1. INTRODUCTION (This course will be taught in two parts- one in the Fall and one in the Spring)

“Transitional justice refers to the set of judicial and non-judicial measures that have been implemented by different countries in order to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses. These measures include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs, and various kinds of institutional reforms… Transitional justice includes a range of responses to massive human rights violations, including exposing the truth about past atrocities, holding perpetrators accountable, providing reparations for victims, and fundamentally reforming the state and social institutions that allowed—and in many cases participated in—atrocities.” (International Center for Transitional Justice- ICTJ)
https://www.ictj.org/about

This course will explore how the social psychology of human rights has become a central dimension of processes of transitional(1) and restorative justice(2) throughout the world, and the implications of this convergence(3). The contributions of theories and practices grounded in social psychology are especially notable within contexts of structural violence and mass human rights crimes, which will be our focus here, including cases related to patterns of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender violence. Our emphasis throughout will be on the contributions of psychological theories and methods in combination with approaches grounded in human rights scholarship and praxis, from a critical, interdisciplinary, comparative, and intercultural perspective.

2. KEY PERSPECTIVES

The course will focus on the impact of such contexts on excluded groups such as racial and ethnic minorities, migrants, indigenous peoples, and persons identified as LGBT. The experiences and perspectives of social movements centered in these groups, and of women, youth, and children(4), are central to our approach in this course. The emphasis will be on issues of trauma, and on how memories and processes of mourning and commemoration regarding traumatizing events are constructed psychologically, socially, culturally, and historically. This will include examples of how literature, theater, and performance can contribute to such processes.

We will approach these issues from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, through case studies. This will include detailed analysis of cases from Taiwan, the U.S, Latin America, and Africa. Specific cases will include experiences of transitional justices in each of these contexts, the impact of racist police violence as reflected in the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the U.S, and the intertwined dynamics of state and structural violence within the context of protest movements in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

3. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION

The format of this course combines Power Point lectures, multi-media presentations (newspaper articles, video clips), discussions, brainstorming sessions, readings, and group tasks.

4. SPRING SEMESTER

Focus on detailed analysis of specific case studies (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, East Timor, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, etc.), the extent to which they have incorporated social-psychological dimensions in their methodology, and their implications for Taiwan.

Notes:
(1) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-transitional/
(2) https://www.dejusticia.org/en/transitional-justice-restorative-justice-and-reconciliation/
(3) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/271228
(4) https://www.ictj.org/news/guide-interviewing-young-people-truth-seeking