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This site houses information on my work and publications, as well as a host of resources. My work largely focuses on the psychological implications of strategies for dealing with a violent political past such as truth commissions, reconciliation as a theoretical and applicable concept, truth recovery processes and transitional justice more broadly, healing and dealing with the psychological legacy of violence, as well as comparative research on violence and crime in countries in transition. I also write a monthly opinion column "Look South" for Polity focused on topical issues. The site also includes some of my published creative writing, including short stories and poetry.




Some recent academic publications...

Gender, Memorialization, and Symbolic Reparations [Sep 2009]

Transforming Societies after Political Violence (book) [June 2009]

The Role of Education in Reconciliation [May 2009]

Too deep, too threatening: Understandings of reconciliation [Mar 2009]

Beyond Coexistence:Defining Reconciliation [Jan 2009]

Masculinity and Transitional Justice: An Exploratory Essay [Dec 2008]

Trauma, Peacebuilding and Development [Sep 2008]


Transforming Societies after Political Violence

Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health

by Brandon Hamber, Ph.D.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health by Brandon Hamber

Brandon Hamber helps us better understand the mental health backdrop to atrocity and recovery.  With plentiful, poignant stories, and clear policy recommendations, this book should help shape – and greatly improve – future endeavors to confront unimaginable memories and pain (Priscilla Hayner, ICTJ and author of Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity)


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Transforming Societies after Political Violence offers a template for those tasked with providing truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing. This interdisciplinary study identifies complex relationships between recovery from political violence and the psychological processes that accompany widespread social change, showing how these can be integrated to strengthen both individual and society. Author Brandon Hamber draws on his extensive experience in South Africa and comparative examples from elsewhere to examine the centrality of mental health issues in transitional justice, and the social, cultural, and identity issues involved in meeting the needs of victims. In discussing reparations (what the author terms "repairing the irreparable"), the power of ambivalence, and especially concepts of closure, he eloquently sets out professionals’ roles in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired in it.

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ISBN: 978-0-387-89426-3 Springer 2009.






Latest Column

Latest opinion
piece added......




Bloodsucking is
all the rage

[13 November 2009
]


"Look South"
Published by Polity




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Transforming Societies After Political Violence

June 2009


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