Restorative Justice, Humanitarian Rhetorics, and Public Memories of Colonial Camp Cultures

The concentrations camps that existed in the colonised world at the turn of the 20th Century are a vivid reminder of the atrocities committed by imperial powers on indigenous populations. This study explores British, American and Spanish camp cultures, analysing debates over their legitimacy and current discussions on retributive justice.

'In this impressively researched and deftly argued work, Marouf Hasian, Jr. demonstrates the instrumental function of rhetoric in shaping and reshaping (post)colonial pasts, presents, and futures. The author's theoretically adept, meticulously documented case analyses throw light on the 'amnesiac practices' that continue to fuel sociopolitical imaginaries. Hasian's book performs a timely intervention in humanitarian scholarship'

D. Robert DeChaine, California State University, Los Angeles, USA

'Marouf Hasian offers an innovative approach to thinking about (post)colonialism, and its relationship to memory. In his careful analysis of each case study from very different political and historical contexts, Hasian makes important connections between how memory is rhetorically constructed in the context of camps. The framework of 'camps' advances our understanding of (post)colonialism and memory. This book is a significant contribution to this area of inquiry.'

Tom Nakayama, Northeastern University, USA

Autorentext
Marouf Hasian, Jr., is a professor of communications in the Department of Communications at the University of Utah. He is the author of more than 140 articles and book chapters, and he continues to write about the importance of rhetorical histories in 21st-century studies of atrocities, large-scale massacres, and genocide. He is especially interested in investigating how military communities appropriate humanitarian discourses to justify national and international interventions.

Inhalt

1. The Biopolitical Usage of Colonial Camp Systems Between 1896 and 1908 and the Quest For Restorative Justice 2. General Valeriano Weyler, the Spanish 'Reconcentración Policy,' and American Calls for Military Intervention into Cub 3. The 'Faded Flowers' and the Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War 4. The German Konzentrationslager and the Debates about the Annihilation of the Herero, 1905-1908 5. American 'Concentration' Camp Debates and Selective Remembrances of the Philippine-American War 6. (Post)colonial Presents and International Humanitarian Futures: Remembering the Age of the Colonial Camps