Problematising Symbolic Reparation: ‘Complex Political Victims’, ‘Dead Body Politics’ and the Right to Remember

Abstract

In light of the increasing importance of commemoration and memorialisation within the study of transitional justice, this article attempts to stimulate further critical discussion on the right to remember in societies transitioning out of prolonged conflict. Located within a wider exploration of the problematic overlap between the ‘politics of reparations’ and ‘dead body politics’ commonly found in transitioning societies, it argues that any prospective right to remember creates a tension between competing collective rights held by various constituencies. On the one hand, there emerges the right of remembrance owed to certain constituencies, yet at the same time this must be balanced against the right of acknowledgment owed to other constituencies. Despite this tension, the article posits that affording a right to remember in the case of ‘complex political victims’ is necessary for reparative imbalance to be avoided, for a fuller insight into the causes and consequences of past violence to be gained and for movement towards the goal of non-recurrence.

Naming and framing victims: Identity, ‘usable’ victimhood, and the spectral turn in transitional justice

“…These various perspectives on the conflict have led to separate and competing hierarchies of victimhood emerging (Jankowitz, 2018), with those victims whose victimisation reaffirms and legitimates certain narratives being placed at the apex of the hierarchy, while those who expose ‘blind spots’ (Lawther, 2013: 164) in partisan narratives are positioned near the bottom. Hierarchical approaches to victimhood have suffused debate around which acts of violence should be subject to public inquiry and/or truth recovery (Rolston, 2020), which victimisers should face legacy case prosecutions for past violence (McGovern, 2019), which victims should be compensated for severe injury and/or bereavement (Jankowitz, 2018), and which victims should (not) be commemorated through public remembrance (Hearty, 2020). These debates are, of course, simply a corollary of more general failure to achieve consensus around who or what a ‘victim’ is in the NI context, with the inclusivist definition laid out in the Victims and Survivors (NI) Order 2006 being commended for recognising the complexity of victimhood during political conflict and criticised for equating ‘innocent victims’ with those who were killed or injured during the commission of political violence in equal measure (Jankowitz, 2018:11).…”

“…Empirical data sourced through online searches included local and national media coverage of anniversary events and commemorations; physical and non-physical memorialisation via murals, monuments, oral history accounts, and data bases; and official reports. As previous studies on victimhood and memorialisation have shown, whether critically examining what is said (or not) at commemorative events (Hearty, 2020) or what is inscribed (or not) on murals and monuments (Robinson, 2018; Rolston, 2020; Viggiani, 2014), the nexus between language choices, meaning making, and how victims are framed in accordance with post-conflict claims-making duly emerges.…”

“…The prolonged transition of Northern Ireland (NI) out of political violence has seen a rich memory activism premised on remembering loved ones, demanding truth and/or justice, preventing the recurrence of past abuses, and promoting ideological interpretations of past violence (Booth, 2009; Brown, 2012; Dawson, 2005; Graham and Whelan, 2007; Hearty, 2020; Lundy and McGovern, 2016; Rolston, 2020). There are few sites where remembrance, commemoration, and the memory of conflict are as heavily ‘festishized’ (Smyth, 2017: 4), albeit that the post-conflict ‘memory boom’ remains deeply enrooted in competing narratives, identities, and understandings of victimhood (McDowell and Braniff, 2014).…”

“…Noting key differences in how and why certain victims are remembered, it posits that previously ‘forgotten’ victims only gain traction within collective memory if and when their victimhood becomes ‘usable’ in post-conflict claims-making. Methodologically, the analysis merges two approaches taken in existing studies on victimhood and memorialisation in the North of Ireland: a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of speeches delivered at commemorative events and/or of other published accounts of the conflict (Hearty, 2020) and a textual ‘reading’ of non-written sources like murals and monuments (Robinson, 2018; Rolston, 2020; Viggiani, 2014). CDA interrogates the nexus between language, power, and ideology that underpins the language choices actors make when constructing and communicating their narrative (Fairclough, 1995: 23), while the ‘reading’ of memorials involves critically examining how their location, physical form, and inscriptions are predicated on promoting certain interpretations of the past (Young, 1993).…”

Violence and repair: The practice and challenges of non-State armed groups engaging in reparations

“…176 Memorialisation and commemoration of those who were killed during the conflict, also poses a serious source of contention where 'dead body politics' is played out to contest and reinforce selective interpretations of the past. 177 Such contestation and confrontation over the past may have a negative effect on a group in delegitimising their violence or may cement their position as drawing a line under the past of the armed struggle and their leaders distancing themselves from past violence as now being political generous. Such shifts are not dependent on former fighters, but also the State and civil society in allowing divergent narratives of the past and power structures to be legitimised in the aftermath of conflict.…”