Teaching about/for ambivalent forgiveness in troubled societies

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that it would be valuable to look into less paradigmatic manifestations of forgiveness in schools, that is, pedagogical approaches that acknowledge the complexity of forgiveness in socio-political contexts – namely, how forgiveness might be ambivalent, intermingled with both positive and negative emotions, and concerned with the standpoints of both the victim who offers forgiveness and the perpetrator who seeks forgiveness. The meaning and value of ambivalent forgiveness is presented through an extended reflection on a vignette from the author's ethnographic research on forgiveness in a troubled society – his home country, Cyprus. The vignette will highlight the complexity of forgiveness and provide a specific instance where traditional models of interpersonal forgiveness may fail or, at the very least, need to be expanded to account for the socio-political or inter-group dynamics. This article ends with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of the notion of ambivalent forgiveness for troubled societies.