Memory Politics After Mass Violence

Attributing Roles in the Memoryscape
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-5292-2758-1
Verlag: Bristol University Press

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

This book explores how political actors draw on memories of violent pasts to generate political power and legitimacy in the present. Drawing on fieldwork in post-violence Cambodia, Rwanda and Indonesia, the book demonstrates in what way power is derived from how roles are assigned, exploring who is deemed a perpetrator, victim or hero, as well as uncertainties in this memory.

The author interrogates the ways in which these roles are attributed and ambivalences created in each society’s political discourses, transitional justice processes and cultural heritage. The comparative empirical analysis illustrates the importance of memory for political power and legitimacy today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Timothy

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie Politische Geographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction

2. Memoryscapes’ Complex Negotiation of the Past and Present: Mnemonic Role Attributions and Ambivalence

3. Cambodia: From Demonization to Universal Victimhood

4. Rwanda: Ethnic Essentialism and Rwandan Patriotic Front Heroism

5. Indonesia: Ambivalent Silence and Communist Threat Constructions

6. Mnemonic Role Attributions and Ambivalence in Post-Violence Memoryscapes: Comparative Insights

7. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Williams, Timothy
Timothy Williams is Junior Professor of Insecurity and Social Order at the Institute for Political Science in the Department of Social Science and Public Affairs at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Germany.

Timothy Williams is Junior Professor of Insecurity and Social Order at the Institute for Political Science in the Department of Social Science and Public Affairs at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Germany.