Historical Memory and Transformative Justice - Place for one PhD candidate

Field of Research: (Colonial) History, Memory Studies, Transitional Justice, Oral History, Human Rights

The chair group Historical Memory and Transformative Justice is concerned with the relationship between history, memory and justice. We welcome projects on transformative justice: how to do justice after institutional and systematic injustice? How do public institutions take responsibility for human rights violations in the past, and to what extent are these perceived as humanizing? To what extent do citizens experience efforts to do them justice as recognition of the suffering inflicted on them and thus as restoration of their full citizenship? When do they experience legal redress or financial compensation as recognition and when not? What role do social movements play in this? Why is it necessary to talk about history and memory when it comes to justice? 

The field of Transitional Justice explores all the mechanisms and processes by which a society tries to come to terms with a violent or injust past – such as criminal trials, historical commissions, parliamentary enquires, reparations, apologies, museums, monuments, commemorations, education – exploring to what extent those instruments help to generate change and a more just society.  Transformative Justice has emerged within the realm of Transitional Justice, aiming to identify the 'root causes' of structural and systemic violence, rather than addressing just the 'symptoms'.  Without knowledge of the past, knowing the ‘root causes’ of injustices, meaningful redress seems often impossible. Our aim is to identify parameters when we can speak of justice in a more structural sense, where we can speak of changing power relations and deep change. Therewith we aim to find a balance between backward-looking accountability and a forward-looking responsibility in terms of social justice.

As a complement to our project Dialogics of Justice (www.dialogicsofjustice.org); we welcome similar research projects to widen its comparative approach. We look for typical and atypical cases of (historical) injustice, processed by individuals or a group of people wronged by powerful institutions; and therefore seeking justice inside or outside the courtroom. We explore the role of claimants and institutions/government involved; to reach beyond a victim approach. We use dialogical approaches to look into power inequalities in these social spaces; aiming for data that helps to create better ‘solutions’ and creating tools to translate the new knowledge into practice. Therewith we hope to bring an individual perspective on well-being and meaning-making and the institutional perspective on humanising society closer together. We particularly look for case studies on the ‘gas-exploitation in Groningen’ or the ‘adoption/afstandmoeders’, examining the recognition claims of citizens, the various measures taken by the state to ‘repair’ and the experiences with those instruments. Other cases are: the planning and realization of the Kingdom Conference Netherlands-Curacao as a form of postcolonial recognition practice. Or explore the role of dialogue (specifying dialogue) between the various actors in the slavery debate. 

How do actors in the field of Transitional Justice conceptualize recognition of harm/loss/human rights violations, repair and justice; and how do recipients of these actions perceive them?

What to learn from social justice actors/movements about misconceptions in the field? 

Which vocabulary is used by ‘unheard voices’ asking to enlarge the Transformative Justice vocabulary? How to build a multivoiced archive of ‘unheard voiced’ that allows comparative insights?

Which theoretical models or creative methodologies are promising to reach beyond the liberal foundations of the Transitional Justice field and foster insights into Transformative Justice? 

 1-2 external PhD candidate

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