Truth in the Americas Initiative

The Truth in the Americas Initiative (Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights) explores the complexities of truth from a broad range of perspectives, bringing together scholars, practitioners, and artists to consider questions of memory, justice, and survival in the Americas through the lens of truth as a cultural process and a lived experience.

The Initiative connects a transnational network of scholars, practitioners, and artists exploring how societies navigate the legacies of violence in the Americas through the lens of truth. In response to genocide, violence, and systemic inequality, communities have often turned to truth as a grassroots response — a way to demand justice and rebuild their worlds. States also turn to truth as a form of accounting through forms of transitional justice. Truth emerges as a contested concept and lived experience, as explored in truth commissions, protests, storytelling, performance, memorials, literature, music, or other cultural and political practices. This initiative turns to memory, justice, and survival as a set of critical questions about truth in relation to violence and inequality in the Americas, as experienced in different nations and diaspora communities.

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Digital Network: 

The network connects scholars, artists, writers, and practitioners to be able to exchange ideas and share resources.

Sign up here.

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*Truth in the Americas is coordinated by Natasha Zaretsky for the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University (Rutgers CGHR).

Any inquiries may be directed here.

*Cover Image: On the Way (En Camino) Intaglio 60x40cms. 2001 – Copyright Mirta Kupferminc

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Truth in the Americas es una iniciativa del Centro de Estudios sobre Genocidio y Derechos Humanos de Rutgers University (Rutgers CGHR), que investiga el proceso social involucrado en temas relacionados a memoria y justicia enfocado desde el concepto de verdad. Esta iniciativa es una red transnacional de académicos, profesionales y artistas que investigan y trabajan sobre los legados de la violencia en el continente americano, incluyendo genocidio, violencia política y desigualdad.  Muchas comunidades y colectivos encaran su lucha por la verdad a través de protestas, expresiones artísticas y procesos judiciales, las formas que encontraron para reconstruir sus mundos. El estado también está involucrado en estos procesos de verdad por la justicia transicional. En las comisiones de verdad, en las protestas e historias, en los actos y conmemoraciones, en las expresiones artísticas – literatura, música- y otras prácticas culturales y políticas, puede verse como la verdad en tanto  concepto está viva en las experiencias sufridas y en las conductas. La iniciativa encara memoria y justicia desde el proceso de supervivencia, el modo en que los colectivos afectados rehacen sus mundo y reparan lo que la violencia y la desigualdad había fracturado.

Red Digital: La red digital está integrada por académicos, profesionales y artistas interesados en compartir ideas y recursos. Para sumarse, cliquea acá.

*Truth in the Americas está coordinada por Natasha Zaretsky para el Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University (Rutgers CGHR).

Se puede dirigirse acá con preguntas.

*Imagen: On the Way (En Camino) Intaglio 60x40cms. 2001 – Copyright Mirta Kupferminc

Truth in the Americas

The Truth in the Americas project at the Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights explores questions of memory, justice, and survival in the Americas through the lens of truth, examining its complexities as a concept and a lived experience. Over the last thirty years, truth has emerged as an important space for accounting for past violence in Latin America. In the wake of state terror, torture, disappearances, and genocide, communities have turned to truth as a grassroots response and challenge to political violence, through practices of memory and advocacy for justice that resists the erasure of their experience. States have also engaged truth as a form of transitional justice, using truth commissions and other modalities of truth in the wake of war, human rights abuses, and genocide. Yet, although truth has become critical to rebuilding civil society and democracy, it also represents a particular form of accounting, often existing in a constitutive tension with justice and the inherently contested nature of memory.  This project explores the plural and fractured nature of truth(s) as an opportunity to engage in a set of critical questions about truth in relation to violence and inequality in the Americas, as experienced in different nations and diaspora communities.

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Our next event is below:

DIASPORA AND GENOCIDE IN THE AMERICAS

Symposium

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

3:00-5:30pm

 Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life

Rutgers University, New Brunswick

By invitation only

The twentieth century has been viewed as a century of genocide, periods of violent rupture that prompted waves of migration and exile from Europe to the Americas.  Yet, in their new nations, the survivors and their family members experienced periods of state violence, terror, and repression.  How did they grapple with these experiences of violence, and in what way did past genocide shape their new subjectivities? How did their lived experience in the Americas reframe the discursive frameworks and memories of the past, as well as inform new forms of citizenship and belonging?  Further, in what ways did modalities of rupture and the desire for repair, in terms of violence past and present, inform their relationship to one another and to their nations of origin and new homes? This symposium invites scholars and practitioners working on the intersections of diaspora and genocide in the Americas to explore these questions through a multidisciplinary dialogue.

Read more about the Program and Participants.

Organized by Emmanuel Kahan and Natasha Zaretsky

Note that the symposium will take place in English and Spanish.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights (Rutgers University, Newark), Nucleo de Estudos Judíos, Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social (Argentina), The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life (Rutgers University, New Brunswick)

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Note that this event is part of the TRUTH IN THE AMERICAS Project at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University,  coordinated by Natasha Zaretsky. 

https://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/truth-americas-project-2016-present

Living Truth in the Americas

Living Truth in the Americas

Symposium: April 8, 2016 – Rutgers University, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights

(By Invitation)

Over the last thirty years, truth has emerged as an important space for accounting for past violence in Latin America. In the wake of state terror, torture, disappearances, and genocide, communities have turned to truth as a grassroots response and challenge to political violence, through practices of memory and advocacy for justice that resists the erasure of their experience. States have also engaged truth as a form of transitional justice, using truth commissions and other modalities of truth in the wake of war, human rights abuses, and genocide. Yet, although truth has become critical to rebuilding civil society and democracy, it also represents a particular form of accounting, often existing in a constitutive tension with justice and the inherently contested nature of memory.

The plural and fractured nature of truth(s) opens an opportunity to engage in a set of critical questions about truth in relation to violence and inequality in the Americas. What does “truth” mean on the ground in Latin America and Latin American diaspora communities? How does it travel as a concept and shape particular forms of inclusion and possibilities for contestation? How effective can it be in response to political violence and other forms of structural inequality? In the current politics of truth, what experiences remain on the margins, elided from visibility and official discourse, and how do those who may be marginalized engage truth in their struggles for rights and inclusion? Fundamentally, as a lived experience, what does a sustained focus on truth reveal about the contemporary negotiation of citizenship and belonging in the Americas? This symposium explores these complexities of truth from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, inviting scholars and practitioners to examine questions of memory, justice, and survival in the Americas through the lens of truth as both a concept and a lived experience.

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Program Chair: Natasha Zaretsky

Organizers: Nela Navarro and Natasha Zaretsky

Inaugural Event- CGHR Latin America Working Group

Sponsored by the Rutgers University Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and the Division of Global Affairs

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*Image: On the Way (En Camino) Intaglio 60x40cms. 2001 – Copyright Mirta Kupferminc