Conflict museums and nostalgia

I have a new article out "Conflict museums, nostalgia, and dreaming of never again" published in Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol 18(3), Aug 2012, 268-281.

The abstract reads as follows: Sites that mark atrocity span the globe including Villa Grimaldi in Chile, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in eastern China, and Robben Island in South Africa. Generally such sites seek to have some form of social and individual impact. Typically they seek to educate the next generation and prevent future forms of atrocity by revealing the past. It is contended that an overly emotional focus on the narratives of victims at such sites can limit understanding of the dynamics that cause violence. The article also explores whether there is a nostalgic element to conflict museums. Although it seems counterintuitive that nostalgia would have any place in thinking back on periods of extreme violence, it is argued that nostalgia is present in a number of ways. How this plays out in postapartheid South Africa is specifically explored. The article concludes by highlighting the dangers in South Africa of what can be termed a regenerative nostalgia for the “struggle” against apartheid and the perceived unifying peace process that followed.

For more details see click here.

My book launch in New York

My book launch in New York on 11 November 2009 went really well in New York. A "conversation" about the book with about 50 people. Also inputs from Graeme Simpson, Ruti Teitel, Alastair Ager. Chaired and organised by Jack Saul (thanks Jack). Great to also see some CSVR people.

New York Launch: Transforming Societies After Political Violence

My new book Transforming Societies After Political Violence will be launched in New York on 11 November 2009 at Columbia University. For details see Download invitation.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence

My book Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation and Mental Health, now published by Springer in New York.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence offers a template for those tasked with providing truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing. This interdisciplinary study identifies complex relationships between recovery from political violence and the psychological processes that accompany widespread social change, showing how these can be integrated to strengthen both individual and society. Author Brandon Hamber draws on his extensive experience in South Africa and comparative examples from elsewhere to examine the centrality of mental health issues in transitional justice, and the social, cultural, and identity issues involved in meeting the needs of victims. In discussing reparations (what the author terms "repairing the irreparable"), the power of ambivalence, and especially concepts of closure, he eloquently sets out professionals’ roles in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired in it. ISBN: 978-0-387-89426-3, Springer 2009

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Endorsements
How to victims heal? We should not be too quick to presume. Those seeking truth and justice often prioritize victims’ interests – but without always fully understanding what those interests and needs are, or how different victims may recover in very different ways. Based on fifteen years of working with and listening to victims and survivors, Brandon Hamber helps us better understand the mental health backdrop to atrocity and recovery. With plentiful, poignant stories, and clear policy recommendations, this book should help shape – and greatly improve – future endeavors to confront unimaginable memories and pain (Priscilla Hayner, International Centre for Transitional Justice and author of Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity)

Brandon Hamber nails this tricky subject with humility, insight, learned insight, and golden recommendations..... if you are interested in how humans try to grapple with the consequences of man’s brutality to man, and ultimately the truth, read it! (Thulani Grenville-Grey, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Mental Health Specialist)

Brandon Hamber's experience in multiple sites of transitional justice work, and his rare ability to bridge the academic and theoretical with the practical and logistical, ensures this publication is an extremely valuable contribution and a must read to those working in this fast evolving field (Piers Pigou, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigator and Director of the South African History Archive).

Brandon Hamber has written a challenging and good interdisciplinary book, which will not only be helpful to those dealing with mental health issues during transitions from conflict, but also to lawyers and those concerned with conflict resolution more generally (Christine Bell, Director, Institute of Transitonal Justice, University of Ulster)

How countries recover from political atrocity is a question that has confronted dozens of regimes around the world for decades. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an iconic symbol of what for some is a profound achievement in restructuring a “peaceful society.” In Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health Dr. Brandon Hamber applies his many years of experience both within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and beyond it to a careful analysis of the complex issues – legal, historical, social, psychological - embedded in such a process. It is his astute attention to these complexities that make his book so rich. Hamber says that “if the TRC process and working with the victims appearing before it taught me anything it was that the psychological life of the survivor of extreme violence is cut through by this complexity." His work is clear testimony to that statement Transforming Societies After Political Violence is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, scholars and policy makers. If you read one book about countries emerging from their violent pasts, it should be Dr. Brandon Hamber’s Transforming Societies After Political Violence. I will rely on this volume in my ongoing work and I predict it will become a definitive text in this area (Nina K. Thomas, Ph.D., ABPP, Chair, Specialization in Trauma and Disaster Studies; NYU Postdoctoral program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Chair, Relational Orientation; NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis)

Hamber brings an acute clinical sensibility and sophisticated research mind to a complex problem: state handling of reconciliation after a catastrophic upheaval. … his main focus in this book is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. … a must read for any psychologist working with trauma survivors, especially postconflict trauma survivors. It calls upon a rich literature–from psychoanalysis … to trial transcripts of commissions; it integrates all these sources to provide a truly unique contribution to the psychology of trauma." (Don Dutton, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 54 (47/3), November, 2009)

Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Paradise Lost or Pragmatism?

The recent journal of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 13(1) has just been published. It contains a number of articles on the theme of forgiveness. I wrote a commentary on the various pieces entitled Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Paradise Lost or Pragmatism?. Click here to download it.

Reconciliation: Time to Grasp the Nettle

In 2003-4, Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly carried out research motivated by the observation that reconciliation was ill-defined in Northern Ireland to the detriment of reconciliation practice. They revisited the issue for a recent report.

A NEW SET of challenges is now evident in 2007, and particularly whether the definition of reconciliation we posed in the earlier research is impacting on reconciliation practice.

Our research showed that while all respondents were open to having a frank discussion about reconciliation, most were vague on what the process entailed. This lack of clarity was interesting given that many of the interviewees worked in projects funded by the Peace and Reconciliation Programme or were involved with Intermediary Funding Bodies.

Reconciliation was perceived by many as an ‘imported’ term, viewed through the prism of the EU Peace Programme. Many struggled to relate the concept of reconciliation to their own practice and felt uncomfortable using the term to describe what they did or wanted to achieve. Although some viewed it as a ‘soft’ concept originating from a religious perspective, we were surprised to find that others were reluctant to use the term because they felt it had a ‘hard’ edge. Reconciliation implied a deep and challenging process that required a level of community integration which some felt the communities with which they worked were not prepared or willing to grasp.

One of the outputs of the research was a working definition of reconciliation. This was devised as a tool which would provide a focus for discussion, and to help identify the elements of reconciliation and frame the concept in a practically accessible way. The definition assumes that building peace requires attention to relationships. Reconciliation is thus understood as the process of addressing conflictual and fractured relationships. This means not only reconciling broken down relationship as the term confusingly implies, but building new relationships in some cases. It is a voluntary act that cannot be imposed, and it involves five interwoven strands:

• developing a shared vision of an interdependent and fair society;
• acknowledging and dealing with the past;
• building positive relationships;
• significant cultural and attitudinal change;
• substantial social, economic and political change (or equity).

Many in the community and voluntary sector will recognise this definition as an addition to the funding criteria for the PEACE II+ extension. We obviously welcome the more concrete definition being taken on board, but it also poses new challenges.

Firstly, the SEUPB adopted a simplified version of our working definition. Under the current arrangements, applicants have to argue how their project furthers reconciliation in relation to at least three of the strands which are scored. The risk of this approach is that a dynamic conceptualisation of reconciliation could become mechanised and compartmentalised, and another ‘tick-box exercise’. We envisaged the five strands of reconciliation as being deeply interdependent and any reconciliation process should consider how it furthers reconciliation holistically and not based on a selection of the strands.

Secondly, core to the definition is that the process of reconciliation, as John-Paul Lederach notes in his work, is deeply paradoxical. The strands of our working definition can themselves create tensions. For example, reconciliation requires dealing with the past but at the same time participation in developing a shared vision for the future. The process of reconciliation is concerned with not only how each individual strand is operationalised, but how they relate to one other.

Reconciliation is the process of addressing the five strands in a dynamic and interconnected way rather than simply defining the outcome of each. For instance, for communities at loggerheads, it may be difficult to share a common view of the future or past, or to reconcile all attitudes, causing continual ruptures and contradictions in the process of rebuilding or building relationships. The process of reconciliation is thus by its nature conflictual and always changing. It is measured not by a simple outcome such as communities meeting in the same room, but by the ability to deal with and manage the complex tensions of relationship building over time.

The question therefore is how the voluntary and community sector can find ways to embrace the paradoxical nature of reconciliation. Can models of reconciliation and community practice be operationalised in a way that recognised the complex nature of the reconciliation process, and accommodate this?

But does a society moving out of conflict and wanting to shape a shared future have a choice? In our view, relationships matter, whether between large groups (societies and countries), small groups (communities) or individuals. There continues to be an onus on both the voluntary and community sector and the influential funding bodies, such as the PEACE Programme, to clarify their understandings of what they wish to achieve and the process by which they aim to achieve it. This needs to move beyond a didactic cross-community model, to something infinitely more complex and substantially more challenging.

For a full explanation of the research see Hamber B and Kelly G (2005), A Place for Reconciliation? Conflict and Locality in Northern Ireland, Democratic Dialogue. 

Published by Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly in Scope - Social Affairs Magazine, February. NICVA: Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Reference

Hamber, B. & Kelly, G. (2007). Reconciliation: Time to graps the nettle. Scope - Social Affairs Magazine, February. NICVA: Belfast, Northern Ireland.

New Research: A Place for Reconciliation?

Grainne Kelly and Brandon Hamber, OPSI consultants, recently published a study on reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The report is entitled: A Place for Reconciliation? Conflict and Locality in Northern Ireland. The report includes a definition of reconciliation that has now been adopted by the EU PEACE II Programme and it explains the definition and the research that supports it in detail. The research for the report was conducted in three case-study areas in Northern Ireland, where interviews were conducted with elected representatives, council officials and NGO representatives. It found ambivalence among practitioners on the ground towards the communalist politics of the council chamber and, amid some confusion as to the meaning of reconciliation, a willingness to embrace the definition we developed.

 To download the report click here.

The Impact of Trauma: A psychosocial approach

I have been meaning to put this up for a while, it is a copy of the keynote address I gave to the “A Shared Practice - Victims Work in Action Conference”, 7-8 April 2004, Radisson Roe Park Hotel, in Limavady, Northern Ireland. To read the paper online, click here.

Washington and back, Trauma and Transitional Justice

The last two weeks have been crazy, and only now am I finding time to update the weblog. Since the last entry I have been to Washington and back, presenting at the Trauma and Transitional Justice in Divided Societies Conference hosted by the AAAS.  presented on the issue of memorials with a specific focus on Northern Ireland. I tried to fit the presentation into the framework I am developing regarding reparations for mass political violence. You can download the conference paper here. And now for some rest, well at least a bit...

Flying flags of fear

I have just made available a copy of one of my lastest papers, entitled "Flying flags of fear: The role of fear in the process of political transition", which I presented at a conference in Jordan recently. The paper begins..."As tension mounts during the build up to the Orange Marching season in the summer each year in Northern Ireland the streets of many of its cities and towns are festooned with flags. The proliferation of Union Jacks, Irish Tricolours, Ulster flags, and paramilitary flags that adorn the streets symbolise loyalty and are sectarian markers of territory. In July 2002, however, something unusual happened. As if from nowhere, Republicans started hoisting the Palestinian flag alongside their Irish Tricolours, and in neighbouring Loyalist areas the Israeli flag fluttered happily alongside the Union Jack and paramilitaries flags. It is difficult to analyse the reasons for this..." The essay posits some reasons for this by mainly focusing on the concept of ‘fear’, more...

Are lessons transferable?

I have just added a new paper to my site entitled: Are lessons transferable? The importance of research for policy on transitional justice mechanisms. I presented this paper at the "Empirical Research Methodologies of Transitional Justice Mechanisms Conference", 18-20 November 2002, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Download paper.

Recognition and Reckoning- The way ahead on victims issues

Book Launch
Recognition and Reckoning- The way ahead on victims issues
Democratic Dialogue, Report 15

How to address the needs of the victims of the conflict in and about Northern Ireland remains a question as salient today as when the ‘peace process’ began in the early 1990s. In April 2002, the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister launched a victim strategy, Reshape Rebuild Achieve. This aims to ‘deliver practical help and services’ to victims. Democratic Dialogue convened a round table in December 2002 to evaluate the progress of the strategy. A range of victim groups, statutory and voluntary agencies and experts in the field participated. Recognition and Reckoning consists of contributions from influential policy-makers, practioners and academics made at the round table. It is essential reading for anyone trying to fully understand the complexities of Northern Ireland’s past and dealing with the perplexing long-term issues at its core.At the press launch of Recognition and Reckoning contributors to the report will share their perspectives. Inputs from: Prof Roy McClelland, Chair Healing Through Remembering Project, and Alan McBride and Patricia MacBride, Victim Representatives on the Civic Forum.

Download Report

Date: 3 June 2003 Time: 12 noon Venue:Europa Hotel, Belfast
R.S.V.P Ellen Finlay Tel: 02890220050 Fax: 02890220051 Email: ellen@democracticdialogue.org