Comments on: Speech, monuments, and the legacy of silence https://academography.decasia.org/2017/08/22/speech-monuments-and-the-legacy-of-silence/ Critical Ethnography & Higher Education Mon, 25 Sep 2017 11:07:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.4 By: Davydd Greenwood https://academography.decasia.org/2017/08/22/speech-monuments-and-the-legacy-of-silence/#comment-266 Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:04:11 +0000 https://academography.decasia.org/?p=727#comment-266 I agree that the trauma discourse has a way of taking over all of the space for distinctions. It is interesting to think about the sheer scope of reparations for slavery and genocide in the US. In addition to the clear continuation of the racism involved in slavery and genocide, the dollar amounts of even modest restitution would be incalculable. This does make your case that the situations are different and cannot easily be subsumed under one rubric.

]]> By: Eli Thorkelson https://academography.decasia.org/2017/08/22/speech-monuments-and-the-legacy-of-silence/#comment-263 Mon, 28 Aug 2017 18:34:55 +0000 https://academography.decasia.org/?p=727#comment-263 Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Davydd; I like the idea of applying a broader range of anthropological expertise on trauma and dispossession to the ongoing questions about the legacy of slavery. It seems to me that you are drawing somewhat on your PAR experience as well when you advocate trying to start dialogue among groups who are radically in conflict with each other. And certainly, as the last few weeks demonstrate, there are major resonances between the Confederate and neo-Nazi “heritage projects” in the United States (if one can call them that).

The politics of Holocaust remembrance in Germany seem really different from the politics of the legacy of slavery in the United States, though, and I also find it hard to think about the issues strictly through the lens of trauma and culture, if that entails leaving aside questions of economic justice and wealth redistribution. For one thing, there was actually a project of economic restitution and compensation for German Jews — contrast that with the extreme hostility towards any modern reparations for slavery…

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