"Memory and Erasure brings together young and established Zimbabwean scholars and activists who explore with fresh eyes the failure to overcome the terrible legacies of this period. At its heart is recognition that justice cannot be achieved while Gukurahundi’s perpetrators remain in power and sti
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ll seek to control the memory of that period. The chapters explore the failures of peacebuilding, finding only a negative peace, the weighty obstacle to reform of the ‘securocratic state’, and the weaknesses of transitional justice efforts and institutions, from the late 1980s to the present. They focus on ‘linguistic genocide’, noting not only the use of linguistic difference to violently divide and target during Gukurahundi, but the use of Gukurahundi as metaphor for a structural violence that has carried on in the daily life of Ndebele speakers into the present. A highly original chapter focuses on the layered and gendered silences, powerfully rooted in shame and humiliation, that continue to shroud victims of sexual violence. The book ends with an important chapter on popular efforts at making counter-memory, through public lectures, the subversion of official celebrations, the reclaiming of statues, and above all an ongoing battle over the memorialisation of Bhalagwe camp, where thousands of people were detained, tortured and killed by state agents. This is a lonely, dangerous struggle, but it also underlines the ultimate failure of the party-state’s ‘anti-memory’. This book engages with wide-ranging theoretical work on transitional justice and memory, and makes revealing comparisons with cases from the former Yugoslavia to Namibia and South Africa." (Publisher description)
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"This publication is the first report from UNESCO and the United Nations to specifically address Holocaust denial and distortion. It details the ways in which social media is fertile ground for hate and prejudice - and proposes actions we can take in response. Based on the data of billions of Facebo
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ok, Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram users, the report outlines what information English, French, Spanish, and German speakers encounter about the Holocaust. Almost half of all Holocaust-related content on Telegram, for example, is false, misleading, or distorted. Holocaust denial and distortion are often present alongside other types of online hate speech and misinformation such as homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, conspiracy theory and COVID-19 denial. This co-presence indicates that these issues should not necessarily be addressed in isolation." (Foreword)
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"Drawing on cultural trauma theory, this book investigates how collective memory of the Nanjing Massacre [by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing, China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945] is fashioned in China and how the mass media, political power and public praxis jointl
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y shape the politics and culture of memory in contemporary China. Allowing for the dimensions of history and different mediating spaces, the authors first conduct textual analysis of news reports from traditional media since the event took place, revealing that the significance of the massacre was initially portrayed as a local incident before its construction as a national trauma and finally a collective memory. In a study of physical and online memorial spaces, including the Memorial Hall, commemorative activities on the Internet and new media platforms, the book unveils the production and reproduction of trauma narratives as well as how these narratives have been challenged. The final part further studies the interactions between media and other institutional settings while exploring issues of global memory and reconciliation in East Asia." (Publisher description)
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"This project has explored the ways in which an independent, public service-spirited media could create content about historical issues that avoids playing into propaganda-driven divides, fosters a more constructive discourse around history and brings Ukrainians into a common national conversation.
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The results of our project will also be of use to public diplomats, civic actors and educators, as well as to media outlets that share our aim of reducing polarisation in Ukraine and other countries, and building resilient societies with a full, free and evidencedriven public debate. Arena began the project with polling and segmentation analysis that investigated Ukrainians’ attitudes to history, political beliefs, identity and social values. We then held focus groups designed to identify the common concerns that unite Ukrainians. Using various insights from that analysis and the advice of prominent historians, we worked with Hromadske, an independent Ukrainan online media outlet, to create 16 pieces of video content. Finally, we explored polarised audiences’ reactions to these videos by measuring levels of online engagement and carrying out opinion polls, focusing in particular on the levels of trust." (Executive summary)
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"[...] Im günstigen Falle bilden Bibliotheken, Archive, Museen, Forschungseinrichtungen und Medien mit digitalen Angeboten, geeignet kontextualisiert und erklärt, Anlaufpunkte der Orientierung und befördern den Diskurs über den Nationalsozialismus und die damit verbundenen abscheulichen Gräuelt
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aten. Diese Institutionen können zusammen als „Stimmen der Vernunft“ in die Resonanzräume des Internets gegen die Polemik der „Schnellen und Lauten“ wirken, die diese öffentlichen Räume auch zur Verbreitung nationalsozialistischen Gedankenguts nutzen. Im vorliegenden Tagungsband wird die kritische, transdisziplinäre Debatte zur zentralen Frage nach dem „richtigen“, das heißt verantwortungsvollen Um gang mit „toxischen“ Inhalten geführt. Sie widmet sich den rechtlichen und ethischen, aber auch organisatorischen, technischen, und gesellschaftlichen Aspekten dieser Frage. Ich wünsche diesem Tagungsband aufmerksame Leser*innen und der Debatte die erforderliche Gestaltungskraft, so dass daraus Impulse für den umsichtigen Umgang mit den Digitalisaten der NS-Zeit erwachsen." (Begleitwort Seite 15)
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"Die Debatten um die Anerkennung des Ovaherero- und Nama-Genozids (1904-1908) im heutigen Namibia haben in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten wachsende öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. Kaya de Wolff hat die deutschsprachige Presseberichterstattung in den Jahren 2001 bis 2016 über den Umgang mit de
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n Verbrechen deutscher Kolonialtruppen untersucht. Sie zeigt, aufgrund welcher Anlässe und auf welche Weisen medial an die historischen Ereignisse erinnert wird, welche Stimmen dabei (nicht) gehört werden und welche gesellschaftlichen Machtverhältnisse und Normen den Anerkennungskampf der Nachfahr*innen der Opfer bedingen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"[...] this toolkit aims to support civil society generally, while explicitly accommodating the needs and contexts of the local partners that work with the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation. In this sense, it pays particular attention to creating and sharing advocacy campaigns
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that amplify the voices of survivors and address the holistic needs of communities emerging from conflict. This toolkit also offers suggestions for navigating complications that are common in post-conflict settings, including security concerns and taboos around discussing painful histories. Intended as a concise guide, it provides general advice on developing, implementing, and launching advocacy campaigns. The toolkit is made available alongside a range of images that were designed in partnership with Amplifier, a nonprofit design lab that builds art and media experiments to amplify the most important movements of our times." (About this toolkit)
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"This book examines the afterlife of decolonization in the collective memory of the Netherlands. It offers a new perspective on the cultural history of representing the decolonization of the Dutch East Indies, and maps out how a contested collective memory was shaped. Taking a transdisciplinary appr
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oach and applying several theoretical frames from literary studies, sociology, cultural anthropology and film theory, the author reveals how mediated memories contributed to a process of what he calls “unremembering.” He analyses in detail a broad variety of sources, including novels, films, documentaries, radio interviews, memoires and historical studies, to reveal how five decades of representing and remembering decolonization fed into an unremembering by which some key notions were silenced or ignored. The author concludes that historians, or the historical guild, bear much responsibility for the unremembering of decolonization in Dutch collective memory." (Publisher description)
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"Konzentrationslager als virtuelle Realität. Digitale Repräsentationen des Holocausts und ihre Grenzen der Wahrheit. Wenn es um den Holocaust geht, werden die "Grenzen der Darstellung" seit den seit den 1990er Jahren ausführlich diskutiert. Neuere digitale Technologien wie AR, VR und verschiedene
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andere Ansätze zur Erzeugung von Unmittelbarkeit, Immersion und emotionaler Intensität haben erneut heftige Reaktionen und Kontroversen ausgelöst. Dieser Artikel bietet eine Typologie der digitalen Ansätze, die seit 2010 zur Darstellung von NS-Konzentrationslagern verwendet wurden. In Anlehnung an Baudrillards Unterscheidung zwischen "Nachahmung", "Produktion" und "Simulation" und "Simulation" der Realität lassen sich verschiedene Regime von Beziehungen zwischen historischer Realität Repräsentationen von Geschichte identifiziert werden. Ungeachtet neuer Wahrnehmungsdimensionen, werden bisherige Narrative und Perspektiven zur Darstellung der NS-Verbrechen "saniert". (Abstract)
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"Why and how can records serve as evidence of human rights violations, in particular crimes against humanity, and help the fight against impunity? Archives and Human Rights shows the close relationship between archives and human rights and discusses the emergence, at the international level, of the
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principles of the right to truth, justice and reparation. Through a historical overview and topical case studies from different regions of the world the book discusses how records can concretely support these principles. The current examples also demonstrate how the perception of the role of the archivist has undergone a metamorphosis in recent decades, towards the idea that archivists can and must play an active role in defending basic human rights, first and foremost by enabling access to documentation on human rights violations. Confronting painful memories of the past is a way to make the ghosts disappear and begin building a brighter, more serene future. The establishment of international justice mechanisms and the creation of truth commissions are important elements of this process. The healing begins with the acknowledgment that painful chapters are essential parts of history; archives then play a crucial role by providing evidence. This book is both a tool and an inspiration to use archives in defence of human rights." (Publisher description)
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"During recent decades, the question of how societies deal with the past has received increasing attention from political actors, civil society and academia. Yet, dealing with the past continues to be a very controversial issue that causes polemic debates. This book contributes to a cross-regional a
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nalysis of how societies in Latin America, South Africa and Germany deal with a past containing massive human rights violations." (Publisher description)
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