Prof. Rosoux’s project “The Intergenerational Memory of Mass Atrocities: The Missing Piece of Transitional Justice and Alternative Dispute Resolution” is a multidisciplinary exploration, addressing perceived gaps between the insights obtained through anthropological study and the post-conflict norms and institutions that are formalized in law. This Fellowship project seeks to help to fill this gap and facilitates cross-fertilization of disciplinary methods. 

The Intergenerational Memory of Mass Atrocities: The Missing Piece of Transitional Justice and alternative Dispute Resolution research project is a multidisciplinary exploration of the importance of recognising and addressing the memory of violence in post-conflict transitional justice and peacebuilding efforts. Its central objective is to question the scope and limits of both judicial and non-judicial processes in the aftermath of mass atrocities. The research project has a three-pronged approach. The first is disciplinary. The project combines three central disciplines, namely law, anthropology and political science. Only by bringing together expertise in these three disciplines is it possible to identify phenomena relating to procedures and “judicial truth” (the field of law), the use of memory (political science), as well as transmission, rituals and collective mourning (anthropology). The second angle is temporal. Through an expanded temporal approach, the research project aims to scale up the number of people involved. Rather than restricting itself to studying one generation of actors, this project considers two, or even three, generations within each family studied (among the various meso levels). The family remains one of the most important places for an in-depth understanding of the intergenerational memory and impact of violence. Such an approach is a condition sine qua non to identify the tensions, discrepancies and even contradictions between one generation and another. The third angle focuses on the geographical variable (space). The project will study the intergenerational effect on the memory of the narratives highlighted by courts and other transitional justice bodies set up after a war, based on the geographical anchoring of the families studied. Each case study will systematically compare families remaining in the country of violence and families living in the diaspora.

• Elisabeth Cole, Valérie Rosoux and Lauren Van Metre, ‘Deepening Understandings of Success and Failure in Post-Conflict Reconciliation’ (2022) (special issue) Peacebuilding.

• Valérie Rosoux, ‘Memory and Narratives of Hate and Forgiveness in Post-Conflict Societies’ in Amrita Narlikar and Fen Hampson (eds), International Negotiation and Political Narratives. A Comparative Study (Routledge 2021).

• Valérie Rosoux, ‘Federalization of the Belgian National Past: Do Collaboration and Colonization Still Matter?’ in Min Reuchamps and Didier Caluwaerts (eds), Belgian Exceptionalism. Belgian Politics between Realism and Surrealism (open access, Routledge 2021).