Bridget Conley publications
Books
Memory from the Margins: Ethiopia’s Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum
(Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
What is the role of memory during a political transition? Drawing on Ethiopian history, transitional justice, and scholarly fields concerned with memory, museums and trauma, the author reveals a complex picture of global, transnational, national and local forces as they converge in the story of the creation and continued life of one modest museum in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa—the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum. It is a study from multiple margins: neither the case of Ethiopia nor memorialization is central to transitional justice discourse, and within Ethiopia, the history of the Red Terror is sidelined in contemporary politics. From these nested margins, traumatic memory emerges as an ambiguous social and political force. The contributions, meaning and limitations of memory emerge at the point of discrete interactions between memory advocates, survivor-docents and visitors. Memory from the margins is revealed as powerful for how it disrupts, not builds, new forms of community.
How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Iraq. (“Introduction” and “Bosnia-Herzegovina: Endings Real and Imagined”)
Edited by Bridget Conley-Zilkic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Given the brutality of mass atrocities, it is no wonder that one question dominates research and policy: what can we, who are not at risk, do to prevent such violence and hasten endings? But this question skips a more fundamental question for understanding the trajectory of violence: how do mass atrocities actually end? This volume presents an analysis of the processes, decisions, and factors that help bring about the end of mass atrocities. It includes qualitatively rich case studies from Burundi, Guatemala, Indonesia, Sudan, Bosnia, and Iraq, drawing patterns from wide-ranging data. As such, it offers a much needed correction to the popular ‘salvation narrative’ framing mass atrocity in terms of good and evil. The nuanced, multidisciplinary approach followed here represents not only an essential tool for scholars, but an important step forward in improving civilian protection.
Book Chapters
Reports & Occasional papers
| Ending Solitary Isolation: Is it within reach in Massachusetts? Bridget Conley JANUARY 2022 This paper provides an overview of solitary confinement in Massachusetts’ prisons and jails, since 2018, with focus on the prison system administered by the Commonwealth’s Department of Correction (DOC). It reviews the research evidence that documents the psychological, physical, and community harms that result from practices of solitary isolation. And it provides evidence for why meaningful prison reform requires legislative action. |
| Gender, Famine and the Female Mortality Advantage Kinsey Spears, Bridget Conley, and Dyan Mazurana World Peace Foundation and the Feinstein international Center DECEMBER 2021 During times of famine, sex, gender and age differences matter. These factors impact who dies, who lives, and how people suffer; they shape lives and livelihoods before, during and after crises. But precisely how and why these factors intersect with famine conditions is an issue of much debate. This Paper investigates the evidence and explanations for sex, gender and age differences across 25 famines, analyzing: the cause of death, biological factors, health outcomes for famine survivors, in situ coping strategies, and migration patterns. It takes into account the potential long-term gender and age health and socio-cultural risks associated with exposure to mass starvation. It concludes by addressing implications for protection and accountability. |
| Forgotten Victims?:Women and COVID-19 Behind Bars Amaia Elorza Arregi, Bridget Conley, Matthew Siegel, and Arlyss Herzig November 2020 COVID-19 and the policies designed to counter it in American prisons pose distinct medical, emotional, psychological, and economic threats for incarcerated women and their families. Drawing on analysis of 138 women’s state and federal prisons across the United States, coupled with review of research on women’s prisons, and detailed profiles of the hardest hit facilities with insights from the women incarcerated inside them, this paper provides unique insight on the impacts of COVID-19 behind bars |
| 96 Deaths in Detention: A View of COVID-19 in the Federal Bureau of Prisons as Captured in Death Notices Bridget Conley and Matthew Siegel August 26, 2020 This paper is part of the WPF program on COVID-19 in American prisons, Detentionville. It reflects the concern that the possibilities for advancing peace globally are tied to the protection of the most vulnerable civilian populations. While our previous work has focused on threats of systematic violence against civilians, often in the context of armed conflict or political repression, the Detentionville project asserts that protection must be conceptualized as a globally integrated practice, whereby domestic and foreign policy exist along a continuum. In the context of American mass incarceration, long-standing, systemic injustices that devalue the lives of the disproportionately incarcerated Black and poor people, have now combined with an acute threat to their lives and health: COVID-19. |
| “Preventing and Respond to Mass Atrocities: Insights for the African Union“ World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, African Politics, African Peace Research Briefing Paper, June 2016. |
| “Clashing Measures of Legitimacy in African Security Sector Reform: Implications for Efforts to Protect Civilians” Human Security Institute at The Fletcher School, Occasional Paper, June 2016, 1:3. |
| with Saskia Brechenmacher and Aditya Sarkar. “Assessing the anti-Atrocity Toolbox” World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School, Occasional Paper, February 2016. |
| with Alex de Waal. “Reflections on How Genocidal Killings Are Brought to an End.” Social Science Research Council’s collection of online forums, (2006). |
| “What Barbed Wire Can’t Enclose”, Alphabet City 7: Social Insecurity (Toronto), Sept. 2000. |
Articles & Op-Eds
Interviews & Lectures
| Andy Heintz Interview with Bridget Conley, “Oversimplifying Conflicts Doesn’t Help Protect Civilians”, Foreign Policy in Focus, March 1, 2018 |
| Podcast: New Books Network, How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq |
Exhibitions and Multimedia Productions
| Host, Voices on Genocide Prevention, monthly online audio interview program (January 2008 – August 2011). |
| Curator, From Memory To Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide Today, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (open 2009 – 2014). |
| Producer, multimedia presentation, Our Walls Bear Witness, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (November 20 – 27, 2006) |
| Producer, “Defying Genocide” (15 mins., U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Committee on Conscience, 2006). |
| Curator, Abandoned At Srebrenica: Ten Years Later, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, (July 2005). |
| Producer and Director, “Darfur Eyewitness” (10 mins., U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Committee on Conscience, 2005). |
Spotlight Publication
Memory from the Margins: Ethiopia’s Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum
(Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019)
This book asks the question: what is the role of memory during a political transition? Drawing on Ethiopian history, transitional justice, and scholarly fields concerned with memory, museums and trauma, the author reveals a complex picture of global, transnational, national and local forces as they converge in the story of the creation and continued life of one modest museum in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa—the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum. It is a study from multiple margins: neither the case of Ethiopia nor memorialization is central to transitional justice discourse, and within Ethiopia, the history of the Red Terror is sidelined in contemporary politics. From these nested margins, traumatic memory emerges as an ambiguous social and political force. The contributions, meaning and limitations of memory emerge at the point of discrete interactions between memory advocates, survivor-docents and visitors. Memory from the margins is revealed as powerful for how it disrupts, not builds, new forms of community.