Conflict memories and sexual and gender-based violence: From silencing to standardization

The contribution explores the multiple ways in which institutional and public memories silence, refine, or standardize the experiences of survivors of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. It reviews if, and if yes how, experiences related to sexual and gender-based violence are memorialized in post-conflict societies. Are these public memories in line with other discourses about the conflict, especially peace agreements? Who are the actors involved in these memorialization initiatives? And are these memorializations following specific temporalities? By paying specific attention to the content of public memories, the chapter analyzes their framing of gender-based and sexual violence, from exceptional to normalized. It also looks at how victims are portrayed, from standardized symbolic figures to specifically located individuals. The contribution builds on empirical data collected in various (post-)conflict societies such as Northern Ireland, the DRC, or Rwanda.