This book presents the key issues, debates, concepts, approaches, and questions that together define the lives of rural people living in extreme poverty in the aftermath of political violence in a developing country context. Divided into nine chapters, the book addresses issues such as the complexities of human suffering, losing trust, psychic wounds, dealing with post-traumatic stress situations, and disillusionment after change. By building knowledge about human and social suffering in a post-conflict environment, the book counters the objectification of human and social suffering and the moral detachment with which it is associated. In addition, it presents practical ways to help make things better. It discusses new methodological concepts based around empathy and participation to show how the subjective reality of human and social suffering matter. Finally, the book maps a burgeoning field of enquiry based around the need for linking psychosocial approaches with the actual lived experience of individuals and groups.

War devastates the lives of those who are caught up in it. For thousands of years, reparations have been used to secure the end of war and alleviate its deleterious consequences. More recently, human rights law has established that victims have a right to reparations. Yet, in the face of conflicts that last for decades with millions of victims, how feasible are reparations? And what are the obstacles to delivering them? Using interviews with hundreds of victims, ex-combatants, government officials, and civil society actors from six post-conflict countries, Reparations and War examines the history, theoretical justifications, and practical challenges of implementing reparations after war. It examines the role of non-state armed groups in making reparations, the role of victim mobilisation, the evolving use of reparations, and the political instrumentalization of redress. Luke Moffett offers a measured and honest account of what reparations can and cannot do. This book sheds new light on how reparations can be politically manipulated, or used to reward those loyal to the State, rather than to achieve justice for the victims who suffer.

Winner of the 2021 Raphael Lemkin Book Award from the Institute for the Study of Genocide​ Honorable Mention, 2020 CALACS Book Prize​ Beyond Repair? explores Mayan women’s agency in the search for redress for harm suffered during the genocidal violence perpetrated by the Guatemalan state in the early 1980s at the height of the thirty-six-year armed conflict. The book draws on eight years of feminist participatory action research conducted with fifty-four Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel, Chuj, and Mam women who are seeking truth, justice, and reparation for the violence they experienced during the war, and the women’s rights activists, lawyers, psychologists, Mayan rights activists, and researchers who have accompanied them as intermediaries for over a decade. Alison Crosby and M. Brinton Lykes use the concept of “protagonism” to deconstruct dominant psychological discursive constructions of women as “victims,” “survivors,” “selves,” “individuals,” and/or “subjects.” They argue that at different moments Mayan women have been actively engaged as protagonists in constructivist and discursive performances through which they have narrated new, mobile meanings of “Mayan woman,” repositioning themselves at the interstices of multiple communities and in their pursuit of redress for harm suffered.

"This volume brings to English-language readers the results of an important long-term project of historians from China and Japan addressing contentious issues in their shared modern histories. Originally published simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese in 2006, the thirteen essays in this collection focus renewed attention on a set of political and historiographical controversies that have steered and stymied Sino-Japanese relations from the mid-nineteenth century through World War II to the present. These in-depth contributions explore a range of themes, from prewar diplomatic relations and conflicts, to wartime collaboration and atrocity, to postwar commemorations and textbook debates—all while grappling with the core issue of how history has been researched, written, taught, and understood in both countries. In the context of a wider trend toward cross-national dialogues over historical issues, this volume can be read as both a progress report and a case study of the effort to overcome contentious problems of history in East Asia."

America, 2028. The War for Equity has begun! A new bureaucracy called the Historical Reparations Administration oversees enforcement of restitution for colonialism and slavery. This is the story of everyday people caught in the crossfire between idealism and technology. Supercomputers scan old documents while drones monitor both Debtors and Beneficiaries from coast to coast. Reality TV shows and religious cults help the nation atone for its sins. Reparations USA is the frantically inventive future history that creates an entire world, complete with its own slang and a diverse cast of sympathetic characters. Philip Wyeth’s exuberant debut novel sets the stage for this timely series which is full of heart... humor... and total surveillance! This is Book One of the Reparations series. 36,500 words.

The Reparations Omnibus... Four Books in One! The year is 2028. A new bureaucracy called the Historical Reparations Administration oversees enforcement of restitution for colonialism and slavery. This is the story of everyday people caught in the crossfire between idealism and technology. Reparations USA sets the stage with exuberant world-building, bizarre tech, outrageous spectacles, quirky slang, and a diverse cast of sympathetic characters. Reparations Mind is the darkly satirical examination of how "changing the world" became the religion of an entire generation. Can individuality assert itself over enforced ideology? Reparations Core is a taut political thriller steeped in psychology and philosophy. Hands will be revealed... pressure applied... and loyalties tested in this perfectly paced installment. Reparations Maze is the inspired conclusion to this utterly unique series. The sweeping thematic drama hurtles forward breathlessly to a remarkable and rewarding final act. The Reparations Omnibus... A Not-So-Distant Mirror. At times comical, literary, and even spiritual, author Philip Wyeth's ambitious future history transcends all expectations. It is an immersive and unflinching exploration of the realm where human aspirations and public policy diverge. (187,000 words)

Reparations for Slavery: A Reader is a collection of essays on the topic of reparations for slavery in the United States. Unlike other readers on the topic, the selections in this volume provide rich historical context by giving the reader a vivid sense of the injuries inflicted by slavery, its aftermath, and the continuing history of state-supported discrimination. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Reparations of Nazi Victims in Postwar Europe traces reparations back to their origins in the final years of the Second World War, when victims of Nazi persecution for the first time articulated demands for indemnification en masse. Simultaneous appearance of claims in New York, London, Paris and Tel Aviv exemplified the birth of a new standard in political morality. Across Europe, the demand for compensation to individuals who suffered severe harm gained momentum. Despite vast differences in their experiences of mass victimisation, post-war societies developed similar patterns in addressing victims' claims. Regula Ludi chronicles the history of reparations from a comparative and trans-national perspective. This book explores the significance of reparations as a means to provide victims with a language to express their unspeakable suffering in a politically meaningful way.

In Who Counts? Diane M. Nelson explores the social life of numbers, teasing out the myriad roles math plays in Guatemalan state violence, economic exploitation, and disenfranchisement, as well as in Mayan revitalization and grassroots environmental struggles. In the aftermath of thirty-six years of civil war, to count—both numerically and in the sense of having value—is a contested and qualitative practice of complex calculations encompassing war losses, migration, debt, and competing understandings of progress. Nelson makes broad connections among seemingly divergent phenomena, such as debates over reparations for genocide victims, Ponzi schemes, and antimining movements. Challenging the presumed objectivity of Western mathematics, Nelson shows how it flattens social complexity and becomes a raced, classed, and gendered skill that colonial powers considered beyond the grasp of indigenous peoples. Yet the Classic Maya are famous for the precision of their mathematics, including conceptualizing zero long before Europeans. Nelson shows how Guatemala's indigenous population is increasingly returning to Mayan numeracy to critique systemic inequalities with the goal of being counted—in every sense of the word.

Despite East Asia's economic growth, ghosts of history continue to trouble relations between the key countries of the region. Unhappy legacies of Japan's military expansion in pre-war Asia prompt on-going calls for apologies, while conflicts over ownership of cultural heritage cause friction between China and Korea, and no peace treaty has ever been signed to conclude the Korean War. For over a decade, the region's governments and non-government groups have sought to confront the ghosts of the past, and focusing particularly on popular culture and grassroots action, East Asia beyond the History Wars explores these East Asian approaches to historical reconciliation.