More specifically, it is a process of creating "normal" and if possible "good" relationships between the parties in response to grave incidents such as wars, civil conflicts, genocides, atrocities, forced displacement, enslavement, dictatorship, oppression, colonialism, Apartheid, and other human rights violations and injustices.
[1] In these situations of massive violations of human rights, reconciliation means creating a time and place to address past suffering, integrate, embrace, and share a common future.
[3] Reconciliation mainly focuses on building or rebuilding relationships and dealing with the past, present and future and is an essential part of Peacebuilding by addressing the root causes of conflict and improving intergroup relations.
The definition of reconciliation encompasses a variety of perspectives, open to wide applications and sometimes overlapping interpretations, depending on the actor employing the term.
Reconciliation also goes beyond the personal encounter between victims and perpetrators; it also involves changing structural violence such as poverty, discrimination, and exclusion, and promoting mutual respect based on justice to heal deep-rooted hatred and hostility toward each other.
In contrast, the maximal and thick reconciliation approach would require individual as well as social transformation, encompassing acknowledgment of past wrongdoings, mutual acceptance, a shared future and even forgiveness.
Rather, it involves justice, historical awareness of what the victims have experienced, reparation, psychological healing, punishment of the perpetrators and moral rectitude and many other practices.