MHCR combines reconciliation research and practice with peace education at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.
OUR MISSION
MHCR aims to bring scholars and practitioners of reconciliation together to both research reconciliation practices and develop the impact of ongoing and future reconciliation processes.
MHCR gives special focus to supporting and enabling grassroots communities within conflict zones, connecting them with national and international efforts.
Specifically, MHCR studies and promotes insider reconciliation facilitated by locals who are able to adapt reconciliation techniques to the region’s cultural context, and utilize their status as trusted members of the local community to create an environment of mutual trust and understanding.
Together, we hope to lead collaborations of research and practice that will enable transformative reconciliation around the world.
AREAS OF FOCUS
• Research reconciliation processes and actors using participatory and evidence-based methods.
• Train insider reconcilers, peacebuilding organizations, and the next generation of reconciliation practitioners.
• Facilitate ongoing reconciliation processes, bringing together practitioners, scholars, and policy-makers.
• Support grassroots communities as they lead reconciliation during and after violence has occurred.
• Mentor students to become our field’s future leading scholars and practitioners in reconciliation.
Our Story
In the fall of 2019, MHCR was founded in response to our founding Executive Director’s, GMU Research Professor Antti Pentikäinen, years of experience within UN-led international peacemaking efforts. Through his work, Antti realized these drawn-out processes rarely accounted for the urgency of the pain, trauma, and division caused by these conflicts. While local leaders often have the most nuanced understanding of violent conflicts’ roots and possible solutions, these leaders are rarely engaged in reconciliation processes. International peacebuilding actors frequently overlooked local leaders’ expertise and trusted position within the community.
Searching for a way to better learn from and engage with local insider reconcilers, Antti began collaborating with reconciliation practitioners and scholars. Inspired by Antti’s work and the memory of his late wife Mary’s legacy of reconciliation in their local community, Jim Hoch worked with Antti and other practitioners to found an academic Center focused on researching with and supporting local reconcilers.
There is a unique healing power in the human mind that’s been elaborated by local and faith traditions, and state-level reconciliation actors often ignore this power.
— Antti Pentikäinen, MHCR Executive Director
For MHCR’s future home, Hoch and Pentikäinen settled on the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, the world's oldest and largest school for conflict resolution. A short history of the Carter School’s legacy of leadership can be found here.
The reconciliation center was named after Jim’s late wife, Mary Hoch, as a token of her legacy of lifelong local community building and reconciliation and a testament to the necessity of women’s involvement in successful reconciliation processes. At MHCR, students, professors, and practitioners converge to research reconciliation, engage with ongoing insider reconciliation processes, and train reconcilers globally.
In the years since our founding, MHCR has organically developed strong commitments to:
Student Leadership. GMU student-employees, from the Carter School and beyond, are guided by Professor Pentikäinen in making executive-level decisions about MHCR’s structure, functioning, and areas of impact in the peace and conflict resolution field. To date, MHCR is the only academic center in the world that offers students this level of decision-making.
Wellbeing Promotion. MHCR student-employees, affiliates, and staff center wellbeing throughout all of MHCR’s work: From ‘wellbeing check-ins’ on our weekly staff calls to including wellbeing metrics in our programmatic monitoring and evaluation plans, and researching the impact of peacebuilding work on health and wellbeing.
Community-Based / Participatory Action Research. Each of MHCR’s former and current research projects is designed with direct input by members of the communities we seek to serve. We believe in the transformative power of conducting ethical research with (rather than on) historically underserved communities for the endgame of liberation.
Professional Development. Each semester, MHCR student-employees engage in activities to prepare them for the next stage in their career. This includes regular meetings with GMU’s University Career Services; resume, CV, and cover letter workshops; strengths-assessments; and individualized mentoring and feedback to become tomorrow’s leaders of peacebuilding and reconciliation.