Concurrent Session 1-A

Location

Bryant Hall, Room 111

Start Date

14-3-2025 9:45 AM

End Date

14-3-2025 11:00 AM

Description

  • A Green Turn in Transitional Justice: Memorializing Ecocide (VIRTUAL)
    Manuel Rodeiro, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Mississippi State University
    This presentation examines how Transitional Justice’s reparative mechanisms (i.e., reparations, rehabilitation, memorialization, apologies, and guarantees of non-repetition) can be utilized to address injustices arising from ecocide. It conceptualizes ecocide as a form of social death, representing a category of environmental harm severe enough to warrant a Transitional Justice response. When a state sanctions ecological destruction with blatant disregard for cultures deeply connected to the affected ecosystems, it breaches fundamental liberal principles of respect for pluralism. Such violations necessitate material and moral corrective measures to restore justice. The analysis explores these measures through several dimensions: providing aid to victims to rebalance material and moral scales; facilitating rehabilitation by restoring victims' agency, self-respect, and capabilities essential for meaningful self-development; promoting societal recognition of victims as equal citizens deserving respect and moral consideration within the political community; addressing structural inequality by offering material and psychological support to ensure victims have equitable life prospects; and acknowledging the injustice through memorialization, fostering collective reflection on its impact. The submission also considers how such reparative measures might advance environmental objectives. It discusses recent examples of environmental memorialization, such as Earth Day (initiated in response to an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California), Iceland’s commemoration of Okjökull, the first glacier lost to climate change, and Alberto Bañuelos-Fournier’s The Wound, a monolithic sculpture memorializing the sinking of a structurally deficient oil tanker. By integrating these elements, the submission underscores the potential of Transitional Justice to address both human and ecological harm in a cohesive manner.
  • From Difficult Heritage to a Symbol of Peace: A Case of Chibondo Mass Grave, Zimbabwe
    Peter Mudzingwa, M.A. Candidate, Anthropology, University of Mississippi
    In Zimbabwe, in 2011, an illegal gold miner discovered human remains in a mine shaft, what would become known as the Chibondo mass grave. The government of Zimbabwe quickly declared that these remains were liberation fighters killed by the colonizer Rhodesian forces in the 1970s. As a result of the nature of exhumed bodies, opposition political groups and many other Zimbabweans claimed these bodies included victims of more recent political state violence. The contested nature of the Chibondo crystallized my intent to understand how societies confront disputed sites and what that might say about human rights violations and socio-political (in)justice. My research and the focus of this paper assess contested heritage, memory studies, and the anthropology of transitional justice to better understand how heritage professionals perceive the Chibondo mass grave site and what transitional justice models stem from post-conflict societies. This might indicate the site’s potential to confirm and memorialize those actually buried there. I am in the process of interviewing forensic anthropologists, cultural heritage managers, journalists, political scientists, Ministry of Home Affairs personnel, and National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe personnel. My findings so far have revealed a deeply divided Zimbabwe, where a lack of transparency in handling interethnic and political conflicts has created wounds that refuse to heal. The results of the handling of the Chibondo mass grave showed that the country never dealt with its past, from the war of liberation in the 1970s, the Gukurahundi of the 1980s to the current election violence, the social-political environment of Zimbabwe implicates the part of the story/history that is multifaceted and not told. The nation as a whole has not healed or addressed the never again, and now there is a potential for another massacre. What is needed is to address these matters holistically and depoliticize the process.
  • Chair: Derrick Kwame Fatomey, M.A. Candidate, Philosophy, University of Mississippi

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Mar 14th, 9:45 AM Mar 14th, 11:00 AM

Concurrent Session 1-A

Bryant Hall, Room 111

  • A Green Turn in Transitional Justice: Memorializing Ecocide (VIRTUAL)
    Manuel Rodeiro, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Mississippi State University
    This presentation examines how Transitional Justice’s reparative mechanisms (i.e., reparations, rehabilitation, memorialization, apologies, and guarantees of non-repetition) can be utilized to address injustices arising from ecocide. It conceptualizes ecocide as a form of social death, representing a category of environmental harm severe enough to warrant a Transitional Justice response. When a state sanctions ecological destruction with blatant disregard for cultures deeply connected to the affected ecosystems, it breaches fundamental liberal principles of respect for pluralism. Such violations necessitate material and moral corrective measures to restore justice. The analysis explores these measures through several dimensions: providing aid to victims to rebalance material and moral scales; facilitating rehabilitation by restoring victims' agency, self-respect, and capabilities essential for meaningful self-development; promoting societal recognition of victims as equal citizens deserving respect and moral consideration within the political community; addressing structural inequality by offering material and psychological support to ensure victims have equitable life prospects; and acknowledging the injustice through memorialization, fostering collective reflection on its impact. The submission also considers how such reparative measures might advance environmental objectives. It discusses recent examples of environmental memorialization, such as Earth Day (initiated in response to an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California), Iceland’s commemoration of Okjökull, the first glacier lost to climate change, and Alberto Bañuelos-Fournier’s The Wound, a monolithic sculpture memorializing the sinking of a structurally deficient oil tanker. By integrating these elements, the submission underscores the potential of Transitional Justice to address both human and ecological harm in a cohesive manner.
  • From Difficult Heritage to a Symbol of Peace: A Case of Chibondo Mass Grave, Zimbabwe
    Peter Mudzingwa, M.A. Candidate, Anthropology, University of Mississippi
    In Zimbabwe, in 2011, an illegal gold miner discovered human remains in a mine shaft, what would become known as the Chibondo mass grave. The government of Zimbabwe quickly declared that these remains were liberation fighters killed by the colonizer Rhodesian forces in the 1970s. As a result of the nature of exhumed bodies, opposition political groups and many other Zimbabweans claimed these bodies included victims of more recent political state violence. The contested nature of the Chibondo crystallized my intent to understand how societies confront disputed sites and what that might say about human rights violations and socio-political (in)justice. My research and the focus of this paper assess contested heritage, memory studies, and the anthropology of transitional justice to better understand how heritage professionals perceive the Chibondo mass grave site and what transitional justice models stem from post-conflict societies. This might indicate the site’s potential to confirm and memorialize those actually buried there. I am in the process of interviewing forensic anthropologists, cultural heritage managers, journalists, political scientists, Ministry of Home Affairs personnel, and National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe personnel. My findings so far have revealed a deeply divided Zimbabwe, where a lack of transparency in handling interethnic and political conflicts has created wounds that refuse to heal. The results of the handling of the Chibondo mass grave showed that the country never dealt with its past, from the war of liberation in the 1970s, the Gukurahundi of the 1980s to the current election violence, the social-political environment of Zimbabwe implicates the part of the story/history that is multifaceted and not told. The nation as a whole has not healed or addressed the never again, and now there is a potential for another massacre. What is needed is to address these matters holistically and depoliticize the process.
  • Chair: Derrick Kwame Fatomey, M.A. Candidate, Philosophy, University of Mississippi