AC4 Returns to the Basque Country

On February 1, AC4 Executive Co-Chair Dr. Peter T. Coleman and project coordinator Kristen Rucki traveled to Bilbao, Basque Country. There they initiated the ground-truthing and stakeholder engagement phase of AC4’s Sustainable Peace Mapping Initiative, and Dr. Coleman also gave a public presentation on the topic of sustainable peace.

Photo credit to the Agirre Lehendakaria Center

In a half-day workshop co-sponsored by the Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies (ALC) and EHU-Gune at the University of the Basque Country, Dr. Coleman and Ms. Rucki met with Basque academics and representatives from

the public sector and civil society to discuss sustainable peace in the Basque context. Through narrative-based discussion, workshop participants identified essential factors and processes related to sustainable peace in the context of the Basque Country. The AC4 team is currently working with the data from this workshop to generate a causal loop diagram of sustainable peace in the Basque Country. At a second workshop in June, they will present this diagram to participants for feedback, discussion, and comparison with AC4’s generalized causal-loop diagram of sustainable peace.

That evening, Dr. Coleman also spoke about the science of sustainable peace at a public talk organized as part of the ALC’s Open Akademia series. The presentation was held in the town of Sestao, Bizkaia, and was introduced by Lehendakari Juan Jose Ibarretxe, ALC Director and former Lehendakari (President) of the Basque Autonomous Community. Other speakers included Jonan Fernandez, the Basque Secretary General for Peace and Coexistence, and Amalio Garcia, a representative of Gogoan Sestao Elkartea, a Sestao-based organization focused on historical memory and justice.