Evils of a Global Past: Post-colonial Genocide Memory and Glocally Entangled Reconciliation Politics

This project builds on the hypothesis of multi-directional effects (Rothberg 2009), which globa­lized dis­courses and re­presen­tations of the holocaust have rendered for the re­inter­pretation of colonial mass violence. Rothberg argues that genocide memory is marked by interaction and appro­priation across boundaries, in a “productive, inter­cultural dynamic”. The related debate surrounding memory com­petition vs. multi-directional memory production has gained particular momentum within the research of colonial violence and resulting power systems that continue to impact cultural flows across the globe and in local settings. A poli­tical field of action has developed, involving trans­national initia­tives aimed at the re­cognition of historical victimhood, com­pensation, and recon­ciliatory politics in local arenas and in inter­national relations. This pheno­menon can be linked to a “cosmo­politan liberal empathy”, materialized in the “normative require­ment for states to repudiate past atrocities”, as British political scientist Tom Bentley noted: The once cherished “discoveries” and colonial conquests have been effecti­vely re­interpreted as great evils that require political renounce­ment; and doing so may facilitate the con­struction of new relations, narratives, and projections – of the past, present, and possible de-colonized futures. Yet it may as well produce novel contradictions, tensions and resource competition.

In this vein, the project examines different strands, actor sets and institutions that intend to foster redress between the descen­dants of historical per­petrators and of their victims in colonial systems. We study in particular “de-colonizing” activities and how they impact on social iden­tities, mutual per­ceptions, and inter-group relations. We compare domestic efforts, which typically mark settler colonial states, and cross-border initiatives that address international / intergovernmental relations for their justice claims.

Photo: Memo­rial at the old Hanging Place used by the German colonial adminis­tration during the Maji­maji War in Songea, Tanza­nia. © Núrel Reitz 2024