Remembering Collective Violence: Broadening the Notion of Traumatic Memory in Post-Conflict Rehabilitation

This monograph aims to disseminate the results of various research studies carried out in the field of social and community psychology. The studies focus on efforts to build a culture of peace in post-conflict contexts and societies that have suffered collective and socio-political violence, with multiple and persistent human rights violations. Six studies on the psychosocial effects of transitional justice rituals from Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Basque country, Chile, and Ecuador compose this issue. This issue presents a series of results regarding the effects of reparation rituals and Truth Commissions, combining different methods and analysis strategies, including general population surveys, newspaper and social media content analysis, community intervention assessments and qualitative documentary analysis. Finally, two review books were included. First, a Peace Psychology Book that explores the implications and difficulties faced by societies that have experienced large-scale collective violence. Second, the problem of human rights violations and how to confront them, socio-political conflicts and the building of a culture of democracy and peace in Latin America are transversal axes of the chapters of this second book.

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Digging Up the Past and Surviving El Salvador’s Phantoms: Salvadoran-American Post-Conflict Traumatic Memory and Reconciliation

Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos ◽

10.18192/rceh.v44i1.5906 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 44 (1) ◽

pp. 149-168

Author(s):

Yvette Aparicio

Keyword(s):

El Salvador ◽

American Poetry ◽

War Trauma ◽

Traumatic Memory ◽

Us Studies ◽

The Past ◽

Post Conflict ◽

The Us ◽

Migration Trauma ◽

War Memories

This article focuses on Salvadoran-American poetry that explores Salvadorans’ national traumas of war and displacement. In these poems, war trauma evolves into a post-conflict, post-migration trauma that calls for reconciliation with war memories as well as with a violent, unstable present. This study focuses on the poetry of Jorge Argueta (1961), William Archila (1968), and Javier Zamora (1990), three poets born in El Salvador and immigrants to the US. Studies of trauma and reconciliation in post-conflict societies frame the analysis of poetry that digs up and reconstitutes the dead for a Salvadoran diaspora still un-reconciled with its trauma.

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Collective violence and construction of peace culture in the Basque Country: two experiences of memory, recognition and forgiveness

Deusto Journal of Human Rights ◽

10.18543/djhr.2286 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 103-130

Author(s):

Nekane Basabe ◽

Miren Harizmendi ◽

José Joaquín Pizarro Carrasco ◽

Saioa Telletxea ◽

Pablo Castro-Abril ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Basque Country ◽

Mediating Effect ◽

Collective Violence ◽

Control Groups ◽

The Past ◽

Post Conflict ◽

Culture Of Peace ◽

Intergroup Forgiveness ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

Post-conflict societies must confront the past and build a culture of peace. Two interventions are presented here in the context of the Basque Country after the cessation of violence. The first, an intervention with the participation of victims of terrorism, where participants (N = 280 Mage = 19.83 SD = 1.29) were assigned to intervention and control groups. Results showed that participation in the programme produced more favourable attitudes towards intergroup forgiveness, intergroup empathy, and the mediating effect of self-transcending emotions. Second, the Citizenship Processes programme of memory and recognition (N = 31 Mage = 19.48 SD = 3.91). Results showed an increase in forgiveness, intergroup empathy and a change in outgroup emotions from before to after the intervention. The impact of both programmes was medium-high and the relevance of combining narratives that avoid competitive victimisation and promote peaceful intergroup attitudes is discussed. Received: 14 September 2021Accepted: 22 November 2021

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Civil War and Citizens' Demand for the State: An Empirical Test of Hobbesian Theory

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0007123420000885 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-21

Author(s):

Robert A. Blair

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Empirical Test ◽

Substitution Effect ◽

The State ◽

Collective Violence ◽

Governmental Organization ◽

Post Conflict ◽

State Actors ◽

Conflict Period

Abstract How does violence during civil war shape citizens' demand for state-provided security, especially in settings where non-state actors compete with the state for citizens' loyalties? This article draws on Hobbesian theory to argue that in post-conflict countries, citizens who were more severely victimized by wartime violence should substitute away from localized authorities and towards centralized ones, especially the state. The author tests the theory by combining two original surveys with existing media and non-governmental organization data on wartime violence in Liberia. The study shows that citizens who were more severely affected by violence during the Liberian civil war are more likely to demand state-provided security, both in absolute terms and relative to non-state alternatives. More sporadic collective violence in the post-conflict period does not reverse this substitution effect. Also consistent with Hobbesian theory, citizens who were more severely victimized are more fearful of threats to peace almost a decade later.

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