Post-Conflict Hauntings: Transforming Memories of Historical Trauma

This book engages the globally pressing question of how to live and work with the haunting power of the past in the aftermath of mass violence. It brings together a collection of interdisciplinary contributions to reflect on the haunting of post-conflict memory from the perspective of diverse country case studies including South Africa, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, North and South Korea, Palestine and Israel, America and Australia. Contributions offer theoretical, empirical and practical insights on the nature of historical trauma and practices of collective healing and repair that include embodied, artistic and culturally relevant forms of wisdom for dealing with the past. While this question has traditionally been explored through the lens of trauma studies in relation to the post-Holocaust experience, this book provides new understandings from a variety of different historical contexts and disciplinary perspectives. Its chapters draw on, challenge and expand the trauma concept to propose more contextually relevant frameworks for transforming haunted memory in the aftermath of historical trauma.

About the Author

Kim Wale is Senior Researcher in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Jeffrey Prager is Research Professor of Sociology at University of California, Los Angeles, US