BB: Comparative Reconciliation and the Normalization of Memory

In this talk, the speaker will share his two-decade long experience of conducting comparative research on political reconciliation covering East Asia, western and southeast Europe. He will introduce the key concepts of Erinnerungskultur, Transitional Justice, peacebuilding, and distinct cultural understandings of “reconciliation” itself. Questions to be discussed include the different approaches of comparative political research, their pros and cons, and the relationship between single-case and comparative studies. He will also share the latest findings of his ongoing research project comparing Germany, Northern Ireland, and the western Balkans.

C. K. Martin Chung is Associate Professor of Government and International Studies and Coordinator of the GIS-Sciences Po Bordeaux combined degree programme at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). His first monograph, Repentance for the Holocaust: Lessons from Jewish Thought for Confronting the German Past (Cornell University Press 2017) explores the role of religious ideas in German Vergangenheitsbewältigung. His comparative study, "Twenty Years after: Statute of Limitations and the Asymmetric Burdens of Justice in Northern Ireland and Post-war Germany" (2021), has been selected by the Hansard Society to be included in the Parliamentary Affairs special collection, "Marking 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement". His other articles have appeared in the International Journal of Transitional Justice, History & Memory, British Politics, Jahrbuch des Dubnow-Instituts and Jahrbuch für Politik und Geschichte. A graduate of Yad Vashem and Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, Chung holds a PhD from the University of Hong Kong and is currently a visiting research fellow of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz.