Wounded memory of Hazara refugees from Afghanistan: Remembering and forgetting persecution

Abstract

This article explores oral histories of Hazara refugees who fled to Australia and the significance of subjectivity when using memory as a historical source. In forming modern Afghanistan, Hazaras were brutally subjugated and continue to suffer persecution a century later. Ricoeur argues that a nation's founding violence creates 'wounded memory', in which past grievances dominate, while other experiences are forgotten. Through interdisciplinary analysis, the tensions between remembering and forgetting within the Hazaras' narratives reveal both the effects of trauma and their assertion of agency, and highlight the complex interplay between history, memories of suffering, and the present.