Remembering Yesterday to Protect Tomorrow: The Internationalization of a New Commemorative Paradigm

Bickford, Louis; Sodaro, Amy

doi:10.1057/9780230292338_5

Cited by 27 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Bickford and Sodaro explain that many of today's memorials allow the visitor to develop a personal relationship with individual victims by displaying personal effects, such as family photographs or clothes, and by portraying them as ordinary people with ordinary lives. 77 Against that background, the question arises what, if anything, the RMCA will do to commemorate the victims of Belgian colonial rule over the Congo.…”

Section: New Beginnings?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing trauma: the Belgian Museum for Central Africa and its discontents

Hoenig¹

2014

Postcolonial Studies

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Fresh debates on the hybrid character of truth and identity undermine the authority of knowledge, and, as a consequence, its production and dissemination through public and thus officially sanctioned institutions. Kratz and Rassool argue that the museum, a flagship institution of knowledge dissemination, is fast becoming a site of narrative contests, producing a 'tug-of-war' that decentres values and expectations of curators and visitors alike. 1 The contestation of truth in competing narratives is the backdrop against which I started my engagement with the question of representation of 'Africa' and Belgian colonial rule in the permanent exhibition of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) up to the time of its temporary closure, for renovation, in December 2013. In an attempt to present fresh frames for retrieving memories from collective trauma, the article links discursive formations in the sphere of museology with recent debates on transitional justice, keeping in mind that the notion of 'dialogical truth' emerges from 'interaction, discussion and debate'. 2 The article comes in five sections. It opens with a tour of the permanent exhibition of the RMCA on the eve of its closing, weaving together the existing literature on the museum and my own observations. Next it sheds light on the origins of the museum and resultant controversies over the (mis)representation of colonialism in former colonial institutions. The essay goes on to explain, against the background of research on memory and trauma, how alternate forgetting and remembering of Belgian colonial rule translates into omissions and ambiguities in the permanent exhibition. The article proposes alternative frames for addressing the colonial dimension of Belgium's past and present relationship with Central Africa and eventually asks the question whether new beginnings are possible. In writing the article, I have drawn extensively from my own observations, interactions with museum staff, correspondence with academics and practitioners, and a range of primary and secondary sources many of which I consulted during repeat trips to Brussels for archival research in another contested metropolitan institution, the Royal Library of Belgium. A museum tourThe RMCA is one of 10 federal scientific institutions in Belgium, located in Tervuren, a small municipality on the outskirts of Brussels, the national capital. The first visit I paid to the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the RMCA in the course of this research-more were to follow in the months ahead-fell on a cold sunny day in February 2013. City dwellers visibly enjoyed taking a stroll in the lavish museum grounds, and visitors queued to have a peek at the temporary

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Section: New Beginnings?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing trauma: the Belgian Museum for Central Africa and its discontents

Hoenig¹

2014

Postcolonial Studies

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“…27 The Yad Vashem museum has turned it into one of its major principles. The exhibition places great emphasis on the 'individual voice' of the victim, and it contains artifacts, works of art, original documents and many survivors' videotaped testimonies that intend to individualize and re-humanize the victim.…”

Section: The Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Jewish narrative’ in the Yad Vashem global Holocaust museum

Goldberg¹

2012

Journal of Genocide Research

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“…Importantly, the demand for justice and remembrance in response to past human rights abuses is no longer exclusively a domain of national governments or local initiatives, but has become part of a discourse on global responsibility and the "internationalization of the commemorative paradigm" (Bickford and Sodaro 2010). Commemorating human rights abuses has been enshrined in the UN Resolution on Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (2005), which addresses symbolic reparations, international and national institutions, and the "global consciousness" in addition to citing "commemoration and tributes to victims" as an important means of retributive justice.…”

Section: Spatializing Memory and Justice In Transformation Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatializing Memory and Justice in Transformation Processes

Buckley-Zistel

2020

Politik Und Gesellschaft Des Nahen Ostens

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This chapter asks what processes of dealing with the past have been set in motion and how they relate to the search for justice and the quest for remembrance on a more global scale. In the aftermath of the “Arab Spring,” the affected countries have been going through transitions of various forms that are significantly re-configuring the MENA region. In this context, a number of new civil society actors, political elites, and international norm entrepreneurs are engaging with the lengthy histories of repression in the respective countries as well as with the violence that occurred during the Arab Spring in order to reckon with the legacy of human rights abuses (Sriram, Transitional justice in the middle East and North Africa, Hurst, London, 2017). These transitions to justice are not without obstacles and challenges, though. The objective of her chapter is therefore not to tell the stories of various transitional justice and memory projects in post-Arab Spring countries, but to situate such practices in time and space.

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Remembering Yesterday to Protect Tomorrow: The Internationalization of a New Commemorative Paradigm

Cited by 27 publications

References 9 publications

Visualizing trauma: the Belgian Museum for Central Africa and its discontents

Visualizing trauma: the Belgian Museum for Central Africa and its discontents

The ‘Jewish narrative’ in the Yad Vashem global Holocaust museum

Spatializing Memory and Justice in Transformation Processes

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