Suchergebnisse

The construction of enemies in discourse and language has been subject of a number of post-positivist studies in International Relations in recent years. This article seeks to move the debate one step further by asking how conflicts are unmade discursively. To this end it draws on the notion of hermeneutics to conceptualise the processes of post-conflict transition. Hermeneutics translates `interpretation' or `understanding' and, in the tradition of the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, depicts how identities are constituted in a circular process between past, present and future as well as the experience of otherness. Its focus on memory and remembering enables us to understand how societies change in the encounter with another, such as an adversary. Moreover, as central to the debates about hermeneutics, it alerts us to potential risks of postconflict transitions such as introducing a sense of closure which might provoke new conflicts. Based on these ideas, the article concludes with more practical research questions for assessing the transition from conflict to peace.

Against the backdrop of a growing interest in consolidating peace establishing the truth about war crimes & prosecuting the offenders has recently gained in prominence. The paper asks what role truth & justice play in war-torn societies & if & how they contribute to the consolidation of peace. To illustrate the argument, it draws on the indigenous village tribunals gacaca in Rwanda, which attempt to contribute to justice & reconciliation through revealing the truth about the 1994 genocide. Based on an extended interpretation of the notion of truth, the article offers a rather pessimistic assessment & argues that their peace consolidating potential depends on what kind of truth & justice are elicited. References. Adapted from the source document.

"Im Rahmen der wachsenden Bedeutung von Friedenskonsolidierung haben in den vergangenen Jahren auch Wahrheitsfindung und Rechtssprechung über Kriegsverbrechen an Gewicht gewonnen. Der Beitrag fragt, welche Rolle Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit in Nachkriegsgesellschaften spielen und ob und inwieweit sie einen prekären Frieden zwischen den Konfliktparteien konsolidieren, gar zu deren Aussöhnung beitragen können. Zur Illustration bezieht sich der Artikel auf die indigenen Dorftribunale Gacaca in Ruanda, mit deren Hilfe die Völkermordvergehen von 1994 geahndet werden sollen. Der Text geht diesem Ziel nach und resümiert - basierend auf einem erweiterten Wahrheitsbegriff - den bisherigen Verlauf der Gacacas. Dies führt zu einer eher pessimistischen Einschätzung und dem Fazit, dass die friedenskonsolidierende Wirkung davon abhängt, welche Art von Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit hervorgebracht werden." (Autorenreferat)

Providing nuanced accounts of how the social identities of men and women, the context of displacement and the experience or manifestation of violence interact, this collection offers conceptual analyses and in-depth case studies to illustrate how gender relations are affected by displacement, encampment and return. The essays show how these factors lead to various forms of direct, indirect and structural violence. This ranges from discussions of norms reflected in policy documents and practise, the relationship between relief structures and living conditions in camps, to forced military recruitment and forced return, and covers countries in Africa, Asia and Europe.

"As the most comprehensive edited volume to be published on perpetrators and perpetration of mass violence, the volume sets a new agenda for perpetrator research by bringing together contributions from such diverse disciplines as political science, sociology, social psychology, history, anthropology and gender studies, allowing for a truly interdisciplinary discussion of the phenomenon of perpetration. The cross-case nature of the volume allows the reader to see patterns across case studies, bringing findings from inter alia the Holocaust, the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the civil wars in Cambodia and Côte d'Ivoire into conversation with each other. The chapters of this volume are united by a common research interest in understanding what constitutes perpetrators as actors, what motivates them, and how dynamics behind perpetration unfold. Their attention to the interactions between disciplines and cases allows for the insights to be transported into more abstract ideas on perpetration in general. Amongst other aspects, they indicate that instead of being an extraordinary act, perpetration is often ordinary, that it is crucial to studying perpetrators and perpetration not from looking at the perpetrators as actors but by focusing on their deeds, and that there is a utility of ideologies in explaining perpetration, when we differentiate them more carefully and view them in a more nuanced light. This volume will be vital reading for students and scholars of genocide studies, human rights, conflict studies and international relations"--The publisher

There has been no sustained inquiry into the relationship linking peace and conflict with space and place. This innovative edited volume explores conflict and peace through spatial approaches, and proposes a new research agenda investigating where peace and conflict take place. All chapters employ space as an analytic category and develop strong theoretical contributions alongside new empirical insights. From battlefields to memorials, places of encounter shape how agents relate to each other and how their actions are enabled or constrained. Moreover, spaces such as the international peacekeepers camps or sites of atrocity would not exist if it were not for the conflict. Drawing on concepts such as spatial governmentality, scalar politics, relational spatial theory and spatial narratives the authors investigate case studies reaching from divided cities such as Belfast, Dili and Jerusalem, via rape camps and karaoke bars, to war-torn countries

Over the past decades, the practise of and research on transitional justice have expanded to preserving memory in the form of memorials. Memorials often employ a common architectural language and a set of political and ethical claims dictate the effect memory can or should have after large-scale violence: providing public sites of commemoration and mourning, putting past wrongs right, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victims-survivors and contributing to reconciliation. Yet what are the general roles of memorials in transitions to justice? Who uses or opposes memorials, and to which ends? How - and what - do memorials communicate both explicitly and implicitly to the public? What is their architectural language? Questions such as these have long been pursued within the growing field of memory studies and provide valuable insights for researchers in transitional justice who mostly focus on the role of memorials as a mechanism to further some form of justice after the experience of violence. The goal of this volume is therefore to situate the analysis of transitional justice within memory studies' broader critical understanding of the socio-political, aesthetic and ethical concerns underlying these memorial projects. It combines the two by providing a transnational selection of single case-studies that emphasise the global dimension of memory culture while couching it in current debates in the field of transitional justice. About the book 'The collection has been well-selected to bring together a variety of perspectives on memorialisation practices and outcomes. [The] content makes a valuable and overdue contribution, bringing together two fields that have developed in parallel and with a lot to contribute to one another.' Alison Atkinson-¬‐Phillips in Dialogues on Historical Justice and Memory (2014). 'Memorials in Times of Transition represents an important and timely contribution to an emerging field of research [...] This important volume is a significant step towards understanding the drive towards memorialization in diverse post-conflict contexts, the political impact of memorials and how memorialization intersects with other efforts towards coming to terms with difficult pasts.' Sara Jones in Testimony (2015)