scholarly journals Torture and Disappearance in Chilean Theatre from Dictatorship to Transitional Justice

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-313
Author(s):  
MILENA GRASS ◽  
ANDRÉS KALAWSKI ◽  
NANCY NICHOLLS
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Theatrical Production ◽  
Political Function ◽  
The Way

This article presents the way in which both torture and the disappearance of individuals were staged in Chilean theatre from 1985 to 2011. The diachronic approach of this study is set to determine the ways in which the state's official reports on humans rights violations during dictatorship – the Rettig Report (1991) and the Valech Report (2004, 2011) – made an impact on theatrical production in terms of its political function. The study also analyses deployed theatrical devices to address extreme political violence onstage.

scholarly journals The Special Apparatus (al-Niẓām al-Khāṣṣ): The Rise of Nationalist Militancy in the Ranks of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

Religions ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abou El Zalaf
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
British Colonization ◽  
Special Apparatus ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

Existing scholarship has largely focused on the role of Sayyid Qutb’s ideas when analyzing the Muslim Brotherhood’s violent history. Perceiving Qutb’s ideas as paving the way for radical interpretations of jihad, many studies linked the Brotherhood’s violent history with this key ideologue. Yet, in so doing, many studies overlooked the importance of the Special Apparatus in shaping this violent history of the Brotherhood, long before Qutb joined the organization. Through an in-depth study of memoires and accounts penned by Brotherhood members and leaders, and a systematic study of British and American intelligence sources, I attempt to shed light on this understudied formation of the Brotherhood, the Special Apparatus. This paper looks at the development of anti-colonial militancy in Egypt, particularly the part played by the Brotherhood until 1954. It contends that political violence, in the context of British colonization, antedated the Brotherhood’s foundation, and was in some instances considered as a legitimate and even distinguished duty among anti-colonial factions. The application of violence was on no account a part of the Brotherhood’s core strategy, but the organization, nevertheless, established an armed and secret wing tasked with the fulfillment of what a segment of its members perceived as the duty of anti-colonial jihad.

Of Old Men, Country Clubs, and Atrocities: The Visualities and Externalities of Detaining Elderly Human Rights Violators in Chile

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Caroline Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Negative Externality ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Penal Reform ◽  
Country Club ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Old Men ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article explores a pair of powerful but competing symbols in the Chilean human transitional justice process: ‘pobres viejitos’ (poor little old men) and country club prisons. The symbol of the ‘pobres viejitos’ is used very effectively by conservative elements of Chilean society to argue the futility or even inhumanity of punishing perpetrators of human right violations so long after the commission of their crimes. In turn, to victims and more liberal segments of society, the country club or ‘five star’ prison for human rights violators stands as a symbol of impunity and the failure of the Chilean state to do justice for the crimes of the dictatorship. This article examines the power of these symbols in undermining support for transitional justice efforts, as well as the externalities of the debate. The fate of the ‘pobres viejitos’ and whether to release the from even their relatively comfortable places of confinement has bled into debates on penal reform for other elderly prisoners. This mostly negative externality suggests the need for international and regional courts (or countries not in the throes of transitional justice processes, particularly delayed ones) to lead the way on the articulation of human rights norms related to the trial and punishment of elderly prisoners.

Geography and War, Geographers and Peace

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginie Mamadouh
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Geographical Knowledge ◽  
Natural Event ◽  
Urban Riots ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
Academic Geography ◽  
The Way

La géographie, ça sert d’abord à faire la guerre—geography serves, first and foremost, to wage war. Yves Lacoste made this bold statement the title of a pamphlet against French academic geography in the mid-1970s. He not only exposed the historical importance of geographical knowledge in the waging of war and, more generally speaking, the controlling of people and territories, he also attacked academic and school geography for concealing its political and strategic importance. Geography (i.e., the mapping of the world out there) indeed has strong connections to rulers and their attempt to control territories and peoples. On the other hand, geographers have in the past two decades been keen to promote geography as peace studies. This chapter examines the ways in which geographers have dealt with war and peace since the establishment of modern Western academic geography. It addresses both the way in which geographers have conceptualized and studied war and peace processes and the way in which geography has been applied and geographers have been implicated in these very processes. The result is an evaluation of whether geography has been converted from a discipline for war into a discipline for peace, to paraphrase O’Loughlin and Heske. This is done by considering three dimensions for which antagonist positions (war minded versus peace minded) are anticipated: the perception of war (a natural event versus an undesirable collective behavior), the focus of geographical studies that deal with war and peace (functions of war versus causes and consequences of war), and the advocated application of geographical knowledge (to win a war versus to prevent a war and to foster peace). War and peace do not seem to belong to the vocabulary of geography. The terms have no entries in the Dictionary of Human Geography or in the Dictionary of Geopolitics. This is mainly because war and peace are rather vague concepts. In this chapter, a limited conception of war has been chosen: political violence between states, that is, armed conflict. Therefore, the review neglects urban riots, social struggles, and related conflicts.

‘We have long memories in this area’: Ulster Defence Regiment place-memory along the Irish border

2020 ◽  
pp. 175069802092145
Author(s):  
Joseph S Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
Place Memory ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Time Away

A large body of literature assumes post-conflict societies can and should mediate public memory towards frames conducive to a reconciled future. However, this article argues that such a drive marginalises survivors of political violence who narrate the past as still-present wounds. The linear temporality of transitional justice presumes an idealised trajectory through time, away from violence and towards reconciliation. However, this idealised temporality renders anachronistic survivors who depend on the prolongation of traumatic pasts for the possibility of political change. Using the case of former Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland, this article examines this prolongation through the lens of Ulster Defence Regiment survivors’ resistant place-memory along the Southwest run of the Irish border. Through the performative retemporalisation of everyday places and landscapes, survivors demand that their resistant memories and narrative frames of past violence still belong and still have active political resonance in transitional political space.

Are Some Things Unrepresentable?

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Galloway
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Information Network ◽  
Visual Form ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
First Time ◽  
Information Aesthetics ◽  
The Way

Jacques Rancière, in his essay ‘Are Some Things Unrepresentable?’, puts forth a challenge that is ever more pertinent to our times. What constitutes the unrepresentable today? Rancière frames his answer in a very specific way: the question of unrepresentability leads directly to the way in which political violence may or may not be put into an image. Offering an alternative to Rancière’s approach, the present article turns instead to the information society, asking if and how something might be unrepresentable in a world saturated by data and information. Thus one approaches the issue of transparency and secrecy here from the perspective of the relative perspicuity (or opacity) of data visualization. Two theses structure the argument, first that ‘data have no necessary visual form’ and, second, that ‘only one visualization has ever been made of an information network’. The tension between these two theses leads to a disconcerting conclusion, that the triumph of information aesthetics precipitates a decline in informatic perspicuity. One is obligated therefore to call for a strong reinvigoration of poetics and hermeneutics within the digital universe, so that representation as such can take place, perhaps for the first time.

Examining victims and perpetrators in post-conflict Nepal

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvette Selim
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Community Members ◽  
State Support ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Way

The transitional justice (TJ) agenda in Nepal has been largely circumscribed by TJ experts, brokers and implementers. While participation provides avenues for victims, among others, to be involved in TJ processes, many actors, including victims, will engage in participatory activities according to their own interests. Yet, we must ask, who are considered victims? Who determines whether someone is a victim and what implications, if any, does this determination have and what do victims want? This article examines the ‘victim’ label in Nepal. I argue that victimhood is often connected with state support. I also argue that the way TJ scholars and practitioners identify victims, based on the harm caused, does not always align with the way community members perceive victimhood, which is often based on suffering.

Martyrdom in North Africa Following the Arab Spring and the Process of Transitional Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas DeGeorges
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
State Security ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Arab Spring

In Chapter 7, Thomas DeGeorges argues that martyrdom has played an important role in the transitional justice processes both before and after the Arab Spring of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. While martyrdom and transitional justice are not traditionally associated with one another, he makes the case that martyrs involve people who are victims of what may be framed as political violence, whether committed by state security forces or unknown perpetrators. In this context, martyrs may be understood in the frame of victims addressed by transitional justice, but also as icons for social or political transformation. Broadly speaking, claims regarding martyrdom were important in these countries insofar as martyrs were held up as symbols for whom reform must be pursued.

scholarly journals ‘Confession’ and ‘Forgiveness’ as a strategy for development in post-genocide Rwanda

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kubai
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
State Level ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Interpretative Analysis ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual

The government of Rwanda has pursued reconciliation with great determination in the belief that it is the only moral alternative to post-genocide social challenges. In Rwanda, communities must be mobilised and reshaped for social, political and economic reconstruction. This creates a rather delicate situation. Among other strategies, the state has turned to the concepts of confession and forgiveness which have deep religious roots, and systematised them both at the individual and community or state level in order to bring about reconciliation, justice, social cohesion and ultimately economic development. In view of these strategies and challenges, some of the important questions are: Does forgiveness restore victims and empower them to heal their communities? What empirical evidence exists that religiously inspired justice and reconciliation processes after mass political violence make a difference? In what areas might the understanding of religious thought and activity towards transitional justice be deepened? These questions provide the backdrop against which I examine the case of post-genocide Rwanda in this article. A hermeneutic interpretative analysis is used to situate the phenomena of forgiveness, confession and social transformation within the specific context of post-conflict societies.

Wreck/Conciliation? The Politics of Truth Commissions in Thailand

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan McCargo ◽  
Naruemon Thabchumpon
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

More than ninety people died in political violence linked to the March–May 2010 “redshirt” protests in Bangkok. The work of the government-appointed Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (TRCT) illustrates the potential shortcomings of seeing quasi-judicial commissions as a catch-all solution for societies struggling to deal with the truth about their recent pasts. The 2012 TRCT report was widely criticized for blaming too much of the violence on the actions of rogue elements of the demonstrators and failing to focus tightly on the obvious legal transgressions of the security forces. By failing strongly to criticize the role of the military in most of the fatal shootings, the TRCT arguably helped pave the way for the 2014 coup. Truth commissions that are unable to produce convincing explanations of the facts they examine may actually prove counterproductive. Following Quinn and Wilson, we argue in this article that weak truth commissions are prone to politicization and are likely to produce disappointing outcomes, which may even be counterproductive.

“The synapses colapse; well, let them…” el feminismo postmoderno de the stone diaries de Carol Shields

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Macarena Garcia-Avello
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Feminist Standpoint ◽  
Carol Shields ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Political Function ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Way

Este artículo examina la manera en que la metaficción postmoderna de Carol Shields en The Stone Diaries sirve de punto de partida para una crítica feminista desde la que se explora el carácter relacional y fragmentario del sujeto femenino. Aunque la crítica haya incidido en la vertiente feminista de la novela de Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, el papel que juega el postmodernismo en la crítica feminista ha pasado desapercibido. El objetivo de este artículo es, por tanto, ahondar en la manera en que el feminismo se intercala con el postmodernismo en la obra de Shields. A lo largo de este  se demostrará cómo la confluencia entre la condición postmoderna y la construcción de la subjetividad de la protagonista proporciona a la obra una función política. Palabras clave: postmodernismo, feminismo, política, The Stone Diaries   This article examines the way in which postmodern metafiction in Carol Shields´ s The Stone Diaries can be understood as a starting point to explore the relational and fragmentary subjectivity from a feminist standpoint. Although most analysis on The Stone Diaries put an emphasis on the importance of feminism, the influence of postmodernism in Shields´s novel has been commonly overlooked. This article aims to delve into the interaction between feminism and postmodernism in order to demonstrate how this interplay provides the novel with a political function.   Key words: postmodernism, feminism, politics, The Stone Diaries.  

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