Remembering Mass Atrocities: Perspectives on Memory Struggles and Cultural Representations in Africa

This book explores how popular cultural artifacts, literary texts, commemorative practices and other forms of remembrances are used to convey, transmit and contest memories of mass atrocities in the Global South. Some of these historical atrocities took place during the Cold war. As such, this book unpacks the influence or role of the global powers in conflict in the Global South. Contributors are grappling with a number of issues such as the politics of memorialization, memory conflicts, exhumations, reburials, historical dialogue, peacebuilding and social healing, memory activism, visual representation, transgenerational transmission of memories, and identity politics.

Mphathisi Ndlovu is a research fellow at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). Mphathisi is also an Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the National University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe). He is also an alumnus of the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability (AHDA) fellowship at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Mphathisi holds a PhD in Journalism from Stellenbosch University. His research interests are in collective memory, identity politics and digital cultures.  Mphathisi’s works have been published as book chapters, and peer reviewed articles in journals such as Digital Journalism, African Cultural Studies, Journal of Genocide Research, and Nations and Nationalism. Mphathisi is also co-editor of a book titled The Idea of Matabeleland in Digital Spaces: Genealogies, Discourses and EpistemicStruggles (2022).

 

Lungile Augustine Tshuma holds a PhD in Journalism from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a Senior PostDoctoral Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Lungile is also an Associate Professor in the department of Journalism and Media Studies at the National University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe). His research interests are in journalism, photography and memory. He has published in local and international peer reviewed journals and among them are: African Journalism Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Media Culture and Society, and Journal of Communication Inquiry.

 

Shepherd Mpofu is Associate Professor of Media and Communication at the University of South Africa. He has published several articles on communication, media and journalism in Africa. His body of work covers social media and politics; social media and identity; social media and protests. He is the co-editor of  New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory and Newsmaking Cultures (Palgrave 2023); Decolonising Media and Communication Studies Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (Routledge 2023) and Mediating Xenophobia In Africa (Palgrave 2020). He is editor of The Politics Of Laughter In The Social Media Age: Perspectives From The Global South (Palgrave Macmillan 2021) and Digital Humour In The COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives From The Global South (Palgrave Macmillan 2021).