ABSTRACT
Throughout this volume, we see a range of tensions and politics that sites of persuasion face in their history- and memory-making roles. On the one hand, in uncovering past, and often ignored, human rights abuses—as political and selective as they may be—these sites acknowledge the inextricable connection between human wrongs and human rights, conveying stories of violence, suffering, and harms. But they also provide visitors with a range of emotional and affective encounters that, at their most persuasive, encourage deeper understanding of and engagement with these histories. As sites of persuasion they tell their visitors what is important to remember, understand, and know about the past. However, “As much as they [memory sites] may be read as historical, their rhetoric is principally present, prospective, and imperative. They typically nominate particular acts and agents of history as normative models for present and future modes of ‘being public’” (Blair, Dickinson, and Ott 2010, 27). For many cases in this volume, the mode of being public means embracing the ideals of human rights and democratic culture, even while political, economic, and other pressures influence what is included and left out. They thus encapsulate and reveal the promise and perils of sites of persuasion that work to promote human rights and condemn human wrongs; that is, they exist within a realpolitik that espouses human rights and democratic ideals but selectively carries them out in practice.
