Haunting and transitional justice: On lives, landscapes and unresolved pasts
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758020945144 |
| Author | Cheryl Lawther |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Haunting and transitional
justice: On lives, landscapes
and unresolved pasts
Cheryl Lawther
Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Abstract
This article explores practices of haunting and ghosting after conflict-related loss. This is not to
suggest a focus on the occult or the paranormal, but to use these phenomena as a prism through
which to understand the intersection between unresolved pasts and the transmission of trauma
post-conflict. As Michael Levan notes, trauma lingers ‘unexorcisably in the places of its perpe-
tration, in the bodies of those affected, in the eyes of the witnesses, and in the politics of memory’.
The ghost, according to Avery Gordon ‘is the principal form by which something lost or invisible or
seemingly not there makes itself known or apparent to us’. In this article I argue for three con-
ceptualisations of haunting when past traumas remain unaddressed: the haunting of lost lives, the
haunting of landscape, and the haunting presence of the unresolved past. The article focuses on
Northern Ireland, a post-conflict jurisdiction described as being haunted by a ‘conflict calendar in
which every day is an anniversary’ and extensive fieldwork with victims and survivors of the
conflict. The article concludes by arguing that the presence of ghosts and the experience of
haunting represent a ‘call to action’ in the quest to deal with a legacy of violent conflict and human
rights abuses.
Keywords
Haunting, victimhood, trauma, the past
Introduction
Building on approaches to ghosts and haunting by Avery Gordon, this article is concerned with
practices of haunting and ghosting after conflict-related loss. This is not to suggest a focus on the
occult or the paranormal, but to use these phenomena as a prism through which to understand the
Corresponding author:
Cheryl Lawther, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, Main Site Tower, University Square, Belfast, Northern Ireland
BT7 1NN, UK.
Email: c.lawther@qub.ac.uk
International Review of Victimology
2021, Vol. 27(1) 3–22
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758020945144
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intersection between unresolved pasts and the transmission of trauma post-conflict. At first blush,
dealing with the legacy of a violent past may appear to have little in common with notions of
ghosting or haunting. I would, however, argue that the opposite is true: ghosts can be key to
understanding how the effects of mass murder, genocide, slavery or colonial oppression extend
far beyond the moment of atrocity to engender trauma that echoes for generations (Schindel, 2014;
Schwab, 2010). Likewise, the work of truth, justice, accountability and memory is precisely about
responding to the unsettled ghosts of the p ast and their presence amongst the living . Indeed,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a powerful advocate of the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission because of his hope that it would tackle the problem of the past’s ‘uncanny habit of
returning to haunt one’ and its refusal to ‘lie down quietly’ (Tutu, 1998: 7). Conversely, writing
about the cultural memory of Soviet terror, Alexander Etkind (2009) argues that Russian civil
society is haunted by the ‘unquiet ghosts’ of the unburied Soviet past.
The ghost, according to Avery Gordon (1997: 63), ‘is the principal fo rm by which something
lost or invisible or seemingly not there makes itself known or apparent to us’. She p roposes that
we do not think of ghosts as representations of missing or dead persons, but as ‘inarticulate
experiences’ and ‘haunting reminders’ of the violence and complex social relations in which we
live (Gordon, 1997: 25). They offer a glimpse of ‘the fundamental difference between the world
we have now and the world we could have had instead’ (Gordon, 1997: 127). For Derrida (1994),
the spectre is the conveyor of legacies and demands from the dead. To live with, talk to and about
ghosts Derrida (1994: xviii) proposes, is all done ‘in the name of justice’. This engagement with
ghosts involves a politics of mourning, of memory and of inheritances that allows for a diversity
of relations with the past (Wilke, 2010). Reckoning with ghosts, through processes of truth
recovery or reparations for example, therefore does not neg ate the past but remains focused
on the present: ‘Because ultimately haunting is about how to transform a shadow of a life into an
undiminished life whose shadows touch softly in the spirit of a peaceful reconciliation’ (Gordon,
1997: 208; Wilke, 2010).
In this article I argue for three conceptualisations of haunting when past traumas remain
unaddressed: the haunting of lost lives, the haunting of landscapes, and the haun ting of the
unresolved past. This conceptualisation demands that we, for example, see haunting as an animated
state in which repressed or unresolved so cial violence is making itself known, and se e place
memory as capable of embodying ghosts and haunting reminders of the past (Robinson, 2017).
As Gordon (1997) argues, haunting and the appearance of spectres or ghosts is one way in which
we are notified that what has been concealed, repressed or remains unanswered is very much alive
and present with the potential for personal, social and political disruption. Ghosts thus prohibit the
separation of the past, the present and the future. The experience of haunting post-conflict is thus a
demand to close the loop between the living and the dead and the trauma of war and conflict.
The article focuses on Northern Ireland, a post-conflict society described as being haunted by a
‘conflict calendar in which every day is an anniversary’ (Rowan, 2012). There, the dead remain a
potent and emotive means of legitimising and perpetuating the ethnonational and sectarian char-
acteristics of political debate (Graham and Whelan, 2007). The dead have, for example, been used
to perform the relevance of violence, demarcate borders, enact social martyrdom and perpetuate
polarised conceptions of victimhood (Robinson, 2017). The failure to ‘deal with’ the legacy of the
conflict by way of formal truth recovery means that for many victims and survivors, the spectres of
the past remain in the present, precluding healing, closure or restitution and permitting space for
the transmission of trauma into lives, spaces and the social and political fabric of everyday life.
4International Review of Victimology 27(1)
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