Month: October 2015

Narratives of Colonization, Decolonization and Recolonization in Papua

October 27, 2015

By David Webster. Originally published by activehistory.ca After the resolution of the Aceh dispute and the independence of East Timor, Indonesia’s most serious conflict is in Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). One major stumbling block to conflict resolution is the clash of historical narratives. Papuan nationalists claim their land was “already sovereign” from the 1960s and… More Narratives of Colonization, Decolonization and Recolonization in Papua

Canada’s Conversation on Cultural Genocide

October 8, 2015

By Cynthia Dawn Roy After six years of investigating the impacts of residential schools in Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released a summary of its final report June 2. The report’s final conclusion was that the residential school system was an act of “cultural genocide”. Reactions to this term varied from incredulity and… More Canada’s Conversation on Cultural Genocide

Southeast Asian and Pacific National Museums as Sites of Memory

October 7, 2015

By Sarah Zwierzchowski In an article for Representations (later published as the introduction to his book, Les lieux de mémoire), French historian Pierre Nora presented the concept of lieux de mémoire to describe entities where “memory crystallizes and secretes itself.”[1] Sites of memory hold symbolic value contributing to the memorial heritage of communities and can… More Southeast Asian and Pacific National Museums as Sites of Memory