Challenges of Intergenerational Healing after Mass Atrocity

We have just a new piece published in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. 

Hamber, Brandon and Palmary, Ingrid (2021). A Dance of Shadows and Fires: Conceptual and Practical Challenges of Intergenerational Healing after Mass Atrocity. Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 15 (3), 100-120 [Download].

Abstract

The legacy of mass atrocity – including colonialism, slavery or specific manifestations such as apartheid – continue long after their demise. Applying a temporal inter-generational lens adds complications. We argue that mass atrocity creates for subsequent generations a deep psychological rupture akin to witnessing past atrocities. This creates a moral liability in the present. Healing is a process dependent on the authenticity (evident in discourse and action) with which we address contemporary problems. A further overriding task is to open social and political space for divergent voices. Acknowledgement of mass atrocity requires more than one-off events or institutional responses (the grand apology, the truth commission). Rather acknowledgement has to become a lived social, cultural and political reality. Without this acknowledgement, healing, either collectively or individually, is stymied. Healing after mass atrocity is as much about political action (addressing inequalities and racism) as an act of re-imaging created through constant and contested re-writing. 

 [Download]

Documentation, Human Rights and Transitional Justice

Special Issue of Human Rights Practice (2016, 8, 1) now out focusing on "Documentation, Human Rights and Transitional Justice".

Edited by Elisabeth Baumgartner (swisspeace), Brandon Hamber (INCORE), Briony Jones (swisspeace), Gráinne Kelly (INCORE), and Ingrid Oliveira (swisspeace).

The Special Edition can be viewed here:

Articles

• Documentation, Human Rights and Transitional Justice by Elisabeth Baumgartner, Brandon Hamber, Briony Jones, Gráinne Kelly, and Ingrid Oliveira

• Truth Commission Archives as ‘New Democratic Spaces’ by Briony Jones and Ingrid Oliveira

• Practice, Power and Inertia: Personal Narrative, Archives and Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland by Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly (email for a copy)

• The Archive as Confessional: The Role of Video Testimony in Understanding and Remorse by Juliet Brough Rogers

• Arrested Truth: Transitional Justice and the Politics of Remembrance in Kosovo by Gëzim Visoka

• Truth, Evidence, Truth: The Deployment of Testimony, Archives and Technical Data in Domestic Human Rights Trials by Daniela Accatino and Cath Collins

• Tensions in UN Information Management: Security, Data and Human Rights Monitoring in Darfur, Sudan by Róisín Read

Policy and Practice Note

• Official Victims’ Registries: A Tool for the Recognition of Human Rights Violations by Jairo Rivas

Contribute to Conflict Trends

The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) is presently soliciting contributions for Conflict Trends 2008, Issue 1. This General Issue will cover a range of topics related to Africa (conflict, conflict resolution, peace, security and development, politics, specific regional and/or country case-studies/analyses etc). It is a more open-ended Issue and contributors are encouraged to submit articles on any topics of interest.Articles must be 2500-3000 words in length, and the deadline for the submission of the complete article is 15 February 2008.Should you wish to submit an article for publication consideration in this issue please refer to the Guidelines for Contributors on their website.

International Journal of Transitional Justice

Call for Papers – Submission Deadline – February 1, 2007

The International Journal of Transitional Justice is now accepting submissions for its second issue to be published July 2007.

For further information see the journal’s website www.ijtj.oxfordjournals.org or contact the editorial team directly at ijtj@csvr.org.za.

About the International Journal of Transitional Justice

The International Journal of Transitional Justice is a forthcoming Oxford University Press journal which will be launched in March 2007. It is intended to provide an analytical bridge between intellectual and practitioner, and facilitate sustained interaction across the range of disciplines encompassed by the topic of transitional justice.

IJTJ publishes high quality, refereed articles in the rapidly evolving field of transitional justice; that is the study of those strategies employed by states, civil society bodies and international institutions to deal with a legacy of human rights abuses and to effect social reconstruction in the wake of widespread violence.

The journal is envisioned as a central site from which to house and build upon the array of research and writing currently available in this field. The journal encourages analysis and study of current and innovative approaches to transitional justice and welcomes papers that explore such questions as the appropriateness of the reconciliation paradigm for transitional justice, the relationship of truth-seeking and legal justice to reconciliation, the choices and timing of transitional justice mechanisms and methods to evaluate their success. Topics covered will include (but are not limited to): truth commissions, universal jurisdiction, post-conflict social reconstruction, victim and perpetrator studies, international and domestic prosecutions, institutional transformation, vetting, memorialization, reparations and ex-combatant reintegration.

South based submissions are particularly encouraged as are practitioner pieces. In addition to traditional length articles, the journal will feature shorter pieces in the ‘Notes from the Field’ section. This section will house new research from the field, reflections from practice, responses to previous articles, and discussion pieces.

IJTJ is housed at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Johannesburg, South Africa in partnership with the Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley. It will be published three times a year and will target an international readership including academics, research institutions, national and international policy makers, development professionals and civil society practitioners.

Directory of Open Access Journals

The Directory of Open Access Journals service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 1366 journals in the directory. Currently 334 journals are searchable on article level. As of today 61433 articles are included in the DOAJ service. Visit the site at: http://www.doaj.org/