Restorative justice and aesthetic litigation in Colombia: an a/r/tographic investigation whit victims and offenders

Abstract

In the context of the Peace Agreement (2016), the Colombian State promotes restorative justice; the purpose of this is to restore the dignity of victims of the armed conflict with the participation of the perpetrators (offenders). Due to the institutional limitations to fulfill this purpose, aesthetic litigation emerged. This includes artistic practices and cultural heritage of communities affected by the war that contribute to the symbolic reparation of the aggrieved. The objective of this research was to understand the experiences of symbolic reparation of a group of victims and offenders when participating in a diploma course on peace and territory, mediated by artistic practices that coincided with the criteria of aesthetic litigation. The methodology was guided by a/r/tography, a modality of Arts-Based Research that articulates artistic, educational-pedagogical and research purposes. The first result shows the symbolic-restorative potential of art and cultural heritage for the construction of the signifier; this, through metaphor and metonymy, contributes to the elaboration of grief and the activation of speech in the victims. The second reveals the existence of three phases of aesthetic litigation as an approach to the distribution of the sensible between victims and offenders: coping, redignification and reconciliation.