International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV - Universität Bielefeld)
Not a member yet
282 research outputs found
Sort by
Elusive Justice, Changing Memories and the Recent Past of Dictatorship and Violence in Uruguay: An Analysis of the 2012 Public Act in the Gelman Case
Full text linkThis article examines the Public Act of Acknowledgment of International Responsibility and Recovery of the Memory of María Claudia García de Gelman held in the Uruguayan parliament on 21 March 2012 through a theoretical framework of memory narratives. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Uruguay to hold the Public Act as part of its February 2011 ruling in the Gelman v. Uruguaycase, which condemned its failure to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for disappearing María Claudia García de Gelman and illegally adopting her baby daughter Macarena, while denying her knowledge of her true identity for over two decades. The Public Act was a memorialising event intended as an act of reparation, which also triggered irruptions of memory in Uruguay, resurfacing memory debates and discussions about the recent past of dictatorship and violence. The Public Act exposed once again the continued antagonisms between memory narratives of violence and justice that have existed in the Uruguayan political and social landscape since 1985. While the Act was an expression of the “state terrorism” narrative, its unfolding resulted in the resurfacing of narratives of “war” and “two demons” in the social and political arenas and of new interpretations of these narratives in light of events and politics in 2012
Youth Involvement in Politically Motivated Violence: Why Do Social Integration, Perceived Legitimacy, and Perceived Discrimination Matter?
Full text linkSeveral major theories of crime causation have been applied to the study of violence towards persons and towards property (vandalism). Less frequently, these middle-range theoretical frameworks are applied to explain individual differences in political violence. Against a background of growing concern about right-wing political violence among adolescents, the present study examines the role of a number of independent variables derived from different theoretical frameworks in a sample of 2,879 Flemish adolescents. Using blockwise regression models, the independent effects of key independent variables from social control theory, procedural justice theory, general strain theory, social learning theory, and self-control theory are assessed. The results support an integrative approach towards the explanation of political violence. The implications of our findings for future studies on violent extremism are discussed
Discourse and Practice of Violence in the Italian Extreme Right: Frames, Symbols, and Identity-Building in CasaPound Italia
Full text linkAn investigation of the neo-Fascist organization CasaPound Italia, focusing on how political violence is framed in its public discourse, and on the role it plays as a constitutive element of the group’s collective identity. Starting from the conceptualization of violence in Italian Fascism, we focus on CasaPound’s practices, discourse, and ideology. The analysis combines findings from nineteen in-depth interviews with CasaPound members and participant observation at protest events and activities. This paper disentangles CasaPound’s relationship with political violence, differentiating its discursive, aesthetic, and identity-building dimensions. Although in the external discourse of the group, violent activities are only accepted as a tool of self-determination and self-defence, we find that a cult of violence inspired by traditional Fascism emerges from the semiotic repertoire mobilized by CasaPound, and is reiterated by means of experiences of collective socialization based on violence
Introduction: Violence, Justice, and the Work of Memory
Full text linkThe search for historical justice has become one of the defining features of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. So has the consensus about the need to remember the violence of past injustices and its victims. The search for justice is closely related to a focus on remembrance: the striving for justice relies on memories of injustices, and the public remembering of past wrongs is increasingly considered one crucial means of redressing such wrongs. This focus section brings together authors from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds in the humanities and social sciences, ranging from anthropology to law, and from cultural studies to political science. Focusing on post-conflict societies in Africa (Morocco, Rwanda), Asia (Nepal), Latin America (Argentina, Peru, Uruguay) and the Pacific (Solomon Islands), the papers explore aspects of the work of memory in attempts to redress past wrongs and make the present inhabitable. This introduction also extends some of the themes that connect the seven individual papers
Personhood, Violence, and the Moral Work of Memory in Contemporary Rwanda
Full text linkWhy do Rwandan genocide survivors informally remember not only the kin they lost in the 1994 genocide, but also losses suffered by friends and acquaintances? Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in the Rwandan university town of Butare, I argue that survivors are at pains to reconstitute their personhood in the absence of relations, and informal memory practices are a form of moral work by which they struggle to do so. I show that survivors maintain limited exchange relations with the dead by thinking of them regularly in return for protection and guidance, and that they use their knowledge of others’ losses to stake moral claims to still being “of” Butare. I theorise these narratives using anthropological perspectives on the constitution of personhood through memory and social relationships. The moral demands of remembering the dead give rise to complex predicaments with which survivors of violence must contend as they navigate what it means to dwell in a present that is marred by the absence of significant others
Rewriting the World: Gendered Violence, the Political Imagination and Memoirs from the “Years of Lead” in Morocco
Full text linkPrison literature (littérature carcérale or adab al-sujun) has shed light on censured dimensions of Moroccan postcolonial history. By sharing their personal memories, former political prisoners have triggered a debate on state violence under Hassan II (1961–1999). This exploration of the gendered and relational dimensions of violence and testimony draws on the published memoirs and interviews of Nour-Eddine Saoudi and Fatna El Bouih, two former Marxist-Leninist political prisoners. Specifically, it identifies the means by which Saoudi and El Bouih theorised their personal experience to denounce the system of repression in Morocco. Their testimonies illustrate the role of memory as a transformative site of agency and political imagination, exhibiting hope for a different future by encouraging Moroccans to engage with their dark past
“The Country that Doesn’t Want to Heal Itself”: The Burden of History, Affect and Women’s Memories in Post-Dictatorial Argentina
Full text linkI draw on first-hand oral testimonies taken from two groups of Argentine women who represent two antithetical versions of the recent Argentinine past: those affected by military repression and those affected by armed guerrilla violence. I contend that we need to look beyond political and ideological contestations and engage in a deeper analysis of how memorial cultures are formed and sustained. I argue that we cannot account for the politics of memory in modern-day Argentina without acknowledging and exploring the role played by individual emotions and affects in generating and shaping collective emotions and affects. In direct contrast to the nominally objective and universalist sensibility that traditionally has driven transitional justice endeavours, I look at how affective memories of trauma are a potentially disruptive power within the reconciliation paradigm, and thus need to be taken into account
Postwar Violence in Guatemala: A Mirror of the Relationship between Youth and Adult Society
Full text linkPostwar societies are high-risk contexts for youth participation in violence. However, there is great variation between and within postwar societies. The variation of youth participation in postwar violence can best be understood by focusing on the consequences of war and war termination on youth socialization and transitions into adulthood. Socialization and transitions into adulthood stand at the center of the interaction between youth and adult society and help to explain the variation in youth violence in contexts of high structural risk
Beliefs About the Strauss-Kahn Case in France and Germany: Political Orientation and Sexual Aggression Myths as Local Versus Global Predictors
Full text linkIn May 2011, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party, was charged with attempted rape. Extensive media coverage led people across the globe to speculate about intentions and responsibilities. While the case was pending, we conducted two parallel Internet surveys, with French and German participants (N= 1,314). We examined how strongly exoneration of the alleged perpetrator depended on acceptance of modern myths about sexual aggression (AMMSA) and identity attributes that are temporarily salient as a function of local context (gender, political left-right orientation, nationality). AMMSA was a global predictor of exonerating the alleged perpetrator across national sub-samples, whereas the predictive power of gender and left-right orientation varied locally: For French respondents, left-wing political attitudes predicted exoneration of the alleged perpetrator, whereas only for German respondents, being male predicted exoneration. We conclude that the interplay of global (sexual aggression myths) and local (social identification) factors affects the lay assessment of ambiguous cases of sexual violence