Burial, Reburial, and the Securing of Memory
Abstract
Drawing on the purported relationship between trauma and the desire to generate collective identity, this paper uses the framing of ontological security to examine burial as a mechanism of memorialization. I argue that states often turn to dead body management as a means of securing themselves and their identities. Burial and reburial can function as a mechanism of governance by states seeking ontological security. What happens to the dead is often politically contested. Because of this, states seek to intervene in contested spaces to solidify their identities through the mechanism of dead body management. I consider burial as a mechanism of state identity construction. Because graves, particularly mass graves, are sites where questions of human dignity are explored, they are also productive sites of examination of the logic of memorialization governing political violence. As a result, I seek to examine the processes by which gravesites and burial and reburial become mechanisms of the state performing ontological security.
References
Auchter, J 2013, ‘Border Monuments: Memory, Counter-Memory, and (B)ordering Practices Along the US-Mexico Border’, Review of International Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 291-311. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210512000174
Auchter, J 2014, The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations, Routledge, London.
Auchter, J 2016, ‘Paying Attention to Dead Bodies: The Future of Security Stud-ies?’, Journal of Global Security Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogv005
Bell, D 2006, ed, Memory, Trauma, and World Politics, Palgrave, London.
Campbell, D 1998, Writing Security, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Camino-Gonzalez, J 2019, ’Rwanda Buries Remains of Nearly 85,000 Genocide Victims’, DW, May 5, viewed 17 June, 2020,
Cobban, H 2007, Amnesty After Atrocity, Routledge, London.
Doty, R 1996, Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Rela-tions, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Edkins, J 2006, ‘Remembering Relationality: Trauma Time and Politics in D Bell, (ed), Memory, Trauma, and World Politics, pp. 99-115.
Gustafsson, K 2014, ‘Memory Politics and Ontological Security in Sino-Japanese Relations’, Asian Studies Review, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 71-86. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2013.852156
Hutchison, E & Bleiker, R 2008, ‘Emotional Reconciliation: Reconstituting Iden-tity and Community After Trauma’, European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 385-403.
Huysmans, J 1998, ‘Security! What Do You Mean?: From Concept to Thick Signi-fier’, European Journal of International Relations , vol. 4, pp. 226–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066198004002004
Huyssen, A, 2000, ‘Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia’, Public Culture, vol.12, no. 1, pp. 21–38.
Ibreck, R 2010, ‘The Politics of Mourning: Survivor Contributions to Memorials in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, Memory Studies vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 330-343. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698010374921
Innes, AJ & Steele, B 2014, ‘Memory, Trauma and Ontological Security’, In E Resende & D Budryte (eds), Routledge, London.
Jessee, E 2012, ‘Promoting Reconciliation Through Exhuming and Identifying Victims in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide’, CIGI Africa Discussion Paper, vol. 4, pp. 4-22.
Jessee, E 2013, ‘Lessons From Post-Genocide Rwanda: The Location, Identifica-tion, and Respectful Burial of the Anonymous Victims of Mass Atrocities’, Justice and Reconciliation Project, January 22, viewed 17 June, 2020,
Kaneti, M & Prandini Assis, M 2016, ‘(Re)Branding the State: Humanitarian Bor-der Control and the Moral Imperative of State Sovereignty’, Social Research, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 295-325.
Kattago, S 2009, ‘War Memorials and the Politics of Memory: The Soviet War Memorial in Tallinn’, Constellations, vol 16, no. 1, pp. 150-166. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00525.x
Kinnvall, C 2004, ‘Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security’, Political Psychology, vol.25, no. 5, pp. 741-767.
Kinnvall, C, & Mitzen, J 2017, ‘An Introduction to the Special Issue: Ontological Securities in World Politics’, Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836716653162
Koff, C 2005, The Bone Woman, Random House, New York.
Korman, R 2015, ‘Bury or Display? The Politics of Exhumation in post-genocide Rwanda’, in Anstett E and Dreyfus J-M (eds), Human Remains and Identifica-tion: Mass Violence, Genocide, and the Forensic Turn, Manchester University Press, pp. 203-220.
Major, L 2015, ‘Unearthing, untangling and re-articulating genocide corpses in Rwanda’, Critical African Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 164-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206
Malksoo, M 2009, ‘The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East Euro-pean Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe’, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 653-680. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066109345049
McSweeney, B 1999, Security, Identity, and Interests: A Sociology of International Rela-tions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Minder, R 2019, ‘Spanish Court Approves Franco’s Exhumation’, The New York Times, September 24, viewed 17 June, 2020,
Mitzen, J 2006, ‘Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Se-curity Dilemma’, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 341-370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066106067346
Neumann, I 1999, ‘Uses of The Other: The East in European Identity Formation’, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Nichanian, M 2003, ‘Catastrophic Mourning’, in Eng S & Kazanjian S (eds), Loss, University of California Press, Los Angeles, pp. 99-124.
Off, C 2001, The Lion, The Fox, and The Eagle, Vintage Canada, Toronto.
Payne, S 2012, The Spanish Civil War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Prager, J 2008, ‘Healing From History: Psychoanalytic Considerations on Traumat-ic Pasts and Social Repair’, European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 405-420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431008092570
Schwartz-Marin, E & Cruz-Santiago, A 2016, ‘Pure Corpses, Dangerous Citizens: Transgressing the Boundaries between Experts and Mourners in the Search for the Disappeared in Mexico’, Social Research, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 483-510.
Smith, N 2019, ‘China destroys dozens of Uighur cemeteries in drive to 'eradicate' cultural history of Muslims’, The Telegraph, October 9, viewed 17 June, 2020.
Steele, B 2008, Ontological Security in International Relations, Routledge, London.
Subotic, J 2016, ‘Narrative, ontological Security, and Foreign Policy Change’, For-eign Policy Analysis, vol. 12, pp. 610-627. https://doi.org/10.1111/fpa.12089
Sundaram, A 2016, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, Anchor, New York.
Verdery, K 1999, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, Columbia University Press, New York.
Viebach, J 2015, ‘Talking to Julia Viebach, Rwandan Memorial Research-er’,Genocide Archive of Rwanda, 13 May, available at http://genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/blog/?p=191
Viebach, J 2019, ‘Of Other Times: Temporality, Memory, and Trauma in Post-Genocide Rwanda’, International Review of Victimology, vol.25, no. 3, pp. 277-301. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019833281
von Bieberstein, A and Evren, A 2016, ‘From Aggressive Humanism to Improper Mourning: Burying the Victims of Europe’s Border Regime in Berlin’, Social Research, vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 453-479.
Wagner, S 2008, To Know Where He Lies: DNA Technology and the Search for Srebreni-ca’s Missing, University of California Press, Los Angeles.
Wang, Z 2012, Never forget national humiliation: Historical memory in Chinese politics and foreign relations, Columbia University Press, New York.
Weldes, J 1996, Constructing National Interests: The US and the Cuban Missile Crisis, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Young, J 1993, The Texture of Memory, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Full Text: pdf
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.