Willems, Eva

History, time and memory after violent conflict: a metahistorical analysis of the Peruvian transitional justice process (1980-present)

2015-2019
promotor: Prof. Berber Bevernage

With few exceptions, little is known about the dialectics between transitional justice and specific (non-western) cultural frameworks. Despite the fact that the great majority of the existing transitional justice ‘experiments’ have taken place in non-western, and mostly developing, contexts, transitional justice seems to be based on an often thoroughly abstract set of western cultural, social, psychological and political premises. Therefore there is a growing need to relate transitional justice discourse and practice to the local cultural contexts in which they take place. In her doctoral research, Willems wants to address this problem by offering a culturally-sensitive meta-historical analysis of the dissemination, implementation and (local) reception of transitional justice discourse and practice in post-conflict Peru (1980-present). I will do this by combining methods of ethnographical fieldwork (such as oral history and participant observation), discourse-analysis and literature study.

Keywords: Transitional Justice, memory, post-conflict, Peru, civil war, time

Publications:
Willems, Eva, and Tessa Boeykens. 2013. “Herinnering in Naoorlogs Peru En Guatemala: Inzichten Uit Het Veld.”Brood & Rozen 18 (4): 5–21.
MO blog: http://www.mo.be/auteur/eva-willems

Contact: Eva.Willems@UGent.be