Conclusion

Abstract

This book opened with an acknowledgment of interethnic conflict as a worldwide phenomenon. It concludes with the realization that such conflict will remain a recurring theme in human and interethnic relations. Thus there is a strong need to configure an understanding of what this means for ethnic groups over time and how groups might survive conflict and begin to thrive again. As generations experience wounding for the first time and others relive historical violence through the prevailing narratives of their ancestors and elders, the enduring copresence of wounding and healing is ensured. Finding a way to survive and go on, a vital part of sustaining ethnic identities and their terms for belonging, can take up much of the life course for those who have suffered. It may also leave an indelible print on the lives of their descendants. Appreciating these experiences and the motivations that lie behind healing processes has been my primary aim as an anthropologist and ethnographer working with historically and structurally oppressed ethnic groups in Australia and Brazil.