In October last year, we invited ten experts from multiple disciplines to Tilburg University for a one-day discussion on our research project. With their expertise ranging from intergroup relations, (group-based) emotions, reconciliation, and transitional justice to e-humanities and cross-cultural research, the experts travelled from the Netherlands, the U.K., Germany, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to reflect with us on some key conceptual and methodological challenges within the project.
Throughout the day, the different sessions led to fruitful debates regarding definitional issues (e.g., when is an apology considered to be ‘political’?), methodological issues (e.g., what is the best way to measure collective responsibility?), and theoretical insights (e.g., are honor, face, and dignity useful concepts within our research?). During these discussions, we explored different approaches to deal with these challenges.
Reactions during and after the day were very positive. We thank all experts for their valued and useful insights and we look forward to continuing to build a network of experts in this field.