Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Affiliate of LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre and LSE Human Rights. Currently holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for her project entitled 'Human rights, human remains: forensic humanitarianism and the politics of the grave'.
This film is about forensic engagements with mass graves in the context of investigations of stat... more This film is about forensic engagements with mass graves in the context of investigations of state crimes and war crimes. It is organised into three parts. First, it charts the historical origins and rise of such investigations, focusing on the role of the Red Cross, and the Katyn Inquiry, as well as significant developments in Argentina. Second, it looks at the social life of forensic investigations by examining how non-experts, in particular families of the dead and disappeared, are using forensics techniques to search for their missing loved ones. The context of Mexico's so-called 'drugs war' is the main focus here. Finally, the film raises questions about the rights of the dead. What rights, if any, do these dead have? Who do these rights serve? And can these be described as human rights? The film profiles research conducted by Claire Moon funded by the Wellcome Trust.
This chapter reprises and re-evaluates the origin story of transitional justice. It discusses the... more This chapter reprises and re-evaluates the origin story of transitional justice. It discusses the play of the post-atrocity "way of worldmaking" gifted by Nuremberg (crimes against humanity must be punished), against that bestowed by the end of the Cold War (violent authoritarians must be paci ed rather than punished). It concentrates attention on a set of late-Cold War political conditions largely ignored by the eld to date. It spotlights the Reagan Doctrine, an important artifact of late US Cold War foreign policy, in order to show how the political allegiances and norms it generated shaped early debates and cases in transitional justice. The chapter draws on examples from a range of constitutive events and artifacts in the emergence of the eld, namely, founding debates and o cial documents which preceded and shaped important early cases in Chile (1990) and South Africa (1996) respectively. This early context-history, politics, and debates-provides a rich snapshot of a new way of worldmaking at the moment of its inception. This chapter argues that this history gifted transitional justice with a distinctive, modular, way of addressing atrocity that was designed to transcend political di erences. It argues further that this modular way of knowing went on to indelibly imprint the eld, and facilitated the proliferation of transitional justice far beyond the contexts it was originally set up to address. Finally, the chapter argues that the features of transitional justice that have made it so successful have also led to an over-extension of the eld and an exhaustion of its meaning.
Claire Moon & Javier Treviño Rangel, British Journal of Sociology, 2020
This article responds empirically to the question posed by Stan Cohen about "why, when faced by k... more This article responds empirically to the question posed by Stan Cohen about "why, when faced by knowledge of others' suffering and pain-particularly the suffering and pain resulting from what are called 'human rights violations' - does 'reaction' so often take the form of denial, avoidance, passiv-ity, indifference, rationalisation or collusion?". Our context is Mexico's 'war on drugs.' Since 2006 this 'war' has claimed the lives of around 240,000 Mexican citizens and disappeared around 60,000 others. Perpetrators include organized criminal gangs and state security services. Violence is pervasive and widely reported. Most people are at risk. Our study is based on qualitative interviews and focus groups involving 68 'ordinary Mexicans' living in five different Mexican cities with varying levels of violence. It investigates participant proximity to the victims and the psychological defense mechanisms they deploy to cope with proximity to the violence. We found that 62 of our participants knew, directly or indirectly, one or more people who had been affected. We also found one dominant rationalization (defense mechanism) for the violence: that victims were 'involved in something' (drugs or organized crime) and therefore 'deserved their fate'. This echoes prevailing state discourses about the violence. We argue that the discourse of 'involved' is a discourse of denial that plays three prominent roles in a highly violent society in which almost no-one is immune: it masks state violence, stigmatizes the victims, and sanctions bystander passivity. As such, we show how official, social and individual denial converge, live and reproduce, and play a powerful role in the perpetuation of violence.
Transcript of a paper presented at a public event at the London School of Economics on 22 March 2... more Transcript of a paper presented at a public event at the London School of Economics on 22 March 2017 entitled 'Migrant deaths at European borders: states' duties to identify and the rights of families to know.'
Resumen
Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿p... more Resumen Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿por qué la ‘reacción’ al sufrimiento y al dolor de otros —particularmente al sufrimiento y al dolor que resultan de lo que llamamos ‘violaciones de los derechos humanos’— toma, con tanta frecuencia, forma de negación, evasión, pasividad, indife- rencia, justificación o colusión?”. Nuestro contexto es la “guerra contra las drogas” en México. Desde 2006, esta “guerra” ha cobrado las vidas de cerca de 240 000 ciudadanos mexicanos y ha desaparecido a cerca de 60 000. Entre los perpetradores se incluyen ban- das del crimen organizado y fuerzas de seguridad del Estado. La violencia es ubicua y ampliamente conocida. La mayoría de la gente está en riesgo. Nuestro estudio se basa en entrevistas cualitativas y grupos de enfoque con 68 “mexicanos ordinarios” de cinco ciudades diferentes con distintos niveles de violencia. Estudia la proximidad de los parti- cipantes a las víctimas y los mecanismos psicológicos de defensa que usan para lidiar con la proximidad de la violencia. Descubrimos que 62 de nuestros participantes conocían, directa o indirectamente, a una o más personas afectadas. También encontramos que la principal justificación o mecanismo de defensa que las personas utilizan para hacer frente a la violencia es suponer que las víctimas “estaban involucradas en algo” (narcotráfico o crimen organizado) y, por tanto, “merecían lo que les pasó”. Lo anterior hace eco de los discursos oficiales dominantes acerca de la violencia. Sostenemos que el discurso del “involucramiento” es un discurso de negación que juega tres papeles principales en una sociedad altamente violenta, en la que prácticamente nadie es inmune: enmascarar la vio- lencia de Estado, estigmatizar a las víctimas y autorizar la pasividad de los observadores (bystanders). De esta manera, mostramos cómo la negación oficial y la negación individual convergen, coexisten, se reproducen y tienen un papel central en perpetuar la violencia.
Palabras clave: estigma, guerra contra las drogas, México, negación, observadores, víctimas.
This article has three parts. First, it identifies, defines and characterises a distinctive trend... more This article has three parts. First, it identifies, defines and characterises a distinctive trend in modern humanitarianism: that of ‘forensic humanitarianism’. Forensic humanitarianism is often deployed in the wake of atrocity to answer two questions: who are the dead, and how were they killed? These questions have been addressed in diverse contexts with the aim of establishing accountability for atrocities and identifying and returning the dead to their families. Examples include the investigation of the crimes of Argentina’s junta, the trial for genocide of Guatemala’s former President Rios Montt, the return of human remains to families of the dead in the former-Yugoslavia, and the exhumation of clandestine civil war graves in Spain. Forensic humanitarianism is distinguished by two imperatives that are characteristic of humanitarianism more broadly: adjudicative and ameliorative. These imperatives manifest in the ways in which forensic humanitarianism plays a critical role in justice for atrocity and addresses human suffering. Second, the article historicises the emergence of forensic humanitarianism, showing that it has been shaped by the conjunction of four particular and related histories: humanitarian, legal, political and scientific. Third, and finally, the article asks whether, as a consequence of the practice of forensic humanitarianism, we can argue that the dead, now, can be understood to have human rights.
Forensic anthropology makes particular professional claims – scientific, probative, humanitarian,... more Forensic anthropology makes particular professional claims – scientific, probative, humanitarian, historical, political and deterrent – which attempt to finalise interpretations of the past. However, I argue that these claims conceal a range of contests and conflicts around the social, political, legal and scientific significance of human remains. I look at the ways in which forensic work is embedded within a network of artefacts, actors and institutions that have different stakes in the interpretation of the past. I analyse conflicts over human remains by positing them as ‘boundary objects’ with agency, in which a number of communities are invested and show how forensic knowledge does not finalise, but interacts with social, political and historical interpretations of past violence in ways that are both conflicted and unpredictable.
This article argues that the forms through which violence and atrocity are expressed – legal, sta... more This article argues that the forms through which violence and atrocity are expressed – legal, statistical and testimonial – are important objects of analysis because credo is manifest in form, and an examination of form reveals something about the relationship between the ‘world view’ of human rights organizations and the ‘styles of thought’ that shape and inform their representations. The article considers what the discursive forms that seem indigenous to human rights and human rights advocacy both express (legalism, scientism) and repress (historicism), and discusses ways in which these forms of representation potentially facilitate and inhibit action.
Contemporary debate about compensation for past wrongs turns on the assumption that state reparat... more Contemporary debate about compensation for past wrongs turns on the assumption that state reparation benefits the victims of atrocity by acknowledging harm and ameliorating victim suffering. Indeed, much recent theoretical and practical work has concurred to establish reparation to victims of state crimes as a cornerstone of human rights. However, this article argues that reparation can also function to placate victim demands for criminal justice and to regulate the range of political and historical meanings with which the crimes of the past are endowed. This is most evident in transitional political contexts in which gestures of reparation are usually concomitant with the inauguration of new political orders, and formal investigations of past atrocity are conditioned by the balancing of the political demands of new and old regimes. This article argues that in such contexts, state reparation can work to control social suffering with the consequence that it sometimes intensifies rather than alleviates it. To evidence this claim, the article investigates the refusal of reparations by the victims towards whom it is addressed, with reference to Argentina’s Madres de Plaza de Mayo. This analysis of their refusal demonstrates how victim groups make important challenges to some of the core assumptions in the field, reveals internal inconsistencies within the analytical architecture of the scholarly and professional discourse, and indicates the ways in which reparations carry political, and not just palliative, significance.
Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a therapeutic moral order has bec... more Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a therapeutic moral order has become one of the dominant frameworks within which states attempt to deal with a legacy of violent conflict. As a consequence, the grammar of trauma, suffering, repression, denial, closure, truth-revelation, and catharsis has become almost axiomatic to postconflict state-building. The rise of the postconflict therapeutic framework is tied, ineluctably, to the global proliferation of amnesty agreements. This article examines the emergence and application of two therapeutic truisms that have gained political credence in postconflict contexts since the work of the TRC. The first of these is that war-torn societies are traumatized and require therapeutic management if conflict is to be ameliorated. The second, and related truism, is that one of the tasks of the postconflict state is to attend to the psychiatric health of its citizens and the nation as a whole. The article shows how, and to what effect, these truisms coalesce powerfully at the site of postconflict national reconciliation processes. It argues that the discourse of therapy provides a radically new mode of state legitimation. It is the language through which new state institutions, primarily truth commissions, attempt to acknowledge suffering, ameliorate trauma and simultaneously found political legitimacy. The article concludes by suggesting that, on a therapeutic understanding, postconflict processes of dealing with past violence justify nascent political orders on new grounds: not just because they can forcibly suppress conflict, or deliver justice and protect rights, but because they can cure people of the pathologies that are a potential cause of resurgent violence.
This article enquires into the narration of reconciliation in South Africa and its political impl... more This article enquires into the narration of reconciliation in South Africa and its political implications. It scrutinizes the subjects, objects and material practices that flow from the reconciliation story. The investigation turns on two crucial assumptions: (a)
that discourse is an ideological system of meaning that constitutes and naturalizes the subjects and objects of political life, and (b) that narrative is a special discursive form, the structural features of which have specific political effects that are not illuminated
by a more general discourse analytic approach. A narrative perspective is important because the TRC explicitly undertook the task of telling a story about South Africa’s transition from past violence to future reconciliation, and argued that storytelling was
fundamental to catharsis, healing, and reconciliation on an individual and a national level. Narrative theory renders more specifically applicable some of the general claims of political discourse analysis; while the insights of political discourse analysis highlight the political contexts and effects of governing narratives to which most narrative theory, on its own, is blind. The combination of these two theoretical premises furnishes a powerful approach to understanding the story about reconciliation told by the TRC, and its political implications.
ABSTRACT. Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reconciliation is now an... more ABSTRACT. Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reconciliation is now an authoritative discourse governing political transition. Reconciliation governs the ‘moral reordering’ of national communities in the wake of conflict and transition to more democratic regimes by enquiring into, and attempting to address, past gross violations of human rights perpetrated, in the main, against civilian populations by the state and its agents. Reconciliation eschews retributive justice in favour of restorative modes of ‘dealing with the past’, and has come, broadly, to be institutionalised by the truth commission. South Africa’s TRC animated theological discourses of forgiveness and Christian reconciliation in order to legitimise and endow with moral resonance the project of transitional justice. This article enquires into the political effects of such an animation, and investigates the performance of forgiveness and reconciliation as metaphor and narrative.
This film is about forensic engagements with mass graves in the context of investigations of stat... more This film is about forensic engagements with mass graves in the context of investigations of state crimes and war crimes. It is organised into three parts. First, it charts the historical origins and rise of such investigations, focusing on the role of the Red Cross, and the Katyn Inquiry, as well as significant developments in Argentina. Second, it looks at the social life of forensic investigations by examining how non-experts, in particular families of the dead and disappeared, are using forensics techniques to search for their missing loved ones. The context of Mexico's so-called 'drugs war' is the main focus here. Finally, the film raises questions about the rights of the dead. What rights, if any, do these dead have? Who do these rights serve? And can these be described as human rights? The film profiles research conducted by Claire Moon funded by the Wellcome Trust.
This chapter reprises and re-evaluates the origin story of transitional justice. It discusses the... more This chapter reprises and re-evaluates the origin story of transitional justice. It discusses the play of the post-atrocity "way of worldmaking" gifted by Nuremberg (crimes against humanity must be punished), against that bestowed by the end of the Cold War (violent authoritarians must be paci ed rather than punished). It concentrates attention on a set of late-Cold War political conditions largely ignored by the eld to date. It spotlights the Reagan Doctrine, an important artifact of late US Cold War foreign policy, in order to show how the political allegiances and norms it generated shaped early debates and cases in transitional justice. The chapter draws on examples from a range of constitutive events and artifacts in the emergence of the eld, namely, founding debates and o cial documents which preceded and shaped important early cases in Chile (1990) and South Africa (1996) respectively. This early context-history, politics, and debates-provides a rich snapshot of a new way of worldmaking at the moment of its inception. This chapter argues that this history gifted transitional justice with a distinctive, modular, way of addressing atrocity that was designed to transcend political di erences. It argues further that this modular way of knowing went on to indelibly imprint the eld, and facilitated the proliferation of transitional justice far beyond the contexts it was originally set up to address. Finally, the chapter argues that the features of transitional justice that have made it so successful have also led to an over-extension of the eld and an exhaustion of its meaning.
Claire Moon & Javier Treviño Rangel, British Journal of Sociology, 2020
This article responds empirically to the question posed by Stan Cohen about "why, when faced by k... more This article responds empirically to the question posed by Stan Cohen about "why, when faced by knowledge of others' suffering and pain-particularly the suffering and pain resulting from what are called 'human rights violations' - does 'reaction' so often take the form of denial, avoidance, passiv-ity, indifference, rationalisation or collusion?". Our context is Mexico's 'war on drugs.' Since 2006 this 'war' has claimed the lives of around 240,000 Mexican citizens and disappeared around 60,000 others. Perpetrators include organized criminal gangs and state security services. Violence is pervasive and widely reported. Most people are at risk. Our study is based on qualitative interviews and focus groups involving 68 'ordinary Mexicans' living in five different Mexican cities with varying levels of violence. It investigates participant proximity to the victims and the psychological defense mechanisms they deploy to cope with proximity to the violence. We found that 62 of our participants knew, directly or indirectly, one or more people who had been affected. We also found one dominant rationalization (defense mechanism) for the violence: that victims were 'involved in something' (drugs or organized crime) and therefore 'deserved their fate'. This echoes prevailing state discourses about the violence. We argue that the discourse of 'involved' is a discourse of denial that plays three prominent roles in a highly violent society in which almost no-one is immune: it masks state violence, stigmatizes the victims, and sanctions bystander passivity. As such, we show how official, social and individual denial converge, live and reproduce, and play a powerful role in the perpetuation of violence.
Transcript of a paper presented at a public event at the London School of Economics on 22 March 2... more Transcript of a paper presented at a public event at the London School of Economics on 22 March 2017 entitled 'Migrant deaths at European borders: states' duties to identify and the rights of families to know.'
Resumen
Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿p... more Resumen Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿por qué la ‘reacción’ al sufrimiento y al dolor de otros —particularmente al sufrimiento y al dolor que resultan de lo que llamamos ‘violaciones de los derechos humanos’— toma, con tanta frecuencia, forma de negación, evasión, pasividad, indife- rencia, justificación o colusión?”. Nuestro contexto es la “guerra contra las drogas” en México. Desde 2006, esta “guerra” ha cobrado las vidas de cerca de 240 000 ciudadanos mexicanos y ha desaparecido a cerca de 60 000. Entre los perpetradores se incluyen ban- das del crimen organizado y fuerzas de seguridad del Estado. La violencia es ubicua y ampliamente conocida. La mayoría de la gente está en riesgo. Nuestro estudio se basa en entrevistas cualitativas y grupos de enfoque con 68 “mexicanos ordinarios” de cinco ciudades diferentes con distintos niveles de violencia. Estudia la proximidad de los parti- cipantes a las víctimas y los mecanismos psicológicos de defensa que usan para lidiar con la proximidad de la violencia. Descubrimos que 62 de nuestros participantes conocían, directa o indirectamente, a una o más personas afectadas. También encontramos que la principal justificación o mecanismo de defensa que las personas utilizan para hacer frente a la violencia es suponer que las víctimas “estaban involucradas en algo” (narcotráfico o crimen organizado) y, por tanto, “merecían lo que les pasó”. Lo anterior hace eco de los discursos oficiales dominantes acerca de la violencia. Sostenemos que el discurso del “involucramiento” es un discurso de negación que juega tres papeles principales en una sociedad altamente violenta, en la que prácticamente nadie es inmune: enmascarar la vio- lencia de Estado, estigmatizar a las víctimas y autorizar la pasividad de los observadores (bystanders). De esta manera, mostramos cómo la negación oficial y la negación individual convergen, coexisten, se reproducen y tienen un papel central en perpetuar la violencia.
Palabras clave: estigma, guerra contra las drogas, México, negación, observadores, víctimas.
This article has three parts. First, it identifies, defines and characterises a distinctive trend... more This article has three parts. First, it identifies, defines and characterises a distinctive trend in modern humanitarianism: that of ‘forensic humanitarianism’. Forensic humanitarianism is often deployed in the wake of atrocity to answer two questions: who are the dead, and how were they killed? These questions have been addressed in diverse contexts with the aim of establishing accountability for atrocities and identifying and returning the dead to their families. Examples include the investigation of the crimes of Argentina’s junta, the trial for genocide of Guatemala’s former President Rios Montt, the return of human remains to families of the dead in the former-Yugoslavia, and the exhumation of clandestine civil war graves in Spain. Forensic humanitarianism is distinguished by two imperatives that are characteristic of humanitarianism more broadly: adjudicative and ameliorative. These imperatives manifest in the ways in which forensic humanitarianism plays a critical role in justice for atrocity and addresses human suffering. Second, the article historicises the emergence of forensic humanitarianism, showing that it has been shaped by the conjunction of four particular and related histories: humanitarian, legal, political and scientific. Third, and finally, the article asks whether, as a consequence of the practice of forensic humanitarianism, we can argue that the dead, now, can be understood to have human rights.
Forensic anthropology makes particular professional claims – scientific, probative, humanitarian,... more Forensic anthropology makes particular professional claims – scientific, probative, humanitarian, historical, political and deterrent – which attempt to finalise interpretations of the past. However, I argue that these claims conceal a range of contests and conflicts around the social, political, legal and scientific significance of human remains. I look at the ways in which forensic work is embedded within a network of artefacts, actors and institutions that have different stakes in the interpretation of the past. I analyse conflicts over human remains by positing them as ‘boundary objects’ with agency, in which a number of communities are invested and show how forensic knowledge does not finalise, but interacts with social, political and historical interpretations of past violence in ways that are both conflicted and unpredictable.
This article argues that the forms through which violence and atrocity are expressed – legal, sta... more This article argues that the forms through which violence and atrocity are expressed – legal, statistical and testimonial – are important objects of analysis because credo is manifest in form, and an examination of form reveals something about the relationship between the ‘world view’ of human rights organizations and the ‘styles of thought’ that shape and inform their representations. The article considers what the discursive forms that seem indigenous to human rights and human rights advocacy both express (legalism, scientism) and repress (historicism), and discusses ways in which these forms of representation potentially facilitate and inhibit action.
Contemporary debate about compensation for past wrongs turns on the assumption that state reparat... more Contemporary debate about compensation for past wrongs turns on the assumption that state reparation benefits the victims of atrocity by acknowledging harm and ameliorating victim suffering. Indeed, much recent theoretical and practical work has concurred to establish reparation to victims of state crimes as a cornerstone of human rights. However, this article argues that reparation can also function to placate victim demands for criminal justice and to regulate the range of political and historical meanings with which the crimes of the past are endowed. This is most evident in transitional political contexts in which gestures of reparation are usually concomitant with the inauguration of new political orders, and formal investigations of past atrocity are conditioned by the balancing of the political demands of new and old regimes. This article argues that in such contexts, state reparation can work to control social suffering with the consequence that it sometimes intensifies rather than alleviates it. To evidence this claim, the article investigates the refusal of reparations by the victims towards whom it is addressed, with reference to Argentina’s Madres de Plaza de Mayo. This analysis of their refusal demonstrates how victim groups make important challenges to some of the core assumptions in the field, reveals internal inconsistencies within the analytical architecture of the scholarly and professional discourse, and indicates the ways in which reparations carry political, and not just palliative, significance.
Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a therapeutic moral order has bec... more Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a therapeutic moral order has become one of the dominant frameworks within which states attempt to deal with a legacy of violent conflict. As a consequence, the grammar of trauma, suffering, repression, denial, closure, truth-revelation, and catharsis has become almost axiomatic to postconflict state-building. The rise of the postconflict therapeutic framework is tied, ineluctably, to the global proliferation of amnesty agreements. This article examines the emergence and application of two therapeutic truisms that have gained political credence in postconflict contexts since the work of the TRC. The first of these is that war-torn societies are traumatized and require therapeutic management if conflict is to be ameliorated. The second, and related truism, is that one of the tasks of the postconflict state is to attend to the psychiatric health of its citizens and the nation as a whole. The article shows how, and to what effect, these truisms coalesce powerfully at the site of postconflict national reconciliation processes. It argues that the discourse of therapy provides a radically new mode of state legitimation. It is the language through which new state institutions, primarily truth commissions, attempt to acknowledge suffering, ameliorate trauma and simultaneously found political legitimacy. The article concludes by suggesting that, on a therapeutic understanding, postconflict processes of dealing with past violence justify nascent political orders on new grounds: not just because they can forcibly suppress conflict, or deliver justice and protect rights, but because they can cure people of the pathologies that are a potential cause of resurgent violence.
This article enquires into the narration of reconciliation in South Africa and its political impl... more This article enquires into the narration of reconciliation in South Africa and its political implications. It scrutinizes the subjects, objects and material practices that flow from the reconciliation story. The investigation turns on two crucial assumptions: (a)
that discourse is an ideological system of meaning that constitutes and naturalizes the subjects and objects of political life, and (b) that narrative is a special discursive form, the structural features of which have specific political effects that are not illuminated
by a more general discourse analytic approach. A narrative perspective is important because the TRC explicitly undertook the task of telling a story about South Africa’s transition from past violence to future reconciliation, and argued that storytelling was
fundamental to catharsis, healing, and reconciliation on an individual and a national level. Narrative theory renders more specifically applicable some of the general claims of political discourse analysis; while the insights of political discourse analysis highlight the political contexts and effects of governing narratives to which most narrative theory, on its own, is blind. The combination of these two theoretical premises furnishes a powerful approach to understanding the story about reconciliation told by the TRC, and its political implications.
ABSTRACT. Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reconciliation is now an... more ABSTRACT. Since South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reconciliation is now an authoritative discourse governing political transition. Reconciliation governs the ‘moral reordering’ of national communities in the wake of conflict and transition to more democratic regimes by enquiring into, and attempting to address, past gross violations of human rights perpetrated, in the main, against civilian populations by the state and its agents. Reconciliation eschews retributive justice in favour of restorative modes of ‘dealing with the past’, and has come, broadly, to be institutionalised by the truth commission. South Africa’s TRC animated theological discourses of forgiveness and Christian reconciliation in order to legitimise and endow with moral resonance the project of transitional justice. This article enquires into the political effects of such an animation, and investigates the performance of forgiveness and reconciliation as metaphor and narrative.
in Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action: Interacting with the Dead and the Living, eds Parra, Zapico, Ubelaker, 2020
This chapter, first, documents and critically analyses the current phase of the field of forensic... more This chapter, first, documents and critically analyses the current phase of the field of forensic activity labelled 'humanitarian forensic action' (HFA). Second, it advances a framework through which we might interpret and understand its social significance. It does so by arguing that although HFA presents a unique and extraordinary form of death management, it also shares characteristics and a social significance with more regular--that is perennial and peacetime--forms of 'deathwork'.
Much biohistorical analysis to date is a-historical and a-theoretical, rarely attending to the so... more Much biohistorical analysis to date is a-historical and a-theoretical, rarely attending to the social and political contexts within which biohistory is shaped. By contrast, this chapter defines, historicises and theorises biohistory by drawing out the various social, political and historical contexts within which biohistorical research has emerged. It concentrates on a particular type of biohistorical practice, classified here as the 'biohistory of atrocity'. This distinctive variant of biohistory entails the effort to establish, forensically, the individual and collective identities of the dead victims of mass atrocity (or 'crimes against humanity') and the causes of their deaths. This chapter historicises the biohistory of atrocity in order to show how it has emerged out of a particular set of historical co-ordinates - legal-humanitarian, political and scientific - and how these histories have in turn inflected biohistorical practice and claims. In addition, it theorises human remains as 'boundary objects' that conjoin various communities of interest such as legal and state institutions, NGOs, forensic scientists and families of the dead and disappeared, with reference to debates about the cremation and preservation of human remains in the wake of Cambodia's genocide. As a consequence it aims to amplify existing biohistorical research in historical and theoretical ways, and thus illuminate the rich social life and significance of human remains.
Laurie Taylor presents a special programme which pays tribute to the work and legacy of one of th... more Laurie Taylor presents a special programme which pays tribute to the work and legacy of one of the most significant sociologists of our times. Eminent social scientists, Stuart Hall, Conor Gearty and Howard Becker, highlight his unique personality and contribution. And in the studio Dr Claire Moon, Associate Professor in Sociology, Dr Karen Lumsden, Lecturer in Sociology and David Scott, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, discuss Stan Cohen's ongoing influence .
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Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿por qué la ‘reacción’ al sufrimiento y al dolor de otros —particularmente al sufrimiento y al dolor que resultan de lo que llamamos ‘violaciones de los derechos humanos’— toma, con tanta frecuencia, forma de negación, evasión, pasividad, indife- rencia, justificación o colusión?”. Nuestro contexto es la “guerra contra las drogas” en México. Desde 2006, esta “guerra” ha cobrado las vidas de cerca de 240 000 ciudadanos mexicanos y ha desaparecido a cerca de 60 000. Entre los perpetradores se incluyen ban- das del crimen organizado y fuerzas de seguridad del Estado. La violencia es ubicua y ampliamente conocida. La mayoría de la gente está en riesgo. Nuestro estudio se basa en entrevistas cualitativas y grupos de enfoque con 68 “mexicanos ordinarios” de cinco ciudades diferentes con distintos niveles de violencia. Estudia la proximidad de los parti- cipantes a las víctimas y los mecanismos psicológicos de defensa que usan para lidiar con la proximidad de la violencia. Descubrimos que 62 de nuestros participantes conocían, directa o indirectamente, a una o más personas afectadas. También encontramos que la principal justificación o mecanismo de defensa que las personas utilizan para hacer frente a la violencia es suponer que las víctimas “estaban involucradas en algo” (narcotráfico o crimen organizado) y, por tanto, “merecían lo que les pasó”. Lo anterior hace eco de los discursos oficiales dominantes acerca de la violencia. Sostenemos que el discurso del “involucramiento” es un discurso de negación que juega tres papeles principales en una sociedad altamente violenta, en la que prácticamente nadie es inmune: enmascarar la vio- lencia de Estado, estigmatizar a las víctimas y autorizar la pasividad de los observadores (bystanders). De esta manera, mostramos cómo la negación oficial y la negación individual convergen, coexisten, se reproducen y tienen un papel central en perpetuar la violencia.
Palabras clave: estigma, guerra contra las drogas, México, negación, observadores, víctimas.
Descriptores: derechos humanos, narcotráfico, sociología, violencia.
Independent Social Research Foundation Bulletin (ISRF), Issue XXI: The Secret Life of Objects, July 2020
past. However, I argue that these claims conceal a range of contests and conflicts around the social, political, legal and scientific significance of human remains. I look at the ways in
which forensic work is embedded within a network of artefacts, actors and institutions that have different stakes in the interpretation of the past. I analyse conflicts over human
remains by positing them as ‘boundary objects’ with agency, in which a number of communities are invested and show how forensic knowledge does not finalise, but interacts
with social, political and historical interpretations of past violence in ways that are both conflicted and unpredictable.
and an examination of form reveals something about the relationship between the ‘world view’ of human rights organizations and the ‘styles of thought’ that shape and inform their representations. The article considers what the discursive forms that seem indigenous to human rights and human
rights advocacy both express (legalism, scientism) and repress (historicism), and discusses ways in which these forms of representation potentially facilitate and inhibit action.
of the scholarly and professional discourse, and indicates the ways in which reparations carry political, and not just palliative, significance.
ineluctably, to the global proliferation of amnesty agreements. This article examines the emergence and application of two therapeutic truisms that have gained political credence in postconflict contexts since the work of the TRC. The first of these is that war-torn societies are traumatized and require therapeutic management if conflict is to be ameliorated. The second, and related truism, is that one of the tasks of the postconflict
state is to attend to the psychiatric health of its citizens and the nation as a whole. The article shows how, and to what effect, these truisms coalesce powerfully at the site of postconflict national reconciliation processes. It argues that the discourse of therapy
provides a radically new mode of state legitimation. It is the language through which new state institutions, primarily truth commissions, attempt to acknowledge suffering,
ameliorate trauma and simultaneously found political legitimacy. The article concludes by suggesting that, on a therapeutic understanding, postconflict processes of dealing
with past violence justify nascent political orders on new grounds: not just because they can forcibly suppress conflict, or deliver justice and protect rights, but because they can
cure people of the pathologies that are a potential cause of resurgent violence.
that discourse is an ideological system of meaning that constitutes and naturalizes the subjects and objects of political life, and (b) that narrative is a special discursive form, the structural features of which have specific political effects that are not illuminated
by a more general discourse analytic approach. A narrative perspective is important because the TRC explicitly undertook the task of telling a story about South Africa’s transition from past violence to future reconciliation, and argued that storytelling was
fundamental to catharsis, healing, and reconciliation on an individual and a national level. Narrative theory renders more specifically applicable some of the general claims of political discourse analysis; while the insights of political discourse analysis highlight the political contexts and effects of governing narratives to which most narrative theory, on its own, is blind. The combination of these two theoretical premises furnishes a powerful approach to understanding the story about reconciliation told by the TRC, and its political implications.
attempting to address, past gross violations of human rights perpetrated, in the main, against civilian populations by the state and its agents. Reconciliation eschews retributive justice in favour of restorative modes of ‘dealing with the past’, and has
come, broadly, to be institutionalised by the truth commission. South Africa’s TRC animated theological discourses of forgiveness and Christian reconciliation in order to legitimise and endow with moral resonance the project of transitional justice. This
article enquires into the political effects of such an animation, and investigates the performance of forgiveness and reconciliation as metaphor and narrative.
Este artículo responde empíricamente a la pregunta que alguna vez planteó Stan Cohen: “¿por qué la ‘reacción’ al sufrimiento y al dolor de otros —particularmente al sufrimiento y al dolor que resultan de lo que llamamos ‘violaciones de los derechos humanos’— toma, con tanta frecuencia, forma de negación, evasión, pasividad, indife- rencia, justificación o colusión?”. Nuestro contexto es la “guerra contra las drogas” en México. Desde 2006, esta “guerra” ha cobrado las vidas de cerca de 240 000 ciudadanos mexicanos y ha desaparecido a cerca de 60 000. Entre los perpetradores se incluyen ban- das del crimen organizado y fuerzas de seguridad del Estado. La violencia es ubicua y ampliamente conocida. La mayoría de la gente está en riesgo. Nuestro estudio se basa en entrevistas cualitativas y grupos de enfoque con 68 “mexicanos ordinarios” de cinco ciudades diferentes con distintos niveles de violencia. Estudia la proximidad de los parti- cipantes a las víctimas y los mecanismos psicológicos de defensa que usan para lidiar con la proximidad de la violencia. Descubrimos que 62 de nuestros participantes conocían, directa o indirectamente, a una o más personas afectadas. También encontramos que la principal justificación o mecanismo de defensa que las personas utilizan para hacer frente a la violencia es suponer que las víctimas “estaban involucradas en algo” (narcotráfico o crimen organizado) y, por tanto, “merecían lo que les pasó”. Lo anterior hace eco de los discursos oficiales dominantes acerca de la violencia. Sostenemos que el discurso del “involucramiento” es un discurso de negación que juega tres papeles principales en una sociedad altamente violenta, en la que prácticamente nadie es inmune: enmascarar la vio- lencia de Estado, estigmatizar a las víctimas y autorizar la pasividad de los observadores (bystanders). De esta manera, mostramos cómo la negación oficial y la negación individual convergen, coexisten, se reproducen y tienen un papel central en perpetuar la violencia.
Palabras clave: estigma, guerra contra las drogas, México, negación, observadores, víctimas.
Descriptores: derechos humanos, narcotráfico, sociología, violencia.
Independent Social Research Foundation Bulletin (ISRF), Issue XXI: The Secret Life of Objects, July 2020
past. However, I argue that these claims conceal a range of contests and conflicts around the social, political, legal and scientific significance of human remains. I look at the ways in
which forensic work is embedded within a network of artefacts, actors and institutions that have different stakes in the interpretation of the past. I analyse conflicts over human
remains by positing them as ‘boundary objects’ with agency, in which a number of communities are invested and show how forensic knowledge does not finalise, but interacts
with social, political and historical interpretations of past violence in ways that are both conflicted and unpredictable.
and an examination of form reveals something about the relationship between the ‘world view’ of human rights organizations and the ‘styles of thought’ that shape and inform their representations. The article considers what the discursive forms that seem indigenous to human rights and human
rights advocacy both express (legalism, scientism) and repress (historicism), and discusses ways in which these forms of representation potentially facilitate and inhibit action.
of the scholarly and professional discourse, and indicates the ways in which reparations carry political, and not just palliative, significance.
ineluctably, to the global proliferation of amnesty agreements. This article examines the emergence and application of two therapeutic truisms that have gained political credence in postconflict contexts since the work of the TRC. The first of these is that war-torn societies are traumatized and require therapeutic management if conflict is to be ameliorated. The second, and related truism, is that one of the tasks of the postconflict
state is to attend to the psychiatric health of its citizens and the nation as a whole. The article shows how, and to what effect, these truisms coalesce powerfully at the site of postconflict national reconciliation processes. It argues that the discourse of therapy
provides a radically new mode of state legitimation. It is the language through which new state institutions, primarily truth commissions, attempt to acknowledge suffering,
ameliorate trauma and simultaneously found political legitimacy. The article concludes by suggesting that, on a therapeutic understanding, postconflict processes of dealing
with past violence justify nascent political orders on new grounds: not just because they can forcibly suppress conflict, or deliver justice and protect rights, but because they can
cure people of the pathologies that are a potential cause of resurgent violence.
that discourse is an ideological system of meaning that constitutes and naturalizes the subjects and objects of political life, and (b) that narrative is a special discursive form, the structural features of which have specific political effects that are not illuminated
by a more general discourse analytic approach. A narrative perspective is important because the TRC explicitly undertook the task of telling a story about South Africa’s transition from past violence to future reconciliation, and argued that storytelling was
fundamental to catharsis, healing, and reconciliation on an individual and a national level. Narrative theory renders more specifically applicable some of the general claims of political discourse analysis; while the insights of political discourse analysis highlight the political contexts and effects of governing narratives to which most narrative theory, on its own, is blind. The combination of these two theoretical premises furnishes a powerful approach to understanding the story about reconciliation told by the TRC, and its political implications.
attempting to address, past gross violations of human rights perpetrated, in the main, against civilian populations by the state and its agents. Reconciliation eschews retributive justice in favour of restorative modes of ‘dealing with the past’, and has
come, broadly, to be institutionalised by the truth commission. South Africa’s TRC animated theological discourses of forgiveness and Christian reconciliation in order to legitimise and endow with moral resonance the project of transitional justice. This
article enquires into the political effects of such an animation, and investigates the performance of forgiveness and reconciliation as metaphor and narrative.