The international meeting “War memory and memories of war. How traumas of memory lead to new conflicts” took place at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, from 7 to 20 July, 2024. Organised in partnership with the Cultural ARCS Foundation (Bulgaria), the meeting brought to CES about 30 scholars, students, activists and representatives of civil society from Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

The meeting had three main goals: to share and examine the experiences of different countries and regions in reconciling war-torn societies; to offer training in gender approaches to peacebuilding, conflict resolution and peace dialogue; and to discuss national strategies of armed conflict commemoration and the role of civil society in overcoming post-war traumas.

For two weeks lecturers and participants examined politics of memory and practices of commemoration and remembrance of war and armed conflict and discussed how war traumas and conflicts of memory are leading to hostility, intolerance, political conflicts and renewed outbreaks of war. The group addressed questions such as: What do we remember, and what are we trying to forget at the level of national memory? How are national memory narratives created and how do they change over time? How do these processes affect national identities? How do they affect gender relations in post-conflict societies? How do they affect the development of civil society, women's organisations and gender studies? Can societies move into the future and modernise without rethinking and overcoming post-war traumas? How can civil society influence the formation of national collective memory? What kind of peace initiatives can prevent the increase of violence and the irruption of conflicts? How to work through feelings of guilt and collective responsibility?

The international meeting featured the seminars “Shadows of the Past. Lessons learnt from memories of war and dictatorship in Germany and their use in peace building processes” (Andrea Zemskov-Zuege and Valentina Cherevatenko), “Cultural representations of war trauma in social and personal life after the WWI” (Ingrid Sharp/ University of Leeds), “Colonial legacies and the memorialisation of (anti-)colonialism” (Fabrice Schurmans, Rita Santos and Teresa Almeida Cravo / CES, University of Coimbra), “How to break the cycle of violence?” (Tatiana Moura, Marta Mascarenhas and Júlia Garraio / CES, University of Coimbra) and “Transitional justice, reconciliation, forgiveness and gender” (Stefaan Jensen / University of Sarajevo). The last day of the meeting was dedicated to the round table “War memory and memories of war. How traumas of memory lead to new conflicts”. Participants presented and discussed their group insights on key questions of the international meeting’s agenda.

The organising committee included Nikolai Vukov, Olga Shnyrova, Júlia Garraio, Sofia José Santos, Tatiana Moura and Marta Mascarenhas. The meeting took place in collaboration with the research project UnCover – Sexual Violence in Portuguese Mediascape (https://doi.org/10.54499/2022.03964.PTDC) and the Observatory masculinidades.pt, both based at CES. It was funded by the Cultural ARCS Foundation (Bulgaria), Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung e.V. (Germany) and Soroptimist International (Germany).