Join us for this event with Elke Evrard, a postdoctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University.

In recent decades, reparations have emerged as key mechanisms for addressing systemic state-sponsored human rights violations, aiming not only to acknowledge and compensate victims but also to transform the structural causes of these harms. However, the realization of reparation programs also hinges on support by majority non-victimized groups, a dynamic largely overlooked in existing literature. Understanding how survivors’ demands for comprehensive repair (fail to) resonate is crucial, as public perception and support contribute to shaping both the socio-political viability of reparation initiatives and their broader goals of fostering recognition, civic trust, and social solidarity.

This presentation reflects on a survey experiment in Guatemala to explore how contentious processes of discursive memory production – characterized by competing representations of the temporality of harm and prospects for peace – impact the emergence of political solidarity with Indigenous survivors of the internal armed conflict and support for their reparations demands. While the study finds that perceptions of survivors' ongoing suffering and the potential of reparations to contribute to peace are important predictors of solidarity and support, these perceptions proved largely unmoving to the contrasting textual primes presented in the experiment.

In-depth analysis of open-ended responses shows that individuals, in engaging with prevalent memory discourse(s), have developed stable yet diverse interpretations of the necessity and nature of repair and its connection to social change. Three interpretative frames – focusing on 'rights and justice,' 'healing and reconciliation,' and 'economic progress and development' – are variably mobilized in expressions of support, ambivalence, or opposition to reparations. Additional research is essential to better understand how socio-legal contexts and cognitive processes interact to shape public attitudes and behaviors in relation to reparation debates worldwide, including, for example, in European countries grappling with the legacies of slavery and colonial pasts.

Meet our speaker and chair

Elke Evrard is a postdoctoral researcher at the Human Rights Centre of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University. As a member of the ERC-funded Justice Visions research project, her work focuses on victim participation, public outreach, reparations, and memory-making in transitional justice contexts, including post-conflict settings and countries addressing widespread historical harm. She has a particular interest in interdisciplinary and mixed method approaches. She is also a co-lecturer of the course "Transitional Justice and Human Rights" and serves as the managing editor for the Journal of Human Rights Practice with Oxford University Press.

Elke holds a PhD in Law, as well as Master’s degrees in European Studies and in International Politics. Her doctoral dissertation examined the nexus of expressive justice theories with discourses and practices of participation, solidarity and citizenship, through empirical studies focused on Liberia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. She has published and forthcoming articles in leading journals, such as the International Journal of Transitional Justice, Social Justice Research, the Journal of Peace Research, and the International Journal of Human Rights. Additionally, she is currently co-editing an authoritative handbook on victim engagement in transitional justice, which is based on an international conference she co-organized.

Denisa Kostovicova is Professor in Global Politics and Director of LSEE Research on South Eastern Europe at the LSE European Institute.


Understanding solidary support for reparations: Memory production and public meaning-making after mass violence

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Understanding solidary support for reparations: Memory production and public meaning-making after mass violence

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