Table Of ContentGender, Transitional Justice and
Memorial Arts
This book examines the role of post-conflict memorial arts in bringing about
gender justice in transitional societies.
Art and post-violence memorialisation are currently widely debated.
Scholars of human rights and of commemorative arts discuss the aesthetics
and politics not only of sites of commemoration, but of literature, poetry,
visual arts and, increasingly, film and comics. Art, memory and activism are
also increasingly intertwined. But within the literature around post-conflict
transitional justice and critical human rights studies, there is little questioning
about what memorial arts do for gender justice, how women and men are
included and represented and how this intertwines with other questions
of identity and representation, such as race and ethnicity. The book brings
together research from scholars around the world who are interested in the
gendered dimensions of memory-making in transitional societies. Addressing a
global range of cases, including genocide, authoritarianism, civil war, electoral
violence and apartheid, they consider not only the gendered commemoration
of past violence but also the possibility of producing counter-narratives that
unsettle and challenge established stereotypes.
Aimed at those interested in the fields of transitional justice, memory studies,
post-conflict peacebuilding, human rights and gender studies, this book will
appeal to academics, researchers and practitioners.
Jelke Boesten is Professor in Gender and Development at the Department of
International Development (DID), King’s College London.
Helen Scanlon is the convenor of the Justice and Transformation Programme
in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT),
South Africa.
Part of the
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
series
Series editor
Kieran McEvoy, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
for information about the series and details of previous and forthcoming titles,
see https: // ww w .rou tledg e .com /Tran sitio nal -J ustic e /boo k -ser ies /T RANJ
A GlassHouse book
Gender, Transitional Justice
and Memorial Arts
Global Perspectives on Commemoration
and Mobilisation
Edited by Jelke Boesten and
Helen Scanlon
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
A Glasshouse book
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Jelke Boesten and Helen Scanlon;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Jelke Boesten and Helen Scanlon to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-50857-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-00507-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-17446-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Dedication To Jamie and Seba
Contents
List of contributors ix
Foreword written by Yasmin Sooka xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
1 Gender and the arts of transition 1
JELKE BOESTEN AND HELEN SCANLON
PART I
Sites of commemoration 19
2 A feminist reading of sites of commemoration in Peru 21
JELKE BOESTEN
3 Gender, genocide, and memorialisation in Namibia 38
PENOHOLE BROCK AND ESTER MUINJANGUE
4 Gender and memory: Lessons from the Gukurahundi
massacres in Zimbabwe 55
NOMPILO NDLOVU
5 Memory politics and the emergence of a women’s sphere
to counter historical violence in Korea 75
SEONG NAE KIM
6 Calling everything into question: Articulations of black
women in post-1994 South African commemoration 97
YVETTE HUTCHISON
viii Contents
PART II
Arts and symbolic reparation 115
7 Epistemicide in the Cape: Symbolic and restorative justice
in South Africa 117
JUNE BAM-HUTCHISON
8 The challenges of symbolic reparations for gender justice
in Brazil 136
LUCIA ELENA ARANTES FERREIRA BASTOS AND INÊS VIRGÍNIA PRADO SOARES
9 Fabricating reconciliation in Canada 155
RACHEL KERR
10 Women awake: Gender and commemoration in
contemporary Ireland 172
MICHELLE LEBARON
11 Touching pain: The matrixial experience of trauma
in works by Doris Salcedo 193
MARGARITA SAONA
PART III
Transformative gender justice? 209
12 Memories of violence against women and girls across
borders: Transformative gender justice through the arts
among Brazilian women migrants in London 211
CATHY MCILWAINE
13 Theatre for transformative gender justice: A comparison of
three Peruvian plays on rape during political violence 230
ALEXANDRA HIBBETT
14 ‘The past is in the present and no one seems responsible
for putting it there’: Gender, memory, and mobilisation
in post-apartheid South Africa 248
HELEN SCANLON
Index 263
Contributors
Lucia Elena Arantes Ferreira Bastos is a lawyer. She has a PhD in
International Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo
(USP/Brazil). Her area of research comprises international human rights,
transitional justice, amnesty laws and dictatorships in Latin America. She held
a postdoctoral researcher position in the Center for the Study of Violence
in the University of São Paulo (NEV/USP) from 2007 to 2011. She is the
author of the book Anistia – As Leis Internacionais e o Caso Brasileiro (2009).
June Bam-Hutchison is the interim director of the Khoi and San Centre,
Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. She is principal
investigator of the Worldwide University Network's !Gâ re – Rangatiratanga–
Dadirri project on ‘deep listening’. She served as Acting Head of Section
and Director for the Centre in 2017. June has also been a visiting professor
for Stanford University’s overseas programme on ‘Sites of Memory’ over
the last six years. June has published widely, is the current inaugural chair
of the first museum of Cape Town city, has been diversity manager of
the Museum of London Group, served on Iziko’s (15 national museums
of South Africa’s) council, headed South Africa’s national history project
(rewriting of history for schools) after the end of apartheid and has been a
visiting speaker in several countries over the past 20 years. Originally trained
as a schoolteacher, June has been an anti-apartheid activist and continues to
campaign for social justice globally.
Jelke Boesten is Professor in Gender and Development at the Department of
International Development (DID), King’s College London. Jelke’s research
focuses on violence against women and the ramifications for policy in Latin
America. Her latest book, Sexual Violence During War and Peace: Gender,
Power and Post-conflict Justice in Peru received the Flora Tristan Best Book
Award of the Latin America Studies Association-Peru section and was pub-
lished in Spanish translation with the Bibliotéca Nacional del Perú in 2016.
In 2010 she published Intersecting Inequalities: Women and Social Policy in Peru
with Penn State University Press. She has published widely on gender jus-
tice in Peru in international journals and books. She is currently interested
in transformative gender justice, memory and the arts.
