Interdisciplinary Workshop to be held at the University of Haifa, 4–5.02.2024
Throughout history, expulsions and forced migration have been recurring phenomena. However, it was in the twentieth century that they evolved into state-sponsored methods of domination, impacting people across the world. In a globalized system of nation-states, political power has often been viewed as dependent on homogenizing populations while ethnic or religious conflicts are frequently framed in biological terms, leading to radical dissolutions of the social and cultural makeup of peoples. As a result of these social engineering projects, unprecedented large-scale state-organized mass violence was committed, including forced repatriation, ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and genocide. In the aftermath of such events, the issue of redress arises. Although reparations have the potential to play a crucial role in transforming violent situations into peaceful ones, they are frequently not provided and, consequently, victims of severe human rights violations and serious breaches of international humanitarian law are being left without compensation.
Against this backdrop, it is the aim of this workshop to gather an interdisciplinary group of scholars to investigate reparations as a policy instrument available to societies that have faced violent uprooting and forced migration. Our effort stems from the awareness of the need for more comprehensive, evidence-based and comparative research on a subject that could prove vital for reconciliation and maintaining peace during periods of transition.
The workshop is jointly organised by the research group “Paying for the Past” at the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies and the Minerva Centre for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa, in partnership with the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Sussex. Our collaboration is part of an ongoing effort to create a platform for discussion of issues surrounding redress of historical injustice.
The organisers invite proposals for papers (20 minutes in length) engaging with these and related themes.
Please send a title, up to 250 words abstract, along with a short bio information and contact information by September 1, 2023, to Michal Ben Gal bmichal@geo.haifa.ac.il.
Successful candidates will be notified by October 1, 2023.