Conflict transformation and peacebuilding practices among university students: an action research study
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0425-7201
The study aimed to analyze conflict transformation and peacebuilding practices among university students through an action research process focused on strengthening dialogue, coexistence, and
constructive management of differences. A qualitative, exploratory, and inductive study with a participatory and reflective orientation was conducted. Seven student leaders from the Law and Agroecological Engineering programs at Universidad de la Amazonia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, one focus group, four participatory workshops, and a final feedback meeting. The corpus was examined through inductive thematic analysis and triangulation across sources and stages of the research process. The findings showed that conflict was understood as an everyday and potentially formative experience, although its management was conditioned by emotions, trust, power relations, and institutional conditions. Students relied on diverse repertoires, including dialogue, avoidance, confrontation, and informal mediation, which were largely spontaneous and unevenly developed. The workshops encouraged reflection on these practices, experimentation with active listening, nonviolent communication, and mediation, and the collaborative construction of proposals addressed to students, faculty members, and the institution. The study concludes that peacebuilding in universities requires the articulation of personal capacities, relational practices, and institutional conditions that promote recognition, participation, and the constructive transformation of conflicts.
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