UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Language and Arts

This episode was recorded at the online Spring School 2025: The Arts of Integrating.

Abstract: This presentation explores how music-making can open spaces for reconciliation, dialogue, and relationship-building in post-conflict contexts. Based on qualitative research in Rwanda that took place earlier this year, it shows how music creates encounters – with others and with oneself – that nurture healing and reconciliation. Music’s unique ability to touch both individuals and communities enables a context-specific, holistic approach to peacebuilding that reflects complex local realities and individual experiences of conflict. This presentation is also an invitation to reflect on your own experiences: Have you experienced a musical moment that left a deep impression on you to this day?

Biography of the speaker:

Sophie Spickenbom recently completed the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s in Education Policies for Global Development (GLOBED), studying at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Glasgow. Her work centres on peace education, peacebuilding, and non-formal education, with a regional focus on East Africa. Inspired by an internship at the Goethe-Institut in Rwanda, she returned to Kigali to conduct her Master’s research with local music initiatives. Her study explored how music contributes to peace and reconciliation in the country, reflecting her broader interest in creative, context-sensitive approaches to education and social change.

For more information about the UNESCO RIELA Spring Schools, please click here.

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First published: 14 October 2026