Mass Atrocities and Memory Struggles in Africa and the Global South

That violence has invariably informed the organisation of society is indisputable. What seems to be contested, in some societies, however, is how central memory is in re-organising society. This collection of chapters emerges from our scholarly preoccupation with memories of violent pasts and how they are mediated in various cultural artefacts. The book brings together researchers from across Africa and Latin America who examine how memories of mass atrocities in the Global South are forged, reproduced and contested. Given the shifts in memory-making practices, this book seeks to develop new pathways of thinking about memory, commemorative practices, and cultural representations in the aftermath of mass atrocities. The Global South, and Africa in particular, has long been depicted as a theatre of conflict and violence. Within the same rubric, the causes of such conflicts are seen as mainly due to either the backwardness of these people who can’t solve their problems amicably or a result of greed by their leaders who plunder resources at the expense of their own people. This book, among many other contributions, debunks such stereotypes and further broadens the understanding of the genesis of conflicts in Africa, discusses contemporary contestation in memory making, and poses possible solutions. Our aim is not to be representative of the whole Global South, but to explore memory struggles in selected countries. Whilst the book is centred specifically on Africa, it provides room for wider connections with Latin America.