ColleCtive MeMory PraCtiCes as tools for reConCiliation: Perspectives from Liberation and Cultural Psychology

Many African communities have appropriated the international practice of “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions” (TRCs) as a means to construct a shared sense of collective memory, identity, and purpose in the aftermath of violent conflict. In this paper, we consider alternative forms of collective memory practices that might better suit the task of reconciliation in postconflict West African communities. Drawing upon the theoretical perspective of cultural psychology, we first identify the conceptual foundations of canonical TRC practice in particular Christian traditions that valorize revelation, truth, confession, and forgiveness. We then propose alternative practices of collective memory that have conceptual foundations in local practices or traditions that recommend secrecy (Shaw 2000), directed forgetting (Cole 2001), and other forms of interpretative silence. Drawing upon the theoretical perspective of liberation psychology, we note the ways in which conventional TRC practice, by focusing attention on acts of wrongdoing within communities, can reproduce silence about broader political and economic injustices that produce ripe conditions for conflict. We then propose alternative practices of collective memory to illuminate the role that local elites African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review volume 2 i ssue 2 6 and citizens of rich nations play in the ongoing reproduction of unjust postcolonial conditions that can lead to conflict situations within communities. KeywoRdS: Cultural Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Silence, Sierra Leone, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions