Panel: Confession and Testimony As Repertoires of Contention in Conflict Zones (Vienna, July 12, 2016)

Confession and Testimony As Repertoires of Contention in Conflict Zones

Tuesday, 12 July 2016: 10:45-12:15

Room: Hörsaal 21

RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)

Language: English

Confession and testimony are central repertoires of contention in the disclosure of “ugly pasts.” Solidarity movements mobilize testimony to diffuse human rights violations condoned and supported by their own societies. Less attention has been paid to the deployment of testimony and confession by anti-denial movements, movements that demand that the members of their own societies acknowledge the “problematic present” in situations of ongoing ethno-national conflict, and take responsibility for it and action against it.
This session invites research that engage in the analysis of confession and testimony in contemporary conflicts by members of the perpetrator nation amongst them:

• Are these repertoires gendered and how?
• What are the groups that engage in testimony and confession?
• How states and civil societies in perpetrator nations react to anti-denial movements?
• Anti-denial movements and national identity.

Session Organizer:

Sara HELMAN, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Oral Presentations:

Challenging the Israeli Occupation through Testimony and Confession: The Case of Anti-Denial Movements Machsom Watch and Breaking the Silence
Sara HELMAN, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Dis/Acknowledging Military Violence: Women Soldiers Testify Against the Occupation
Edna LOMSKY-FEDER, Department of Sociology and Anthropology and School of Education, Israel; Orna SASSON-LEVY, Department of Sociology and Anthroplogy Bar Ilan University, Israel