Global Diplomacy Lab (GDL) members Banu Pekol and Julie August worked together for this Lab with the ESMA Memory Museum in Buenos Aires and the International Holocaust Remembrance Association to develop a training course for specialist audiences in societies traumatised by social conflict, war, dictatorship, colonialism, slavery, racism, as well as pandemics. The Urban Future Lab’s Dr. Antonio Petrov joined 11 other GDL participants for the Impact Lab, held in person with key diplomats, museum staff, and civil society workers from November 7 to 12, 2022 in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina.
(Photos of diplomacy up close: ESMA Memory Museum; Lab participants at the Argentine Foreign Office (Cancilleria) in Buenos Aires, November 2022)
After learning more from museum staff, descendants of victims and perpetrators during the military dictatorship as well as other local stakeholders, the members then set out to develop a memorial culture sensitivity training for diplomats. In addition, the idea for a memory charter to be co-signed by diplomats around the globe was born.
The Lab built on ideas from the GDL’s 7th Lab on “Memory, Truth and Justice Museums and Memory Sites as Spaces for Mass Atrocities Prevention”. After a preparatory phase starting in April 2022, an online Incubator Lab followed from June to October, 2022. During a series of online workshops, participants examined the scope of the topic and explored tools to analyse different practices and sites, and a training to be delivered in Argentina.
Read more about the Memory in Presence 2022 Lab, view a comprehensive report highlighting the results and outcomes of the Impact Lab in Argentina, see the list of GDL participants and photos from the trip.