Historical Trauma and Transformation
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Symposia and research meetings

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Exploring Intergroup Empathy and its Limits: An 

​Interdisciplinary Symposium

On 4-5 May, Historical Trauma and Transformation hosted a symposium on intergroup empathy that brought together professional practitioners, scholars, and emerging researchers from different branches in psychology (including social psychology, psychoanalysis, social neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience). The goal was to engage a multidisciplinary appr​oach to explore the psychological mechanisms that play out in intergroup relations, with a particular focus on empathy (and also its limitations) in the context of interracial interactions. Dr Melike Fourie, who was partly responsible for organising the symposium, also used the event to spearhead social neuroscience in South Africa as an emerging discipline that shows rich promise in enhancing our understanding of complex social phenomena. Together with Professor Mark Solms from UCT, she delivered a public lecture entitled “Social neuroscience and its contribution to understanding complex social issues in contemporary South Africa." ​​

The keynote lecture was delivered by Dr Emile Bruneau, head of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. In his talk, “Putting social neuroscience to work for peace", he examined the processes that drive discrimination and intergroup conflict, focusing on how the methods of social neuroscience could help to identify and characterise the (often unconscious) cognitive biases that drive conflict. Other presenters and contributers at the symposium included Dr Lane Benjamin, Prof Kevin Durrheim, Monica du Toit, Prof Ernesta Meintjes, Dr Lidewij Niezink, Prof Desmond Painter, Dr Katherine Train, Dr Ross Truscott, Dr Buhle Zuma, Dr Kim Wale, and Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela.​

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Troubling the Haunting Power of the Past; Interrupting Intergenerational Cycles of Historical Trauma​

An Interdisciplinary Symposium was hosted by Historical Trauma and Transformation and Queens University​ on the 15-16 May 2017.​​ This interdisciplinary symposium was a dialogue between scholars from Northern Ireland and South Africa. It aimed to examine the connection between historical trauma and memory, and to illuminate how this relationship plays out in the public and private realms in societies with a history of violent pasts. Discussions in the symposium engaged with, and reflected on the established theoretical tenets that inform global scholarship on the central themes of the symposium. The symposium also served to interrogate theory in order to address critical questions regarding the challenges of societal and individual transformation in post-apartheid South Africa and in the aftermath of the “troubles" in Northern Ireland. With a multidisciplinary approach, including the arts (visual arts, film a​​nd theatre), the symposium intended to start a dialogue between scholars from the two countries, through the exploration of new intellectual frontiers within the buzzing hub of scholarly debates on historical trauma, and what healing might mean in its aftermath. The starting point of the discussion was that the Humanities and the Arts are more essential than ever, to help us understand the challenges facing societies affected by historical trauma, to advance scholarship, and to contribute to new knowledge production that inform public opinion and guide us to solutions.

The keynote lecture was delivered by Professor John Brewer from the Senator George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. In his talk, 'Rethinking Victim Issues', he conceptualised victims as moral beacons within societies and how the victimhood experience itself provokes a moral response that is rooted in a 'relational ethic', which is outworked in most victims through emotional empathy, compassion and the wish to 'get along'.  A public lecture was given by Dr Emery Kalema a Post-Doctor Fellow from the Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation with Nomfundo Mogabi, Director of Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Dr Emery Kalema gave his lecture on 'Congolese Political Regimes and the Politics of Forgetting' and Nofundo Mogabi gave her lecture on 'Post-Apartheid Traumatic Legacies and Violence'. Other presenters and contributors of the Symposiom included, Professor Annemiek Ritchers, Professor Kopano Ratele, Professor Hastings Donnan, Professor Jaco Bernard Naude, Dr Cheryl Lawther, Dr Lane Benjamin, Dr Buhle Zuma, Dr Kim Wale and Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. 

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