Julia Köbrich

This mixed methods paper developed and tested hypotheses on changeable determinants of contact preferences informed by data from Togo and Sierra Leone. Inclusive ideas and knowledge of outgroup practices were associated with weaker, and exclusive ideas with stronger, preferences for similar others.

Many studies investigated relations between intergroup contact and intergroup attitudes. Yet, additive and multiplicative effects of contact are less researched. We explored the additive effects of four types of indirect contact and whether effects of indirect contact are affected by direct contact.

The project „Religion for Peace: Identifying Conditions and Mechanisms of Interfaith Peace“ explored ways to build and maintain peace between different religious groups. This illustrated summary presents key findings and highlights what we learned about interreligious peace, challenges involved, and ideas about what can be done to put interreligious peace together.

The success of interreligious peace hinges on the concept of peace. By adopting an expanded concept of peace, we can apply it to interreligious relations. Our approach defines four elements of interreligious peace from the dimensions of negative and positive peace, as well as behavior and attitude.

Organiser: German Institute for Global and Area Studies Julia Köbrich (Speaker)

Declining interreligious peace and rising religiously motivated violence make it important to find ways to foster interreligious peace. Theoretical discussions suggest that construals of intergroup relations, that are people’s understanding of the status of intergroup relations, can sustain both violence and peace. Hence, research on peacebuilding should study construals of intergroup relations.

Ausstellungseröffnung 'Sharing Stories' IMBA Galerie, IMBA-Galerie, Hamburg Julia Köbrich (Consultant)

Religion seems to both unite and divide people: There is an increase in religiously motivated discrimination and violence. Nevertheless, in many places, people of different religions live together peacefully. The lecture focused on Togo and Sierra Leone as positive examples of interreligious tolerance and peace, and posed the question of how peaceful coexistence of religions can be achieved.