Making Sense of War and Peace: From extreme distrust to institutional trust in Aceh, Indonesia

When people tell stories about their past experiences they often include descriptions which imply changes in trust repertoires over time, especially when the stories relate to serious life dramas like war and peace. A happy ending can make a past war appear meaningful. In this case study, retrospective narratives summarizing fifty years of history in Aceh, Indonesia, were analyzed using Fuglsang’s & Sommer’s framework (2013). The concept spiritual trust is introduced and the case study indicates that when neither institutions nor power is strong enough to support trusting, then trust in a divine power can provide an alternative framework for sensemaking and trusting. In Aceh, three decades of civil war ended with a peace process in 2005, and extreme distrust was then replaced by institutional trust. Insights from that process are of relevance for the study of trust-repair.