Narratives of Mass Atrocity

Sarah Federman is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore, an instructor at the Foreign Service Institute, and a Fulbright Peace and Conflict Specialist. She is the co-editor of Introduction to Conflict Resolution: Discourses and Dynamics (2019) and the author of Last Train to Auschwitz: The French National Railways and the Journey to Accountability (2021). Ronald Niezen is Distinguished James McGill Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Faculty of Law at McGill University. He has researched an Islamic reform movement in West Africa, justice campaigns in indigenous communities in Canada, and in a variety of international organizations. He has held visiting positions at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. His many books include The Origins of Indigenism (2003), Truth and Indignation (2017), and #HumanRights (2020).

• Introduction: Narrative in the aftermath of mass atrocity Sarah Federman and Ronald Niezen; 1. Guilt, responsibility and the limits of identity Diane Enns; 2. Victim, perpetrator, hero: The French national railway's idealized war identities Sarah Federman; 3. Deconstructing the complexities of violence: Uganda and the case against Dominic Ongwen Ayodele Akenroye and Kamari Maxine Clarke; 4. Rehabilitating guerillas in neo-extractivist guatemala Karine Vanthuyne and Marie-Christine Dugal; 5. The road to recognition: Afro-Uruguayan activism and the struggle for visibility Debbie Sharnak; 6. Justice in translation: Uncle Meng and the trials of the foreign Alex Hinton; 7. Memory and victimhoods in post-genocide rwanda: Legal, political and social realities Samantha Lakin; 8. Imaging traitors: The raped woman and sexual violence during the Bangladesh war of 1971 Nayanika Mookerjee; 9. Open source justice: Digital archives and the criminal state Ronald Niezen; 10. Left unsettled: Confessions of armed revolutionaries Leigh Payne; 11. Victims and perpetrators in reconciliation systems design Daniel L Shapiro and Vanessa Liu; Afterword Sarah Federman; Index.

'We think we have a good understanding of the role narratives of hate, degradation, and demonization play in setting the conditions for mass atrocities and genocidal violence. We know far less about the role narratives continue to play in their aftermath. Roles such as victim, perpetrator, hero, and traitor seem self-evident and fixed. They are not, these authors argue. Yesterday's hero is today's perpetrator, yesterday's perpetrator is sometimes also a victim, and yesterday's perpetrator is tomorrow's hero. Using rich case studies, these chapters deepen our understanding of post-atrocity narrative, by deconstructing the roles of victim and perpetrator, and unsettling the “security of binaries” on which the conception of these roles, our understanding of “what happened”, and our missions in transitional justice, reconciliation, and peacebuilding, all depend. The cost of ignoring the force of post-atrocity narrative is the risk of setting the conditions for the next wave of incitements and violence.' Kevin Avruch, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University