mesoamerica

Starting in the 1980s, John Paul participated through the outreach program of Semilla (whose headquarters were based in Guatemala City), a popular education and extension program that worked primarily with grassroots and church-related leadership. This program was offered to all of the countries of Central America from Panama to Mexico. Semilla also developed a publishing arm that produced a number of his books and essays from this time period. Wendy and John Paul lived in Costa Rica during a significant portion of this period. The primary fieldwork for his dissertation emerged from his experience with local community understandings of conflict and its transformation, particularly in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. His most extensive direct work became the support for the conciliation and peace process in Nicaragua that led up and through the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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Getting to the Table: A Conciliation Exercise

An exercise simulating pre-negotiations, placing emphasis on the difficulties of getting people to the table, and is a fictionalization of the East Coast/Sandinista negotiations of the 1980s.

1997

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Transformation from Within: Peacemaking in the East Coast of Nicaragua

An unpublished commissioned paper looking at the conflict in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast from the viewpoint of indigenous peacemakers.

1989

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YATAMA-Sandinista Mediation: Twelve Things I Have Learned

Twelve reflections gathered through the experience of mediating between YATAMA and the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

1988

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“Yes, But Are They Talking?”: Some Thoughts on the Trainer as Student

Reflections emergent from cross-cultural conflict and mediation training in Latin America.

1987

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10 Lessons Learned Wandering in Peacebuilding

A top ten list of things that the international arena, especially the many settings of struggling with protracted and violent conflict, has taught John Paul about life and the vocation of peacebuilding.

2006

paper

Third Party Intervention in Nicaragua

A conference paper analyzing models forms of third party intervention undertaken in Nicaragua, advocating for an expansion of the third party concept then guiding peace research and peacemaking practice.

1989

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Truth and Mercy, Justice and Peace

An excerpt from the book Building Peace about the emergence of understanding reconciliation as a focus and a locus in the transformation of conflict.

2000