SOAS Research Online

Abstract

What if “the dead are never really dead” but come back again to remind us of justice denied?1 Recently, ghosts from the violent legacy of British colonialism have appeared, seeking justice. Legal cases such as Mutua and Keyu invite us to reconsider our entanglement with our history and to reconceptualise it as a haunting and a continuation of post-colonial present.2 No doubt ‘ghosts’ function as figurative witnesses, seeking justice for past transgressions. Yet, they also act as harbingers for future justice and encourage action from the living. In Southeast Asia, ghosts co-exist with the living in popular imagination, merging past and present time. Not only do these hauntings disturb our conscience, but also our conception of time - collapsing past into present. A feminist reconsideration of time as ‘polytemporal’ further disturbs the linear norm and allows us to form a different relationship with the past and engage more fully with the possibility of justice in the future.