Memorializing Violence : Transnational Feminist Reflections

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Memorializing Violence: Transnational Feminist Reflections, edited by Alison Crosby and Heather Evans, is a thought-provoking and highly relevant anthology that encourages readers to explore the complex relationships between memory, violence, and loss in diverse global settings, all through the perspective of transnational feminism. Positioned within a lineage of feminist memory studies, Memorializing Violence builds on earlier works, such as the collections Women Mobilizing Memory (Altınay et al., 2019), and Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories (Altınay and Pető, 2016). This volume extends the critical conversations initiated by these texts, further interrogating the “communally generated and oriented memorializing practices and rituals through which collective memories and grief are ‘made material, to be spoken, to be witnessed’” (Crosby and Evans, citing Ford-Smith and Stephen, 2025: 3). By weaving transnational feminist perspectives into the analysis, Memorializing Violence offers a continuation and expansion of the scholarly tradition of feminist memory studies that furthermore connects with activist memory studies (see Rigney, 2018), understanding memory as a site of both profound pain and persistent potential for transformation. This review aims to explore the volume’s significant contributions, highlighting how its diverse chapters collectively illuminate how intersections of race and gender, and, to a lesser degree, sexuality, are negotiated in different memorializing practices in the contexts of political, colonial, and state violence.