Identity, Memory, and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice
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Radhika Hettiarachchi
Radhika Hettiarachchi is an independent researcher, curator, and peace building practitioner with over 15 years of experience working primarily in Sri Lanka. She uses oral history, facilitated dialogue, and the arts as channels for creating a public discourse on conflict, transitional justice. and non-recurrence of violence. She is a founding member of the South Asia Network for Public History.
and
Ricardo Santhiago
Ricardo Santhiago is an assistant professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), Brazil, where he also directs the Center for Urban Memory (CMUrb). His work has appeared in various academic journals in Brazil and elsewhere and includes a dozen authored and edited books. He is a founding member of the Brazilian Public History Network.
Abstract
This special issue explores the intersection between transitional justice and public history. It presents some of the key claims, concerns, and debates within the field. As a key component of the “reparations pillar” within the transitional justice milieu, critiques of the concept of memorialization as public history are reviewed from both academia and field examples. Particular attention is paid to current debates within the field on truth-telling, erasure, revisionism, and manipulation of historical narratives to legitimize emerging political ideologies in transitional settings. While previous edited special sections of the journal may have provided more rigorous theorizations of public history as a discipline, this issue focuses on a critical conceptual examination of where public history collides with reconciliation, reparation, peacebuilding, and justice issues. It includes contributions on the praxis of localized processes of memorialization, historical revisionism, personal and political experiences, and populist ideologies, in order to explore more clearly the use of public history in contexts currently identified with “transitional justice.”
About the authors
Radhika Hettiarachchi is an independent researcher, curator, and peace building practitioner with over 15 years of experience working primarily in Sri Lanka. She uses oral history, facilitated dialogue, and the arts as channels for creating a public discourse on conflict, transitional justice. and non-recurrence of violence. She is a founding member of the South Asia Network for Public History.
Ricardo Santhiago is an assistant professor at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), Brazil, where he also directs the Center for Urban Memory (CMUrb). His work has appeared in various academic journals in Brazil and elsewhere and includes a dozen authored and edited books. He is a founding member of the Brazilian Public History Network.
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Identity, Memory and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice, edited by Radhika Hettiarachchi and Ricardo Santhiago
- Identity, Memory, and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice
- En(countering) Silence – Some Thoughts on Historical Justice after Memoricide
- The Historian’s Role, Public History, and the National Truth Commission in Brazil
- Recent History in the Courtroom: Notes on an Experience as an Expert Witness in a Trial for Crimes Against Humanity in Argentina
- Historians, Public History, and Transitional Justice: Baltic Experiences
- Re-imaging an Inclusive People’s History
- Historical Consciousness and Transitional Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka
- It is Young People that Give Me Hope
- PH in
- Brave New Curriculum: Aotearoa New Zealand History and New Zealand’s Schools
- Book Review
- Susan Neiman: Learning from the Germans – Race and the Memory of Evil & Melissa M. Bender and Klara Stephanie Szlezak: Contested Commemoration in U.S. History – Diverging Public Interpretations
Articles in the same Issue
- Identity, Memory and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice, edited by Radhika Hettiarachchi and Ricardo Santhiago
- Identity, Memory, and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice
- En(countering) Silence – Some Thoughts on Historical Justice after Memoricide
- The Historian’s Role, Public History, and the National Truth Commission in Brazil
- Recent History in the Courtroom: Notes on an Experience as an Expert Witness in a Trial for Crimes Against Humanity in Argentina
- Historians, Public History, and Transitional Justice: Baltic Experiences
- Re-imaging an Inclusive People’s History
- Historical Consciousness and Transitional Justice in Post-War Sri Lanka
- It is Young People that Give Me Hope
- PH in
- Brave New Curriculum: Aotearoa New Zealand History and New Zealand’s Schools
- Book Review
- Susan Neiman: Learning from the Germans – Race and the Memory of Evil & Melissa M. Bender and Klara Stephanie Szlezak: Contested Commemoration in U.S. History – Diverging Public Interpretations
