The Legacy Project
Preserving and Engaging the Digital Archive of the Colombian Truth Commission
Download the full brochure here >>
The Legacy Project at the University of Notre Dame shares with the world a myriad of narratives and memories compiled by the Colombian Truth Commission about the country’s 52-year armed conflict to advance transitional justice, human rights and the centrality of victims.
The Legacy Project celebrates the Truth Commission’s inspiring research efforts, making its archives available for study and creative practice in order to shape peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts around the world.
The Legacy Project guarantees continued access to researchers, educators, scholars, policymakers, peacebuilders, artists and creators, to the vast collection of more than 200,000 files including audiovisual, non-textual knowledge and digitized documents about the Colombian civil war and peace process collected under the mandate of the Truth Commission. The transmedia archive comprises the narratives and voices across classes, territories, ethnicities, races and genders of the victims and witnesses of the armed conflict as well as those responsible for it.
Truth commissions play a critical role in transitional justice and reconciliation, focusing on the past to investigate patterns of victims of armed conflict. The Colombian Truth Commission is an exemplar of best practices of inquiry and recommendations for non-repetition, paving the way for reconciliation and peacebuilding. The Legacy Project celebrates these research efforts by making the resulting archives globally available for study and creative practice with the hope of informing peacemaking and policies around the world.
The Colombian Truth Commission
As outlined in the Colombian Final Accord, signed in 2016 by the Colombian government and the former FARC-EP guerrillas, the Truth Commission sought to clarify the patterns, causes and explanations of the armed conflict in light of the rights of victims, society and the world the right of victims, society, and the world to know the truth. Its work promoted recognition of the events of the armed conflict, as well as peaceful coexistence across the country’s territories, and contributed to laying the foundations for non-repetition, through a process of broad and inclusive participation in the building of a stable and lasting peace.
In August 2022, the Truth Commission fulfilled its mandate, which culminated in a trove of audiovisual and textual narratives drawn from Colombian society and a report poised to guide the national and international agenda to consolidate peace. The work of the Truth Commission focused broadly on the events of the armed conflict and the violence that affected Colombian society: women and children, ethnic and cultural groups and vulnerable persons such as elderly and differently-abled persons. Today, efforts to address issues of social justice, environmental conservation and security follow the Truth Commission’s example in recognizing the centrality of victims.
With the Legacy Project, the University of Notre Dame advances a commitment to Integral Human Development after conflict and contributes to lessons about peace processes, reconciliation, clarification and preservation of the truth.
View the Colombian Truth Commission's Spanish archive >>>
Collaborators
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
The University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, is one of the world's leading centers for the study of the causes of violent conflict and strategies for sustainable peace. Kroc Institute faculty, fellows, and students conduct interdisciplinary research on a wide range of topics related to peace and social justice.
Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society
The Lucy Family Institute enables positive impact on society and individual lives through innovative domain-informed and data-driven methods and applications. It brings to the University of Notre Dame expertise in data science, AI, data engineering, computing, applications, and methods. The Institute also brings forth core societal expertise in areas of human and global development, poverty, peace accords, and ethics studies.
Clingen Family Center for the Study of Modern Ireland
The Clingen Family Center expands the study of Ireland and its place in the modern world. It supports faculty at Notre Dame, faculty exchanges, postdoctoral and graduate fellowships, and student summer internships in Ireland and advances global peacebuilding by sharing lessons learned from Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement.
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
The Kellogg Institute for International Studies brings the best of interdisciplinary inquiry to bear on research themes relevant to contemporary societies around the world, especially democracy and human development. It is a constitutive unit of the Donald R. Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
With support from Humanity United and Notre Dame Research.
Opportunities
Kellogg Institute's Legacy Project Internal Grants
The Kellogg Institute's Legacy Project Internal Grants aim to support Notre Dame faculty, researchers and graduate students with grants of up to $2,500, that use, and intend to maximize, the transmedia files of the Colombian Truth Commission towards peace, conflict, and democracy research at the University of Notre Dame.
This grant is made possible by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Kellogg Institute's Legacy Project External Grants
The Kellogg Institute's Legacy Project External Grants aim to bring outstanding scholar-practitioners focused on maximizing the potential of the transmedia files of the Colombian Truth Commission towards peace, conflict, and democracy research to the University of Notre Dame.
This grant is made possible by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Clingen Family Center's Legacy Project Grant
The Clingen Family Center's Legacy Project Grants is a short-term, residential research grant of $5,000 to support use of the Legacy Project archive. Applications are open to scholars who are either based in the UK or Ireland and interested in utilizing the transmedia files of the Colombian Truth Commission to support research in peace studies, transitional justice, trauma, conflict, or similar research agendas, or based anywhere in the world and interested in using the archive for research relating specifically to the topic of Ireland and Colombia.
This grant is made possible by the Clingen Family Center for the Study of Modern Ireland.
Launch Event
Contact
Questions about the Legacy Project can be directed to Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, 574) 631-8536, jechavar@nd.edu