Simona: construir paz significa cultivar, abonar y cosechar investigación-creación

Abstract

This Research-Creation project, entitled "Simona: Construir paz significa cultivar, abonar y cosechar" was developed as the thesis of the Master's Program in Childhood and Culture at the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas. The study addresses the need to introduce the Peace Agreement “Acuerdo Final para la Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera” (2016) to younger generations, recognizing the gap in pedagogical and literary material that present this historic document to children through accessible and aesthetic forms of expression. The main objective was to create an adaptation of the first chapter of the Peace Agreement (Reforma Rural Integral) by creating the Picturebook entitled Simona. In terms of methodological issues, this project was grounded in a Research-Creation Approach in which the Creation Labs were spaces for hermeneutic and aesthetic dimension of experimentation. Through these laboratories, the legal and technical language of the Peace Agreement was transformed into a narrative and poetical discourse that was drawn on Wittgenstein’s language games and Goffman concept of the presentation of the self in everyday life. The final outcome of this project was the Picturebook Simona, which tells the story of a young girl who, through symbolic objects -her grandmother’s rubber boots- connects with her family’s memory of forced displacement and their longing for return to their hometown. The results of the literary experience performed with children -boys and girls- at La Casa de la Paz, demonstrated that children’s literature serves as a powerful mediator to deal with complex social topics that leads children to acknowledge themselves as political and historical human beings who are capable of portray their own means and understandings on peace and reconciliation. The study concludes stating that peace is not merely an institutional agreement but a daily practice of care, recognition and collective responsibility that must be protected and reteled.