Forgiveness and Memory: Opportunities for Reconciliation. An Introduction

In this introduction, we argue for a basic idea. Community-based spaces for promoting forgiveness and memory-making bear the promise of promoting some of the cultural transformations needed for thick, structural reconciliation. As we show by discussing some recent examples taken from the Colombian context of the past decade, these spaces do not compete, but actually complement a pragmatic, thin institutional design for reconciliation. This idea, as we discuss here, serves as the common thread connecting the articles in this special issue. The texts reflect on the practice of forgiveness and some of its specific contours in the context of the Colombian conflict.