ReSI Workshop Paris 2023

ReSI (Remembering Spaces of Internment) proposes a broad reflection on the spaces of internment, and particularly on their erasure, of which they are often the object. These places are present throughout the 20th century and on all inhabited continents. Even if they are placed under the designation of the ‘exception,’ their presence is structural. However, they have rarely been the subject of transversal studies that take into account the extent of the phenomenon. RESI proposes to establish a research network in order to collectively reflect on the subject.

ReSI’s first symposium initiates this endeavor with a first reflection on spaces of internment and starts to constitute a research network. The call for contributions welcomed proposals addressing all genre of research concerning places of internment across geographical areas and in terms of the disciplinary methods and perspectives: social sciences, humanities, architecture, arts, and so on. Places of internment are treated as a contemporary phenomenon (19th to 21st century), linked to the emergence of and consolidation of public administrations. Internment is distinct from imprisonment; it is a phenomenon of deprivation of liberty linked to administrative or military decisions, not to judicial ones. In this respect, places of internment contradict the principles of the rule of law. Finally, if the phenomenon of internment overlaps with that of the camp, it is not completely superimposed: internment can take place in other spaces, and the camp is not always synonymous with internment.

This symposium, while open to all types of contributions, has encouraged proposals on three specific areas:

• Institutions and the logics that preside over their establishment, management and dissolution.
• The materiality of buildings, their uses and traces.
• Memory and re-membering of these places and the practices related to them.

The ReSI 2023-4 series of symposia and conference is funded by the Transatlantic Research Partnership, a program of the FACE Foundation and the French Embassy, with the participation of the University of Arizona, IRHIS, CESDIP, and La Contemporaine.