Victims, Survivors or Political Pawns

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Victims, Survivors or Political Pawns?

• Hearing the Voices Sharing Perspectives in the
  Victim/Survivor Sector

Katy Radford Sara Templer
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Hearing the Voices Sharing Perspectives in the
Victim/Survivor Sector

• Commission Northern Ireland Community Relations
  Council (CRC)
• Aims
• Capture voices and experience
• Consider challenges and opportunities
• Explore commemoration, memorialisation,
  trans-generational issues
• Develop recs. for Govt., the Commissioner and the
  Sector
• (http//www.community-relations.org.uk/filestore/d
  ocuments/crc-voices-report.pdf)

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Five key themes

• Language
• Relationships and Trust Building
• Networks of Support
• Trans-generational Issues
• Material Memorialisation

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Focus of Presentation

• 1. Methodology
• KEY OBSERVATION Research methodologies need to
  be tailored to suit the needs and circumstances
  of individuals in this sector.
• 2. Theatre of Change
• Language
• Commemoration in the changing context
• Symbolic and Material Memorialisation

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1. Methodology

• Relationships, Trust building and networks of
  support
• Open Heart (relationships and community and
  personal development)
• Ethics (use of language, encourage dialogue)
• Action-based (common ground, direction,
  recommendations)

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2. The theatre of change

• Language, Commemoration and Trans-generational
  issues
• Changing policy and governance context
• Role players
• OFMDFM
• Victims Commissioners
• Statutory Service Providers
• Community-based Victim/Survivor Support Groups
• Families, Young People
• Remembering as
• Commemorative sites and activities
• Service delivery, listening, acknowledgement

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Language Definitions and key words

• Victims
• Typology
• Victims of paramilitary, sectarian and anti-state
  action
• Victims of actions taken by the state
• People who have disappeared or been
  disenfranchised, exiled, killed by their own or
  otherwise vanished
• People who have been traumatised or suffered as a
  result of witnessing, incorporating, embedding
  violence in their psyche.
• Perpetrators
• Combatants, Paramilitaries, Sate Actors, Armed
  Groups
• Conflict/War/Troubles
• Survivors
• Other Terms and Concepts

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Commemoration and Memorialisation (1)

• The purpose of remembrance
• To hold the sacrifices made by loved ones in
  honour and respect.
• To ensure that the sacrifices and suffering of
  the past are not forgotten.
• To communicate the message that never again
  should such loss be suffered.
• To ensure that the stories and experiences of
  the past are not lost to our own and future
  generations to keep the stories alive.
• In the case of memorials to provide a visual
  focus and in some cases a beautiful physical
  place for remembrance and peaceful reflection.

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Commemoration and Memorialisation (2)

• Private and public commemoration
• The role of education
• Sharing and commemoration
• Shared memorials

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Recommendations made in relation to remembering

• For Government
• For Commissioner(s)
• For Community Groups

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Victims, Survivors and Political Power

• In international experience
• In the local context
• Memory can be manipulated to serve political
  power, and the ability to manipulate memory is,
  in itself, a measure of that power.
• - Hirsch, Genocide and the Politics of Memory
  (199522)

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Contact details

• Dr Katy Radford
• katyradford_at_rocketmail.com
• 078 08586842
• Institute for Conflict Research
• 2, Duncairn Gardens
• Belfast BT15 2GG
• 028 90742682
• Sara Templer
• saratempler_at_gmail.com
• 078 66842122