Religion, Social Memory and Conflict

"The field of transitional justice and reconciliation considers social memory to be an important mechanism for acknowledging the violation of victims' rights and a step toward building peace. Societies in conflict, such as Colombia, challenge our current understanding of using memory in the construction of social peace processes, which in turn question the impossibility of forgiving violence that is still to come. Drawing on original ethnographical research, Rios analyses strategies of memorialization after the massacre of Bojayá, Colombia, as an arena of political contention but also of grassroots resistance to persistent and diverse forms of violence. The book focuses on the work of the local grassroots Catholic Church and of the victims' association ten years after the massacre of Bojayá. It explores the role of religion in the management of victims' emotions and in supporting claims of transitional justice from a grassroots perspective in a context of thin political transition"--From publisher's website.