Call for Papers

Vol. 60, no. 2 (may-aug, 2024)

Call for Papers. Dossier “Memory, conflicts, and relations"

Org.: Melvina Afra Mendes de Araújo (Unifesp/IFRA); Clayton Guerreiro (Unifesp/ Cebrap) e
Zacarias Chambe (UNIROVUMA/ Moçambique e Unifesp)

Deadline for submissions:  April 2nd, 2024

The use of memory - based on documentary and oral sources, audiovisual, literary and
media productions, etc. - has anchored social movements that contest official versions
of the independence processes of African States. Memory also has been used to convey
layers of the colonial past and sustain post-colonial practices and representations
(Ciarcia, Fouéré and Mottier, 2021). These various “supports of memory” have been
interpreted as sources of current political positions based on reflections on the past
(Fouéré, 2010) or as resources for legitimizing projects to build national and
ethnolinguistic identities (Charton, 2011).

Disputes about versions of wars of independence or revisionist movements of historical
narratives indicate the importance of relational processes that involve differences and
inequalities (Brah, 2006; Powell, 2013; Spies, 2019; Das, 2020). This also includes
differentiation factors (Crenshaw, 1991; Brah; Phoenix, 2004; Brah, 2006) that have
implications to access goods, resulting in “regimes of inequality” (Costa, 2012; 2019;
Brubaker, 2015).

Struggles over social and political legitimacy (Bittencourt, 1999; Paredes, 2015) are just
important as the emergence of memories and the processes of erasure or forgetfulness
through public performances. Processes of differentiation, contexts in which the
performances take place and the relationships between the different actors are linked to
the production of these memories and forgetfulness. Therefore, analyses of narratives
about the past should pay attention to the relationalities (Butler, 2004; Spies, 2019) that
engender these discourses, since they can contribute to both processes of differentiation
and the production of inequalities.

Taking these discussions as a starting point, the dossier aims to address theoretical and
methodological debates that analyse contemporary problems relating to memory,
conflicts and relationalities. We will select articles that take in account memories as
effects of relational dynamics involving various negotiations and conflicts, such as
political, economic, religious, identity, or heritage in different social, historical and
geographical contexts. They may involve wars, processes of independence, the
constitution of states, the production of national identities, ethnic, regional and religious
disputes, and movements demanding justice and recognition and processes of social
differentiation, among other topics.