Start Date

11-10-2017 8:30 AM

Keywords

transitional justice, collective memory, South Korea, symbolic reparations, international norms

Abstract

The discourse on transitional justice by academics and practitioners center upon a common understanding of the importance of truth-seeking or truth-telling, reparations, prosecutions, and other institutional reforms in addressing a state’s past abuses. Policies of memorialization complement these processes of transitional justice, with the production of collective memory and history that helps transitioning states from authoritarian pasts toward reconciliation.

This study builds on the growing interest in memory initiatives by bringing to light the integral and "visible" role memory practices have played in truth-seeking and reparations processes. Particularly, it focuses on the building of collective memory integrated in truth commission work and how this memory is channeled through reparations policies. Drawing from observations of a state that is relatively a latecomer to transitional justice processes than the Southern Cone, the article examines South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2005) and the creation of collective memory through symbolic reparations of public memorialization — namely the national history textbook. In doing so, it speaks to scholarship that regards truth-seeking as a public ritual.

Through the analysis, the article first discounts the criticism that memory initiatives are invisible in transitional justice by stressing the importance of collective memory construction in the publication of national history textbooks in South Korea. Second, the analysis of the collective memory presented within the textbook argues for the need to reevaluate the politics behind the creation of memory even in a state that transitioned to a democracy, instituted over ten truth commissions, and prosecuted former heads of state. Lastly, within the theoretical discussions of international norms leading to changes in state behavior, it questions whether memory initiatives along with other transitional justice norms in fact could influence states to consider what is appropriate prior to that of utility calculations and political interests.

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Nov 10th, 8:30 AM

Collective Memory of Past Human Rights Abuses-South Korea

The discourse on transitional justice by academics and practitioners center upon a common understanding of the importance of truth-seeking or truth-telling, reparations, prosecutions, and other institutional reforms in addressing a state’s past abuses. Policies of memorialization complement these processes of transitional justice, with the production of collective memory and history that helps transitioning states from authoritarian pasts toward reconciliation.

This study builds on the growing interest in memory initiatives by bringing to light the integral and "visible" role memory practices have played in truth-seeking and reparations processes. Particularly, it focuses on the building of collective memory integrated in truth commission work and how this memory is channeled through reparations policies. Drawing from observations of a state that is relatively a latecomer to transitional justice processes than the Southern Cone, the article examines South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2005) and the creation of collective memory through symbolic reparations of public memorialization — namely the national history textbook. In doing so, it speaks to scholarship that regards truth-seeking as a public ritual.

Through the analysis, the article first discounts the criticism that memory initiatives are invisible in transitional justice by stressing the importance of collective memory construction in the publication of national history textbooks in South Korea. Second, the analysis of the collective memory presented within the textbook argues for the need to reevaluate the politics behind the creation of memory even in a state that transitioned to a democracy, instituted over ten truth commissions, and prosecuted former heads of state. Lastly, within the theoretical discussions of international norms leading to changes in state behavior, it questions whether memory initiatives along with other transitional justice norms in fact could influence states to consider what is appropriate prior to that of utility calculations and political interests.