Identity, Memory, and the Transitional Landscape: Public History in the Context of Transitional Justice

Abstract

This special issue explores the intersection between transitional justice and public history. It presents some of the key claims, concerns, and debates within the field. As a key component of the “reparations pillar” within the transitional justice milieu, critiques of the concept of memorialization as public history are reviewed from both academia and field examples. Particular attention is paid to current debates within the field on truth-telling, erasure, revisionism, and manipulation of historical narratives to legitimize emerging political ideologies in transitional settings. While previous edited special sections of the journal may have provided more rigorous theorizations of public history as a discipline, this issue focuses on a critical conceptual examination of where public history collides with reconciliation, reparation, peacebuilding, and justice issues. It includes contributions on the praxis of localized processes of memorialization, historical revisionism, personal and political experiences, and populist ideologies, in order to explore more clearly the use of public history in contexts currently identified with “transitional justice.”