Historical trauma and memory: Living with the haunting power of the past: Conference Proceedings
About this ebook
Historical Trauma and Memory: Living with the Haunting Power of the Past is based on essays presented at a conference with the same name which was held in Kigali, Rwanda in April 2019. The book gives readers front row seats as an interdisciplinary group of scholars from law, psychology, history, the arts, anthropology, theology, and philosophy address the complex matrix of the emotional legacies of historical trauma, cultural legacies, people interacting with their social and political environment, and the interplay of these factors in different post-conflict societies.
About the author
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and Research Chair for Historical Trauma and Transformation in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University and the 2020/2021 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. Her work focuses mainly on two strands of research. The first is exploring intergenerational repercussions of oppression and institutional violence. For her second research area, she expands her earlier work on the relationship between remorse and forgiveness after historical trauma and examines what she terms “reparative humanism.” She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness. Among her edited and co-edited books are Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Repetition: A Global Dialogue on Historical Trauma and Memory, as editor, and Post Conflict Hauntings: Transforming Memories of Historical Trauma as co-editor.
Eric Ndushabandi is the Director of the independent think-tank, the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP) in Rwanda. He teaches Political Science at the University of Rwanda where he served as the vice-dean of the School of Political, Administrative and Social Sciences. His research focuses on memory, policies, and identity questions in post-conflict (genocide) reconstruction processes. He is an associate researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Science Politique (CRESPO) at Université Saint-Louis Brussels. He is also a member of the Belgian Association of Political Scientists (ABSP). He has been awarded the Erasmus Scholarship for Academic Exchange at Lund University, Sweden. In the East African region, Professor Ndushabandi has initiated a regional research network on peace and security, bringing together researchers and academics from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi and Rwanda. He is currently the chairperson of the board of the Media High Council (MHC) and a board member of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA). He is in the process of publishing a book on Policy of Memory in Rwanda.
Kopano Ratele is Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University. He is the former Director of the South African Medical Research Council Men, Injury and Violence Research Unit and Professor at the University of South Africa, where he ran the Transdisciplinary African Psychologies Programme. His work focuses on men and masculinities in intersection with violence, race, income, sexuality, and culture. He is past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa and a member of a number of editorial boards, including Feminism & Psychology, NORMA: the International Journal for Masculinity Studies, and Psychology in Society. His books include There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile (with Antjie Krog and Nosisi Mpolweni), Liberating Masculinities, and Engaging Youth in Activism, Research and Pedagogical Praxis: Transnational and Intersectional Perspectives on Gender, Sex, and Race (co-edited with Jeff Hearn, Tammy Shefer, and Floretta Boonzaier).
