An Ecosystemic Approach to Facilitating Reconciliation: We Are All In This Together

Informed by the disciplines of Leadership Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies, the authors offer an ecosystemic understanding of the relationship between peace, protests, and sustainable reconciliation. While the recent Covid-19 pandemic has prompted multiple reassurances that ‘we are all in this together,’ this paper focuses on conditions that must be present and conditions that opposes the quest for reconciliation from that reassuring perspective. Polarization of dualistic thinking (who is right/wrong), attitudes of superiority, and being driven by ‘negative visions,’ the authors argue, deny efforts for sustainable reconciliation. Aimed at building trust, sustainable reconciliation depends on the willingness of all parties to construct four critical conditions: soulful engagement at intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cultural levels, increasing choices, purposeful dwelling, and deutero-learning