Active looking: images in peace mediation

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the potential contributions of visual images to international peace mediation. Inspired by the concept of active listening and narrative approaches to mediation, we advance the notion of active looking in peace mediation: a visual-discursive mediation practice that includes images as a mode of expression and contribution to meaning-making processes, capitalising on specific characteristics of images, especially as regards their relationship to verbal language, which we explore in terms of ineffability, approximation, elusiveness, and commonalities. We propose active looking as both an approach to conflict mediation and a mediation skill derived from an understanding of conflict transformation that – instead of aiming at problem-solving based on sameness – appreciates openness, difference, and ambiguity. Ideally, through image-generated evolution, re-complexification, and re-authoring of narratives, the conflict parties, by means of active looking skills embodied in and promoted by the mediator, move closer to a conflict’s transformation.