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Title The monkeys' sworn oath: cultures of engagement for reconciliation and healing in the aftermath of the civil war in Mozambique
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1887/12089
Date 2007
Author(s) Igreja, Victor
Abstract This study examines the social world of reconciliation and healing in the aftermath of the protracted Mozambican civil war. Using a multidisciplinary approach (sociology, history, legal and medical anthropology, and international law) this research explores how reconciliation and healing unfold contributing to the repair of a devastated social world. It examines the war survivors' judgments regarding the potential roles of various forms of transitional justice in redressing the abuses and crimes of the past, the contributions of the agricultural cycle and customary justice to reconciliation, and those of healing practices in addressing ill-health problems. The overall goal is to elucidate how the various social practices invested in reconciliation and healing contribute to rebuilding the shattered social world, to peace and to social stability. The study demonstrates that amidst the indescribable and appalling human disruption and material destruction coupled with the officially orchestrated post-war cultures of denial, war survivors in Gorongosa have laboured to create and maintain peace and social stability by breaking the cycles of injustice and unaccountability, reconciling with former enemies and healing the wounds of war.
Subject(s) Post-civil war; Justice; Healing; Reconciliation; Victims; Perpetrators; Ecological Model; Cultures of engagement; Gender; Spirits of the dead; Gorongosa-Mozambique central
Language en
Publisher Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Faculty of Medicine, and Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, Leiden University
Type of publication Doctoral thesis
Format application/pdf; application/pdf; application/pdf; application/pdf; application/pdf; application/pdf
Repository Leiden - Africanists at University of Leiden
Added to C-A: 2009-07-28;09:19:04