The Work of Re-Membering: After Genocide and Mass Atrocity

Abstract

First, this article explores the role of international criminal trails and truth commissions in resisting narratives of collective guilt and producing a different sort of collective memory, helping the society-and the watching world-not merely recall but also re-member, that is, to reconstitute a community of humanity against which there can be crimes (hence, "crimes against humanity"), and within which victims and survivors can be reclaimed as worthy members. Second, this article explores the role of nongovernmental organizations in building towards a politics of inclusion. Finally, this article explores the experience of survivors of mass atrocity reconciling memory with living.