Re-imagining Memorialization and Documentation in Afghanistan

About this episode

This episode discusses memorialization and documentation efforts in Afghanistan, focusing on arts-based approaches and their challenges.

The new miniseries of the Justice Visions podcast focuses on the current debates and discussions surrounding memory and memorialization. In this third episode of the miniseries, we shed a light on memorialization and documentation efforts in Afghanistan, and reflect on the merits of arts-based approaches, as well as the challenges posed by such approaches. Sophia Bijleveld Milosevic is a member of AHRDO, an Afghan human rights organization that uses a transformative, victim-oriented approach. Their work aims to document human rights violations for judicial purposes while also telling victims' stories in a way that reflects their lived experiences, among others via art-based approaches. Through the Memory Box initiative, AHRDO collected over 15.000 personal items of war victims, creating a space for individual and collective memorialization in Afghanistan. "We felt it was important to continue to share these testimonies and to continue to advocate for victims", states Sophia. "In the Afghan context, memorialization can be considered as a form of symbolic reparation and a way of acknowledging the stories of the victims." To leverage their expertise in…

People in this episode

Guest: Sophia Bijleveld Milosevic

Topics covered

• memorialization
• documentation
• Afghanistan
• human rights
• arts-based approaches

Keywords

• AHRDO
• Memory Box
• symbolic reparation
• victim-oriented approach

Mentioned in this episode

Products: the Memory Box, Memory Box

Books & works: Memorialization and Documentation, Justice Visions

Places: Afghanistan

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