Graduate-Student Papers in Cultural Politics
Date and Time
Location
"Positioning the Past in National Reconciliation: Closure-Oriented versus Perpetuating Approaches"
Speaker:
Charlotte Lloyd, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.
Contact:
Ilana Freedman
ifreedman@g.harvard.edu
Chair:
Panagiotis Roilos, Faculty Associate. George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies, Department of the Classics; Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Abstract:
This paper challenges the common, often implicit understanding that national reconciliation necessarily seeks to produce “mnemonic closure” in order to move beyond a contested or difficult past, arguing that there is an unexplored divergence in how nations use reconciliation to narrate their past, present, and future. I propose two ideal types of closure-oriented versus perpetuating approaches to better understand real-world reconciliation processes. My paper then examines the philosophy, goals, institutions and policies of South African and Australian reconciliation to illustrate the stark contrast in how the past is positioned in these two nations’ processes. Anecdotes from two “shadow cases” of Rwanda and Canada are also discussed to demonstrate that the differences between closure-oriented and perpetuating approaches cannot simply be reduced to the varying institutional contexts in post-conflict and post-authoritarian reconciliation as opposed to reconciliation in established democracies. Rather, understanding reconciliation processes in terms of their tendencies towards closure-oriented versus perpetuating approaches offers deeper analytical purchase on the practice and consequences of national reconciliation.