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Commemoration as Symbolic Reparation: New Narratives or Spaces of Conflict?

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Abstract

This article examines the role of commemorative processes as a form of symbolic reparation and their potential use in deeply divided societies. After discussing definitions and contexts of symbolic reparation, it will then explore the tensions inherent in this process as it speedily encounters hybridisation, the construction of narratives of ethnic identity and the political contestation of memory in deeply divided societies. An overarching question will be how symbolic reparation might meaningfully allow for the seeding of human rights norms and values in divided societies, and thus aid the recasting of both inter-communal relations and engagement between citizen and state.

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Notes

  1. I use the term as shorthand for a variety of forms of social memory such as memorialisation, commemoration and acknowledgement

  2. Northern Ireland may provide an example of pragmatic ‘tribune’ politics slowly outpacing ethnic ‘outbidding’ (see Mitchell et al. (2009)). This may be crucial in terms of how memory is used.

  3. The International Center for Transitional Justice and the United States Institute for Peace have been at the vanguard of this.

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  1. School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy, University of Ulster, Jordanstown, UK

    Kris Brown

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Brown, K. Commemoration as Symbolic Reparation: New Narratives or Spaces of Conflict?. Hum Rights Rev 14, 273–289 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-013-0277-z

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