the interlocking processes of political and environmental violence that persist in post-accord Colombia. Instead, Lederach shows how the campesino call to "slowness" recenters grassroots practices of peace, grounded in multigenerational struggles for territorial liberation. In examining the various layers of meaning embedded within campesino theories of "the times (los tiempos)," this book directs analytic attention to the holistic understanding of peacebuilding found among campesino social leaders. Their experiences of peacebuilding shape an understanding of time as embodied, affective, and emplaced. The call to slow peace gives primacy to the everyday, where relationships are deepened, ancestral memories reclaimed, and ecologies regenerated.

Average ratings

N/A