Extending the Realities of Genocide Memorialization

"Memorialization refers to preserving and remembering traumatic events and people who suffered or died during conflict or genocide. It aims at examining past trauma to address contemporary issues. In addition to documenting and telling facts and truth, memorialization helps with recognizing and honoring those who suffered and preventing “future atrocities through education and advocacy” (Thompson, n.d.). Memorialization plays an important role in post-conflict “reconstruction and redress”. Genocide memorialization can take different forms such as museums, law, documentaries, education, and first-person accounts and testimonies (Bennett, 2020). Most recently, Extended Reality technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) started to push the physical and mental boundaries of genocide memorialization and storytelling. Through an extensive review of the related literature, our paper first surveys AR and VR-based genocide memorialization around the world. Through a selected number of case studies, we will highlight how AR and VR memorialize and engage affected and no-affected people with genocide. Our paper also discusses the impact of AR and VR-based genocide memorialization."