Individuals can assume—and be assigned—multiple roles throughout a conflict: perpetrators can be victims, and vice versa; heroes can be reassessed as complicit and compromised. However, accepting this more accurate representation of the narrativized identities of violence presents a conundrum for accountability and justice mechanisms premised on clear roles. This book considers these complex, sometimes overlapping roles, as people respond to mass violence in various contexts, from international tribunals to NGO-based social movements. Bringing the literature on perpetration in conversation with the more recent field of victim studies, it suggests a new, more effective, and reflexive approach to engagement in post-conflict contexts. Long-term positive peace requires understanding the narrative dynamics within and between groups, demonstrating that the blurring of victim-perpetrator boundaries, and acknowledging their overlapping roles, is a crucial part of peacebuilding processes.
Author(s): Sarah Federman, Ronald Niezen
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF | Full TOC
Pages: 376
Tags: Mass Murder; Massacres; Murder Victims’ Families; Violence–Social Aspects; Law; Human Rights; Humanitarian Law
Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Narrative in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity
I.1 Conflict Narratives
I.2 Post-conflict Narrative Landscapes
I.3 Victims
I.4 Perpetrators
I.5 Heroes
I.6 Digital Inhumanities
I.7 Toward a New Narrative Ecology
I.8 Contributions
References
1 Guilt, Responsibility, and the Limits of Identity
1.1 Guilt and Responsibility: Distinctions
1.2 Hard-won Identities and the Moral Power of Victimhood: Limits
1.3 Responsibility and Reconciliation
References
2 Victim, Perpetrator, Hero: The French National Railways' Idealized War Identities
2.1 Post-conflict Narrative Landscapes
2.2 Case Study: The French National Railways
2.3 Narrative Dynamics: French National Railways Debates
2.3.1 Ideal Victims
2.3.2 Ideal Perpetrators
2.3.3 Ideal Heroes
2.4 Danger of Idealized Roles
2.5 Toward Interdependence
2.6 Survivors Embrace Complexity
2.7 Conclusion
References
3 Deconstructing the Complexities of Violence: Uganda and the Case against Dominic Ongwen
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Construction of the Victim-Perpetrator Dichotomy
3.3 Constructing the Perpetrator in the Context of the Conflict in Northern Uganda
3.4 Constructing the ''Ideal Victim'' in the Context of the Violence in Northern Uganda
3.5 The Constructive Tension in the Victim-Perpetrator Dichotomy in Northern Uganda
3.6 Conclusion
References
4 Rehabilitating Guerillas in Neo-Extractivist Guatemala
4.1 Introduction
4.2 From Eradicating Communism to Adopting a Preferential Option for the Poor
4.3 Catholic Church Leaders Become ''Subversive''
4.4 Claiming the Truth, Re-sanctifying the Church
4.5 ''Defending Life'' from Extractivism, Becoming ''Terrorists''
4.6 Rehabilitating Guatemala's Revolutionaries
4.7 Conclusion
References
5 The Road to Recognition: Afro-Uruguayan Activism and the Struggle for Visibility
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Denial and Erasure in Uruguayan History
5.3 Forced Displacement and Dictatorship
5.4 Activism in the Post-Dictatorship Period
5.5 International Influences
5.6 Conclusion
References
6 Justice in Translation: Uncle Meng and the Trials of the Foreign
6.1 The Testimony of Uncle Meng: A Traumatized Survivor Who Painted Pol Pot amidst Screams for Help
6.2 Translation and the Trials of the Foreign
6.3 Justice and Trials of the Foreign
6.3.1 Justice As Exile
6.3.2 Justice As Desire
6.3.3 Justice As Appropriation
6.3.4 Justice As (De)Formation
6.4 Buddhism and Desire
6.5 The Lord of the Iron Staff
References
7 Memory and Victimhood in Post-Genocide Rwanda: Legal, Political, and Social Realities
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Meaning and Justice after Genocide
7.3 Defining Victim Identity: Literature
7.4 Defining Victim Identity: Interview Analysis
7.5 Legal, Political, and Social Approaches to Victimhood
7.6 Genocide Commemorations: Spaces of Reconciliation and Exclusion
7.7 Narrative Complexity and Restorative Commemorative Spaces
7.8 Conclusions
References
8 Imaging ''Traitors'': The Raped Woman and Sexual Violence during the Bangladesh War of 1971
8.1 Introduction
8.2 The Sexuality of War
8.3 The War at Home (Grihojuddho)
8.4 The Birangona as a Traitor
8.5 Traitorous Lives
8.6 Conclusion
References
Films
Newspapers/Weblinks
9 Open-Source Justice: Digital Archives and the Criminal State
9.1 Transitional Justice in the Absence of Transition
9.2 Impunity and the Information Wars
9.3 War Reporting, Then and Now
9.4 Origins
9.5 Building a File
9.6 Digital Evidence Databases and Transitional Justice
9.7 A New Heroic Role
9.8 Witness Affirmation
9.9 Conclusion: Digital Visual Evidence and the Criminal State
References
10 Left Unsettled: Confessions of Armed Revolutionaries
10.1 The Confessional Framework
10.2 Confessional Act I
10.3 Confessional Act II
10.4 Confessional Drama
10.4.1 Actor
10.4.2 Script
10.4.3 Timing
10.5 In Defense of Gag Orders?
10.6 Conclusion
References
11 Negotiating the Symbolic: A Systematic Approach to Reconcile Symbolic Divides
11.1 The Problem: Conflict over Symbols
11.2 Relational Identity Theory: A Conceptual Framework to Navigate Symbols
11.3 Addressing Symbol Conflicts
11.4 Symbol Conflicts: Revisited
11.4.1 Macedonia Naming Dispute
11.4.2 Confederate Statues
11.5 Summary
References
12 Afterword
12.1 Fieldwork that Confounds Us
12.2 Survivors and Descendants
12.3 Alternative Discourses
12.4 The Peacebuilders
12.5 Introducing Restorative Frames
12.6 Questioning Stories
12.7 Stop the Super Spreaders
12.8 How Do We Know?
References
Index
