How do people build bridges across political divides? This project follows bridgebuilders in Colombia and Britain, with a focus on the role of stories and storytelling in fostering empathy across difference.

In 2016, Colombia held a referendum on a peace accord and Britain on Brexit. Both left enduring identity divides that intersect with long-standing social and political cleavages, and fuelled widespread narratives about each society being more divided than ever. Stories of Divided Politics is a major ethnographic study of the individuals and organisations in both countries who build bridges across political divides. The project brings together perspectives on peacebuilding and (de-)polarisation to develop a theory of bridgebuilding as a relational infrastructure that sustains coexistence amid disagreement and friction.

Stories of Divided Politics is based on long-term fieldwork with bridgebuilding practitioners: the people and organisations who work in different ways across complex political divisions. It documents and analyses this filigree relationship-building work, which is often emotionally taxing and receives little public recognition. The project also co-convenes dialogues and workshops with practitioners, co-constructing findings and analyses with them, and in subsequent stages will develop a network of bridgebuilders who can share knowledge and learn from each other.

Calls for more dialogue and bridgebuilding are everywhere, but bridgebuilding remains a concept used mainly in practitioner circles, and it is underdeveloped academically. The project draws on the empirical experience of the practitioners who actually do this work and identifies lessons learned across two very different contexts. Colombia is usually studied alongside other conflict contexts; studying it with Britain, a country not at war but widely seen as increasingly divided, cuts across north/south and conflict/non-conflict silos and brings global South frameworks to bear on the global North. The project aims to inform global debates and policy responses to polarisation, offering good practice recommendations on dialogue facilitation and working with polarised groups.

Stories of Divided Politics was selected as a European Research Council Starting Grant (2023) and is guarantee-funded by UKRI. It began at the University of Edinburgh in February 2024 and transferred to ODID in October 2026. In Colombia, the project works in close partnership with peacebuilding organisation Rodeemos el Diálogo (Embrace Dialogue), experienced dialogue facilitators who collaborate on fieldwork, impact and engagement.