Jonathan VanAntwerpen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199364862
- eISBN:
- 9780199364893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199364862.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Within the brief history of the field of transitional justice, South African renderings of reconciliation both loom large and occupy an exceptional and somewhat unstable place. This chapter, ...
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Within the brief history of the field of transitional justice, South African renderings of reconciliation both loom large and occupy an exceptional and somewhat unstable place. This chapter, critically examines this placement by considering, first (and all too partially), the history of reconciliation in South Africa and the place of the South African TRC within the recent history of truth commissions, and second, the ambivalent uptake of the language of reconciliation on the part of elite international actors within the field of transitional justice, with a particular view to the International Center of Transitional Justice, founded in the aftermath of the South African TRC and the world’s largest nongovernmental organization devoted specifically to the theory and practice of transitional justice.Less
Within the brief history of the field of transitional justice, South African renderings of reconciliation both loom large and occupy an exceptional and somewhat unstable place. This chapter, critically examines this placement by considering, first (and all too partially), the history of reconciliation in South Africa and the place of the South African TRC within the recent history of truth commissions, and second, the ambivalent uptake of the language of reconciliation on the part of elite international actors within the field of transitional justice, with a particular view to the International Center of Transitional Justice, founded in the aftermath of the South African TRC and the world’s largest nongovernmental organization devoted specifically to the theory and practice of transitional justice.
Anne Lambright
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781781382516
- eISBN:
- 9781786945471
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382516.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Andean Truths: Transitional Justice, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production in Post-Shining Path Peru studies how literature, drama, film, and the visual arts contest the dominant narrative of national ...
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Andean Truths: Transitional Justice, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production in Post-Shining Path Peru studies how literature, drama, film, and the visual arts contest the dominant narrative of national peace and reconciliation, as constructed by Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Established in 2001, the Commission aimed to ‘investigate and make public the truth’ of the country’s twenty-year civil war, drawing upon homologous predecessors that provided a highly scripted model of truth-gathering and national healing. In this model, a predetermined collective mourning, catharsis, and reconciliation would move the nation forward in a consensually-determined fashion. Andean Truths shows that the Peruvian case proves internationally-endorsed models insufficient for arriving at the ‘truth’ of a national trauma that primarily affected disenfranchised ethnic groups, namely, the Andean Quechua speaking populations that accounted for the overwhelming majority of victims of the violence. Even as scholars recognize the importance of bringing multiple voices to the table in discussing post-Shining Path Peru, the question remains of what a more Andean-oriented transitional justice process might entail. Drawing on theories of decoloniality, intercultural communication and epistemological diversity (following scholars such as Enrique Dussel, Aníbal Quijano and Boaventura de Sousa Santos), this book analyzes cultural products, from the theater of Yuyachkani to the narrative of Oscar Colchado Lucio, the art of Edilberto Jiménez, and other popular artistic responses, that highlight Andean understandings of the conflict and its aftermath. These cultural products challenge dominant understandings of the conflict and question Peru’s ability to overcome its collective trauma without seriously reconsidering prevailing cultural paradigms.Less
Andean Truths: Transitional Justice, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production in Post-Shining Path Peru studies how literature, drama, film, and the visual arts contest the dominant narrative of national peace and reconciliation, as constructed by Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Established in 2001, the Commission aimed to ‘investigate and make public the truth’ of the country’s twenty-year civil war, drawing upon homologous predecessors that provided a highly scripted model of truth-gathering and national healing. In this model, a predetermined collective mourning, catharsis, and reconciliation would move the nation forward in a consensually-determined fashion. Andean Truths shows that the Peruvian case proves internationally-endorsed models insufficient for arriving at the ‘truth’ of a national trauma that primarily affected disenfranchised ethnic groups, namely, the Andean Quechua speaking populations that accounted for the overwhelming majority of victims of the violence. Even as scholars recognize the importance of bringing multiple voices to the table in discussing post-Shining Path Peru, the question remains of what a more Andean-oriented transitional justice process might entail. Drawing on theories of decoloniality, intercultural communication and epistemological diversity (following scholars such as Enrique Dussel, Aníbal Quijano and Boaventura de Sousa Santos), this book analyzes cultural products, from the theater of Yuyachkani to the narrative of Oscar Colchado Lucio, the art of Edilberto Jiménez, and other popular artistic responses, that highlight Andean understandings of the conflict and its aftermath. These cultural products challenge dominant understandings of the conflict and question Peru’s ability to overcome its collective trauma without seriously reconsidering prevailing cultural paradigms.
Ronen Steinberg (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739248
- eISBN:
- 9781501739255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739248.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The introductory chapter opens up the question of how to approach the aftermath of the Terror. Most of revolutionary historiography is focused on the origins of the event, not on its aftermath. This ...
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The introductory chapter opens up the question of how to approach the aftermath of the Terror. Most of revolutionary historiography is focused on the origins of the event, not on its aftermath. This chapter argues that there is much to learn about the French Revolution and its relevance to our own times by studying the aftermath of the Terror. In articulating the book’s approach to the subject, the chapter draws on the recent literature on transitional justice and trauma, as well as on the much earlier ideas of Edgar Quinet. Approaching the aftermath of the Terror invites us to consider how those who had experienced revolutionary violence faced the past in the context of a movement oriented toward the future.Less
The introductory chapter opens up the question of how to approach the aftermath of the Terror. Most of revolutionary historiography is focused on the origins of the event, not on its aftermath. This chapter argues that there is much to learn about the French Revolution and its relevance to our own times by studying the aftermath of the Terror. In articulating the book’s approach to the subject, the chapter draws on the recent literature on transitional justice and trauma, as well as on the much earlier ideas of Edgar Quinet. Approaching the aftermath of the Terror invites us to consider how those who had experienced revolutionary violence faced the past in the context of a movement oriented toward the future.
Ronen Steinberg
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739248
- eISBN:
- 9781501739255
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739248.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book examines how those who lived through the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution struggled to come to terms with it. It shows that, contrary to claims that are made often in the ...
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This book examines how those who lived through the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution struggled to come to terms with it. It shows that, contrary to claims that are made often in the literature, there were complicated, painful, and often honest debates about how to deal with the effects of mass violence on self and society after the Terror. Revolutionary leaders, relatives of victims, and ordinary citizens argued about how to hold those responsible for the violence accountable, how to offer some sort of relief to the victims, and how to commemorate this controversial episode in the politically charged climate of post-revolutionary France. Their solutions were not perfect, but their debates were innovative. The dilemmas that they struggled with, dilemmas around retribution, redress, and remembrance, derived from the democratizing impulses of the Revolution. Drawing on the concept of transitional justice and on the literature about the major traumas of the twentieth century, this book argues that the modern question of what to do with difficult pasts was born out of the social and political upheavals of the 18th century’s Age of Revolutions.
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This book examines how those who lived through the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution struggled to come to terms with it. It shows that, contrary to claims that are made often in the literature, there were complicated, painful, and often honest debates about how to deal with the effects of mass violence on self and society after the Terror. Revolutionary leaders, relatives of victims, and ordinary citizens argued about how to hold those responsible for the violence accountable, how to offer some sort of relief to the victims, and how to commemorate this controversial episode in the politically charged climate of post-revolutionary France. Their solutions were not perfect, but their debates were innovative. The dilemmas that they struggled with, dilemmas around retribution, redress, and remembrance, derived from the democratizing impulses of the Revolution. Drawing on the concept of transitional justice and on the literature about the major traumas of the twentieth century, this book argues that the modern question of what to do with difficult pasts was born out of the social and political upheavals of the 18th century’s Age of Revolutions.
Alexander Laban Hinton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198820949
- eISBN:
- 9780191860607
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198820949.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This introduction, following a Preface describing in narrative form the experience of Uncle San (a fictional Cambodian villager featured in a graphic/comic booklet produced by the Khmer Institute of ...
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This introduction, following a Preface describing in narrative form the experience of Uncle San (a fictional Cambodian villager featured in a graphic/comic booklet produced by the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID) for tribunal outreach—I also refer to him and the KID booklet throughout my book), describes argument of the book and provides a basic overview of the court.The first half of the introduction describes the “transitional justice imaginary,” a set of utopian democratization and human rights ideals suggesting the tribunal will transform authoritarian regimes to liberal democratic societies. The “justice facade” is a metaphor for the manifestations of this imaginary in transitional justice settings like Cambodia. After unpacking the assumptions of this imaginary (teleology, progressivism, universalism, globalism, and binary essentialism) and contextualizing it within the transitional justice (and related democratization, peacebuilding, and human rights) literatures, I offer an alternative approach, phenomenological transitional justice, which focuses on lived experience and practice enmeshed in contexts of power. To understand if international justice has a point in transitional justice settings like Cambodia, I argue it is necessary to step behind the facade to look at its meaning in everyday life and practice.Less
This introduction, following a Preface describing in narrative form the experience of Uncle San (a fictional Cambodian villager featured in a graphic/comic booklet produced by the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID) for tribunal outreach—I also refer to him and the KID booklet throughout my book), describes argument of the book and provides a basic overview of the court.The first half of the introduction describes the “transitional justice imaginary,” a set of utopian democratization and human rights ideals suggesting the tribunal will transform authoritarian regimes to liberal democratic societies. The “justice facade” is a metaphor for the manifestations of this imaginary in transitional justice settings like Cambodia. After unpacking the assumptions of this imaginary (teleology, progressivism, universalism, globalism, and binary essentialism) and contextualizing it within the transitional justice (and related democratization, peacebuilding, and human rights) literatures, I offer an alternative approach, phenomenological transitional justice, which focuses on lived experience and practice enmeshed in contexts of power. To understand if international justice has a point in transitional justice settings like Cambodia, I argue it is necessary to step behind the facade to look at its meaning in everyday life and practice.
Ronen Steinberg (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739248
- eISBN:
- 9781501739255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739248.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The conclusion to the book makes the case that there is a connection between the political, social, and cultural transformations of the French Revolution and current debates on transitional justice ...
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The conclusion to the book makes the case that there is a connection between the political, social, and cultural transformations of the French Revolution and current debates on transitional justice and collective trauma. It is common to trace current discussions about coming to terms with the past to the Second World War and especially to the aftermath of the Holocaust. This chapter argues that there is a longer and deeper history at play here, one that goes back to the eighteenth century’s Age of Revolutions, to the radical rupture with the past that it postulated, and to the new visions of the social world that it engendered. In other words, the conclusion to the book sheds light on what is distinctly modern about the question of what to do with difficult pasts.Less
The conclusion to the book makes the case that there is a connection between the political, social, and cultural transformations of the French Revolution and current debates on transitional justice and collective trauma. It is common to trace current discussions about coming to terms with the past to the Second World War and especially to the aftermath of the Holocaust. This chapter argues that there is a longer and deeper history at play here, one that goes back to the eighteenth century’s Age of Revolutions, to the radical rupture with the past that it postulated, and to the new visions of the social world that it engendered. In other words, the conclusion to the book sheds light on what is distinctly modern about the question of what to do with difficult pasts.
Ronen Steinberg (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739248
- eISBN:
- 9781501739255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739248.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses the question of accountability after the Terror through a close analysis of the case of Joseph Le Bon, a public official who was put on trial for his role in the repression. ...
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This chapter discusses the question of accountability after the Terror through a close analysis of the case of Joseph Le Bon, a public official who was put on trial for his role in the repression. This trial has often been seen as part of the Thermidorian Reaction. In contrast, this chapter argues that it derived from the democratizing thrust of the Revolution. The Revolution enshrined accountability as a fundamental principle of the new political order. After the Terror, this gave rise to an unpredictable dilemma: how does one hold individuals accountable for mass crime? This dilemma remains a central problem of transitional justiceLess
This chapter discusses the question of accountability after the Terror through a close analysis of the case of Joseph Le Bon, a public official who was put on trial for his role in the repression. This trial has often been seen as part of the Thermidorian Reaction. In contrast, this chapter argues that it derived from the democratizing thrust of the Revolution. The Revolution enshrined accountability as a fundamental principle of the new political order. After the Terror, this gave rise to an unpredictable dilemma: how does one hold individuals accountable for mass crime? This dilemma remains a central problem of transitional justice
Drucilla Cornell
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823257577
- eISBN:
- 9780823261574
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823257577.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book grapples with fundamental questions regarding what type of revolution took place in South Africa over a more than 50 year long struggle. Each chapter grapples with the questions related to ...
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This book grapples with fundamental questions regarding what type of revolution took place in South Africa over a more than 50 year long struggle. Each chapter grapples with the questions related to the idea that the revolution in South Africa was a substantive revolution, because of its insistence on the establishment of a democratic and constitutional state that recognized the thoroughgoing wrongs of the colonial and apartheid past.Less
This book grapples with fundamental questions regarding what type of revolution took place in South Africa over a more than 50 year long struggle. Each chapter grapples with the questions related to the idea that the revolution in South Africa was a substantive revolution, because of its insistence on the establishment of a democratic and constitutional state that recognized the thoroughgoing wrongs of the colonial and apartheid past.
George F. Flaherty
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520291065
- eISBN:
- 9780520964938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291065.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The central nexus of Chapter 1 the Lecumberri Palace, commonly known as the Black Palace—the state prison inaugurated in 1901, turned into the General National Archive in 1976, and the site of the ...
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The central nexus of Chapter 1 the Lecumberri Palace, commonly known as the Black Palace—the state prison inaugurated in 1901, turned into the General National Archive in 1976, and the site of the public announcement of President Vicente Fox’s transparency reforms in 2002. Lecumberri is also the locus of the two early testimonial narratives on the 68 student movement and Tlatelolco massacre, by Luis González de Alba and José Revueltas. Their analysis shows how this theoretically closed, impermeable institution constitutes a node within the network of the modern spaces of discipline and, at the same time, the microcosm of Mexico City. On the other hand, the transmutations of Lecumberri serve to reflect on different modes of knowledge production, history writing and commemoration. Both the prison and the archive are shown to be more than just physical spaces—they are results of the ongoing embodied interpretative processes.Less
The central nexus of Chapter 1 the Lecumberri Palace, commonly known as the Black Palace—the state prison inaugurated in 1901, turned into the General National Archive in 1976, and the site of the public announcement of President Vicente Fox’s transparency reforms in 2002. Lecumberri is also the locus of the two early testimonial narratives on the 68 student movement and Tlatelolco massacre, by Luis González de Alba and José Revueltas. Their analysis shows how this theoretically closed, impermeable institution constitutes a node within the network of the modern spaces of discipline and, at the same time, the microcosm of Mexico City. On the other hand, the transmutations of Lecumberri serve to reflect on different modes of knowledge production, history writing and commemoration. Both the prison and the archive are shown to be more than just physical spaces—they are results of the ongoing embodied interpretative processes.
Lore Colaert
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061603
- eISBN:
- 9780813051222
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061603.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Forensic exhumations are part of transitional justice processes worldwide. In a “forensic turn” in memory politics, the judicial evidence found on victim's bodies is believed to contribute to the ...
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Forensic exhumations are part of transitional justice processes worldwide. In a “forensic turn” in memory politics, the judicial evidence found on victim's bodies is believed to contribute to the historic record. A recent memory movement in Spain, for example, uses exhumations of mass graves from the Civil War era and Francoist dictatorship to break Spain's “pact of forgetting.” Contrary to international trends, however, the Spanish exhumations are conducted outside a legal framework. Moreover, given that Spain's war record is subject to a prohibition on political representation, the exhumations do not so much reveal unknown facts as they uncover silences. Colaert contends that although the inscription of Spain's collective memory in the forensic turn helps to overcome political silences regarding a violent past, it also limits the exhumations' contribution to the search for forensic truth.Less
Forensic exhumations are part of transitional justice processes worldwide. In a “forensic turn” in memory politics, the judicial evidence found on victim's bodies is believed to contribute to the historic record. A recent memory movement in Spain, for example, uses exhumations of mass graves from the Civil War era and Francoist dictatorship to break Spain's “pact of forgetting.” Contrary to international trends, however, the Spanish exhumations are conducted outside a legal framework. Moreover, given that Spain's war record is subject to a prohibition on political representation, the exhumations do not so much reveal unknown facts as they uncover silences. Colaert contends that although the inscription of Spain's collective memory in the forensic turn helps to overcome political silences regarding a violent past, it also limits the exhumations' contribution to the search for forensic truth.
