(Re)covering the Past, Remembering Trauma: The Politics of Commemoration at Sites of Atrocity

This article explores the current upsurge in the production of memory with the construction of memorial sites worldwide to commemorate incidences of mass violence, atrocity, and genocide. Through the two empirical lenses of Cambodia and Rwanda, it grapples with what propels the impetus to memorialize, in whose interest memorials are constructed, and how memorials may fulfill multiple and competing purposes as a form of symbolic justice or reparations to the victims, an instrument for reconciliation, a mechanism for nation-building and political legitimacy, and a pedagogical tool to inculcate the preventative lessons of “never again.”