Can We Empathize with the Narrative of Our Enemy? A Personal Odyssey in Studying Peace Education

The reader is taken on a journey spanning some 30 years devoted to the author's involvement in practicing, teaching and studying peace education. The core concept in this journey is active "bystandership," which implies the capacity to disengage from our ethnocentric narratives and perceptions and to face the emotional challenges of acknowledging narratives that contradict our collective assumptions about the conflict and accept the moral obligation to address our contribution to violence. The author describes her non-professional as well as her professional activity in academia of participating, initiating, teaching and facilitating peace education projects. She describes inter and intra-group encounters and attempts to identify the limitations and opportunities of each type. Finally, some research methods and results of recent studies in peace education, especially regarding perceptions of collective narratives, are presented and discussed.