Son muy diversos los discursos que a diario oímos sobre la paz. La paz, como palabra y concepto no es un término neutro, ella surge de situaciones concretas de temor y angustia cuando vemos amenazada nuestra estabilidad y la convivencia humana. La paz ya no es entendida como ausencia de guerra o de violencia, ella adquiere un sentido más holístico, cuyo significado ha evolucionando hacia un carácter integrador de estado de bienestar y seguridad que involucra el respeto a los Derechos Humanos, la protección al medio ambiente y la satisfacción de la necesidades básicas en materia de alimentación, vivienda y salud.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

A multi-scale ethnography of government pedagogy in Colombia and its impact on peace. Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas sought to end fifty years of war and won President Juan Manuel Santos the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet Colombian society rejected it in a polarizing referendum, amid an emotive disinformation campaign. Gwen Burnyeat joined the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, the government institution responsible for peace negotiations, to observe and participate in an innovative “peace pedagogy” strategy to explain the agreement to Colombian society. Burnyeat’s multi-scale ethnography reveals the challenges government officials experienced communicating with skeptical audiences and translating the peace process for public opinion. She argues that the fatal flaw in the peace process lay in government-society relations, enmeshed in culturally liberal logics and shaped by the politics of international donors. The Face of Peace offers the Colombian case as a mirror to the global crisis of liberalism, shattering the fantasy of rationality that haunts liberal responses to “post-truth” politics.