ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter begins with a concise review of the foundational concepts in functional coexistence and the functional coexistence approach to conflict intervention and peacebuilding, as well as the research process and its key findings. It then highlights two additional themes that emerged from the collective learning process leading to this volume: functional coexistence as a strategy for negotiating what conflict parties consider existential and thus non-negotiable, and the need to find integrative ways of reconciling the tensions between process and outcome, as well as between continuous learning and program accountability—both essential for the functional coexistence approach. The chapter concludes by identifying areas for future research, including the critical and imaginative exploration of how decades-long conflict engagement in the coming years may depart from its current form, given the global multidimensional shifts in the underlying conditions of social conflict and functional coexistence.
