Spatializing Memory and Justice in Transformation Processes

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter asks what processes of dealing with the past have been set in motion and how they relate to the search for justice and the quest for remembrance on a more global scale. In the aftermath of the “Arab Spring,” the affected countries have been going through transitions of various forms that are significantly re-configuring the MENA region. In this context, a number of new civil society actors, political elites, and international norm entrepreneurs are engaging with the lengthy histories of repression in the respective countries as well as with the violence that occurred during the Arab Spring in order to reckon with the legacy of human rights abuses (Sriram, Transitional justice in the middle East and North Africa, Hurst, London, 2017). These transitions to justice are not without obstacles and challenges, though. The objective of her chapter is therefore not to tell the stories of various transitional justice and memory projects in post-Arab Spring countries, but to situate such practices in time and space.